Lula makes new offensive for agro with interview to Canal Rural and Alckmin trip

In yet another effort to increase support and try to win the elections in the first round, the campaign of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is expected to make a series of gestures to agribusiness this week — a sector that represents one of the bases of support for the President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

On Tuesday (20), the PT recorded an interview for Canal Rural and talked about sensitive topics for the segment. For the first time, Lula emphatically addressed the issue of weapons in the countryside.

According to PT allies, the former president stated that it is legitimate for rural people to have one or two weapons to defend their rural property and not be vulnerable. He also said, on the other hand, that he intends to reverse the possibility of purchasing large quantities of weapons.

The PT has already stated in the past that he wants to review Bolsonaro’s arms decrees.

Also according to interlocutors, the former president also spoke again about the role of the MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement) in a possible government and rejected the hypothesis that the group invades productive areas.

Lula defended agrarian reform and stressed that the government is obliged to pay for the expropriation of unproductive land, stressing that, if elected, he will govern for all.

The interview should air this Wednesday (21). On the same day, the candidate for vice, former governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), travels to Goiânia (GO). On Thursday (22), he goes to Porto Velho (RO).

The idea of ​​the PT campaign is to reinforce the message that the former president recognizes the importance of the sector for the Brazilian economy and that, in a possible new government, he will pay full attention to agribusiness.

On Monday (19), in preparation for the interview, the former president spoke with three of the main guarantors of the PT campaign with the agro: senator Carlos Fávaro (PSD), federal deputy Neri Geller (PP) —candidate for the Senate— and businessman Carlos Ernesto Augustin.

PT members referred to the meeting as “agrotraining”, during which Lula was advised not to evade any subject in the interview and to “detension” the relationship with the “bolsonarist nest”. The PT also asked the MST for subsidies to prepare the answers last week.

Lula knows that he needs to be careful in his statements involving the social movement, as this is one of President Bolsonaro’s focus of attack and a topic with strong appeal in agriculture.

In recent days, Fávaro, Geller and Augustin encouraged the president to record the interview to reinforce dialogue with rural producers and pierce the bubble on the left. In addition, the assessment is that participation in a channel focused on the sector can help to compensate for the lack of face-to-face agendas.

The PT campaign even predicted Alckmin’s trips to states with a strong presence of agribusiness, such as Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Tocantins. These agendas, however, did not get off the ground.

Lula, Bolsonaro, Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Simone Tebet (MDB), the four best-placed presidential candidates in the polls, were invited by Canal Rural for a recorded, one-hour interview. The interview with the pedestrian was shown on the 6th of September.

A Datafolha survey released on the 15th showed Lula with 45% of voting intentions, compared to 33% for Bolsonaro. In third place, technically tied, were Ciro, with 8%, and Tebet, with 5%.

In Goiânia, Alckmin should attend a meeting with former federal deputy Sandro Mabel, currently president of Fieg (Federation of Industries of the State of Goiás), and receive support from members of the sector.

The agenda has been resisted by representatives of the area in Goiás. The president of FAEG (Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of Goiás), federal deputy José Mário (MDB), published a message on social media repudiating the meeting.

“Faeg is very interested in dialoguing about the development of our state, but we will not be present at a meeting [da Fieg] with the candidate for vice on the left. We dialogue with those who recognize the strength of the agro at all times”, said José Mário on Twitter.

Even so, the expectation is to bring together at least 50 businessmen from agribusiness and trade in Goiás, including Alberto Borges Souza, from Caramuru Alimentos. Alckmin should also participate in an event with militants and candidates from the PT coalition in the state.

The former governor of Piauí Wellington Dias, who is part of the coordination of the campaign, says that the attempt to create bridges with representatives of agribusiness is less a strategy “just thinking about the vote” and more an indication that there will be dialogue with “all the sectors that are essential”.

Wellington cited Lula’s meeting with eight former presidential candidates on Monday as an example that, in the event of victory, the PT government will be “coalition”.

“[Será] a broad coalition government in a context of reconstruction, in which the keynote will be dialogue, harmony and stability so that the conditions for a project with short, medium and long term emergency measures exist”, says the PT.

Lula’s campaign invested in at least one Google ad focused on agribusiness-related searches. In it, users were directed to a text on the former president’s website that states that Lula “values ​​agribusiness” and that it is a lie that “Lula is going to end agribusiness.” The ad ran from September 5 to 20 and was viewed by around 15,000 people.

The former president was criticized when he said, in an interview with Jornal Nacional, that there is a portion of the “fascist and rightist” agro that opposes the PT for being against policies of preservation of the environment.

At the time, Augustin told Sheet that the former president was wrong to refer to part of the sector as “fascist” and advocated that he apologize for the generalization.