Lula Seeks Final Presidential Term in Brazil Election
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As Brazil approaches its October 4 presidential election, incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking a final term that will extend a political career spanning over five decades.
A Longstanding Prediction Realized in Brasília
On January 1, 2023, hours after taking the oath of office for his third presidential term, Lula stepped away from a crowded celebration at the foreign ministry in Brasília to share a private snack with Frei Betto, a Dominican theologian, writer, and friend of four decades. Betto recalls telling the newly sworn-in president that his third stint would be his penultimate. Lula laughed off the remark and insisted he was finished after four years, but Betto remained certain he would run again.
Betto’s forecast proved accurate. Lula, Brazil’s first working-class president who originally won election in 2002 and secured re-election in 2006, staged a major political comeback in 2022 by defeating Jair Bolsonaro. Having thwarted a coup attempt during the opening week of his third administration, the veteran leader is now preparing for his seventh presidential run since his initial campaign in 1989.
Stakes of the October Vote and Regional Concerns
The upcoming ballot pits Lula against Flávio Bolsonaro, following a campaign trail where regional loyalties remain sharp. During a recent rally in Brazil’s northeast—an impoverished region where Lula was born in 1945—Jair Bolsonaro declared his son as the country’s next leader. While Lula told a recent podcast that he cannot see how his camp could lose, independent analysts characterize the race as a dead heat.
Frei Betto warns that a defeat for Lula would carry severe repercussions for the nation, pointing to the previous administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which 700,000 Brazilians died. Betto expresses deep concern that a right-wing victory would align Brasília completely with Washington under what he terms the "Donroe doctrine," comparing potential outcomes to the current political situation in Venezuela and ongoing economic pressures on Cuba. He argues that a new conservative administration would prioritize financial markets and elites while pursuing an aggressive wave of privatizations.
Democratic Resilience and Historical Reckoning
Beyond economic policy, the campaign raises questions about the strength of Brazilian democratic institutions. Betto argues that the failure to thoroughly investigate human rights abuses and crimes committed during the 1964–1985 military dictatorship—unlike processes seen in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay—left a persistent authoritarian residue within the armed forces. As voters weigh their options ahead of October 4, the election serves as a critical test for the political framework that Lula and his allies were involved in during the industrial heartlands of São Paulo in the early 1980s.
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