“React, Dalema, react!” Say something left-wing! These are the words of Nanni Moretti from the movie “April”. In the scene, Italians scream at their television sets as they watch Massimo D’Alema steal a dance from right-wing populist candidate Silvio Berlusconi during an election debate. In the 1998 film, Moretti plays the fictionalized version of himself as a left-wing filmmaker frustrated by the lukewarmness of his political field.
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Mr. Lula, who reassured Mr. Moretis, said one “left-field thing” – actually two – about the containment operation in Rio, but the result, as this week’s Quest poll showed, was a decline in his popularity. The president’s words, which he later denied, were publicly rejected by most Brazilians, saying the operation was “disastrous from the point of view of state action” and that drug traffickers were “victims of the users.” Will Lula be on Mars and the voters be on Venus?
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Coordination between the parties has become better. At the dawn of political opening, when the PT set its agenda on human rights protection, the country’s criminal scenario was different. In 1980, when the acronym was created, the national homicide rate was 11.7 per 100,000 residents. For the next decade, newspaper headlines featured massacres by paramilitary groups targeting criminals, the poor, and the homeless. The massacres in Bigario Geral, where 23 residents were killed to “avenge” the death of a police officer, and in Candelaria, where eight boys and teenagers were executed by a group also linked to the prime minister, have gone down in history. At the time, the PT was one of the loudest voices standing up against the police violence inherited from the military regime.
Forty-five years later, the murder rate has virtually doubled and organized crime has swept the country from north to south. Roughly 5,000 barricades have now been set up by drug traffickers in Rio, preventing garbage trucks, applicators and even SUS ambulances from entering neighborhoods, leaving residents humiliated and in danger. In cities in Bahia and Ceará, including Fortaleza, more than 200 people had to leave their homes (with only the clothes on their backs, in the case of those with family ties to the invading group’s opponents) to escape sectarian invasions and threats of extortion and credible death. According to GLOBO research, there are currently 64 factions operating in 27 units of the Federation. The main victims of this violence are suburban residents.
But if Brazil has changed and so have crime, Lula remains on the same page as he was 45 years ago, with actions that show the three-time president is having a hard time finding a pulse with voters. A survey conducted by Quest in June showed that six in 10 Brazilians agreed that Lula had “lost touch with the people”. Among Bolsa Familia beneficiaries, 59% agreed with this statement. The Northeast is home to PT, 54%. Similarly, among those who reject the idea that drug dealers are victims of users are 66% of voters who identify as Luristas. For them, too, it is no longer enough to listen to “whatever the left says” when it comes to crime.
Seasoned researchers support the president and question whether security will really be a major theme of the 2026 campaign. They remember that the issue has never been decisive in a presidential election, and that changes in the economy or corruption scandals can easily sway the election. In any case, presidential marketing is advised to resist the idea of changing the administration’s slogan again. Because the new motto, “The Brazilian government stands with the Brazilian people,” now remains meaningless, written in vain on a mass of government print to promote a sovereignty that no longer matters.
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