The joker Haddad

— I intend to collaborate with President Lula’s campaign and I told him that I do not intend to be a candidate in 2026, but I want to contribute to the reflection on his government program, to the reflection on how to structure his campaign.

Collaborate is a verb with a broad scope, which allows the most diverse attributions in a campaign which will be very contested and which will have São Paulo, Haddad’s electoral homeland, as the main scene of protest.

The most precise analysis of Lula’s narrow victory over Jair Bolsonaro in 2022 shows that the triumph in the Northeast or in Minas was not the predominant factor in this result. It was a smaller defeat than expected in São Paulo which ensured the PT’s victory.

The role played by Haddad in this election – when he ran for government against Tarcísio de Freitas, even against his will, and lost, but went to the second round – is considered by the PT as crucial to ensure this “cushion” of votes in the largest electoral college in the country, which gave victory to Lula almost mechanically.

This is why the “collaboration” of the head of the Treasury could, once again, be sacrificed in an election where polls indicate little chance of victory for the government of São Paulo. If this happens, it will be the third time that the altruistic companion has fulfilled a mission entrusted by Lula, and this carries weight and tends to be recognized by the president when it comes to passing the baton and choosing his own successor.

The PT took time to realize the need to build a team to compete in São Paulo, both in the event that Tarcísio was a candidate for president and in the event that he remained at the Palácio dos Bandeirantes to seek a new mandate. In the first configuration, it will be necessary to have a strong candidate, capable of attempting to “deconstruct” the Republican government and weaken its candidacy at the national level. In the second, the objective becomes, once again, “to lose a little”. In fact, no one in the ranks of the PT expects that the party can win in this state which, as polls show, rates the Tarcísio government well and is increasingly conservative.

Another conflict in which the Lulista camp took time to wake up from incredible lethargy took place in the Senate, and not only in São Paulo. While Bolsonarism has already migrated names to states where there was no candidate, such as Carlos Bolsonaro’s move to Santa Catarina, the left has ignored the creation of these lists. This is no longer the case: Lula and the Palace have begun to dedicate themselves to the design of tickets in key states, such as Minas, Rio, Bahia and Ceará, and other ministers, besides Haddad, can be sent by the president on mission to their bases.

This is the case of PT members Rui Costa (Casa Civil) and Camilo Santana (Education). If, within the deadline set for the definition of candidacies, the current governors of Bahia and Ceará, respectively Jerônimo Rodrigues and Elmano de Freitas, do not do well in the polls, their predecessors should be called upon to run for government in their place and thus prevent the rise of the right in the Northeast, observed during the mayoral elections, from happening again.