Lula’s economists want to attract the middle class and incorporate proposals from Ciro and Tebet

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Seeking to consolidate the lead of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the elections and guarantee a victory in the second round, party economists interviewed by Reuters suggest that the party’s government program incorporates proposals from Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Simone Tebet (MDB), in addition to advocating greater focus on attracting middle class votes.

The objective of the former president’s advisors is to facilitate the formation of alliances, mainly with these two former candidates, who gathered 8.5 million votes in the first round, equivalent to 7.2% of valid votes.

“Our program is dynamic, it didn’t close completely, it was a program that defined guidelines, programmatic points, that was open to discussion and remains open. You can’t want an ally without incorporating a part of your thinking and a part of your proposals”, said the former finance minister of the PT administrations Guido Mantega.

A second adviser, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, stressed that many of the ideas contained in the PT’s opponents’ program in the first round are in accordance with the principles developed by the PT team, and that the convergences facilitate the paving of alliances.

After the definition of the result of Sunday’s elections, won by Lula by an advantage of just over 5 percentage points over President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Tebet and Ciro asked for a period to reflect and have conversations with their parties and allies before the announcement. of possible support for the second round, which takes place on October 30th.

Tebet, who had clashes with Bolsonaro (PL) in the three debates between presidential candidates, said on Sunday that he will not be omitted and that he has a “side”. Ciro – who is opposed to the president, but has been harshly critical of Lula throughout the campaign – said that the country is in a “potentially threatening” situation and asked for time to take a stand.

Citing Tebet specifically, Mantega pointed out that the then candidate had been strongly defending the strengthening of education agendas, an agenda that he classified as central to the PT and easily incorporated into the government program.

Ciro Gomes, fourth in the first round contest, is a historical advocate of a broad debt renegotiation program, something that was included in the PT’s preliminary program, but in a generic way, and may now receive more emphasis in this second stage of the dispute.

This Monday (3), the president of the PDT, Carlos Lupi, said that he talked to the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, and that he suggested to her that the PT members incorporate three proposals from Ciro Gomes: the program that foresees zero debts of the SPC, the minimum income plan and a full-time education project.

In a statement earlier this evening, Gleisi said he called Lupi for a conversation and signaled that he wants Ciro’s support. She didn’t mention the proposals.

The president of the PDT stated that he will schedule a meeting of the party Executive for this Tuesday and hopes that Ciro Gomes will endorse the party’s position. Ciro will participate virtually.

Lula’s campaign, which expressly indicated that it will end the constitutional spending cap, even considered publicly detailing, even before the first round, topics such as the fiscal regime, credit and tax reform under a possible third term of the ex-president.

But the plan ended up being suspended on the grounds that it would open a gap for controversy at a time when the campaign was precisely seeking to build a broad front to defeat Bolsonaro in the first round, attracting criticism that Lula was asking for a blank check for the economy while stressing that their previous governments were proof enough of their fiscal responsibility.

Now Mantega says that the measures could be “a little more detailed”, considering that this will depend on conversations with allies. On the other hand, the anticipation of the name of the finance minister if Lula wins the election — an idea that the candidate has rejected so far — is not being studied at first, the advisors indicated.

MIDDLE CLASS IN FOCUS

Attributing the higher-than-expected number of votes for Bolsonaro to “the fiscal populism” of the current government and a strengthening of conservatism in the country, Mantega argued for Lula’s campaign to give more importance to the middle class.

“The PT will have to rethink its strategy, it will have to reach segments of the population in the center, the middle class that was captured by Bolsonaro, show that we are going to implement policies aimed at the middle class, which is suffering the impact of inflation and has worsened. in the standard of living”, he said.

“The campaign [do PT] ends up emphasizing the poorest. Of course, they are the most needy and most urgent, but we created a large consumer market in the Lula era that benefited the entire middle class,” he added.

According to the former minister, the very discussion about household indebtedness, with the disclosure of measures to renegotiate debts, would be an important nod to this segment of the population.

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