Lula takes a walk in Complexo do Alemão and promises advances in the economy to the poorest

The PT candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, participated this Wednesday (12) in a walk in Complexo do Alemão, in Rio de Janeiro, where he promised advances in the economy for the poorest population.

Before the walk, he talked to community leaders in the city, alongside Mayor Eduardo Paes (PSD). At the meeting, he said he would create committees “so that the people of the favelas can help decide what the government is going to do.”

In the state of Rio, the PT candidate was around ten percentage points less than President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the first round. In an attempt to at least reduce the difference, Lula was on Tuesday (11) in Belford Roxo, in Baixada Fluminense.

“We have to put an end to this story that the State only appears in the community with the police. Before the police come, health, culture, education must come,” said the president.

In a speech, Lula again questioned the closing of companies after Operation Car Wash and defended the resumption of works in national shipyards, which were also the target of the operation after the discovery of corruption in orders for ships and drilling rigs for oil wells. .

“The naval industry was broken, we didn’t make rigs. I said we were going to do it and we built eight shipyards in that country,” he said. “They say that there was corruption at Petrobras. When there is corruption, we do not harm the workers, we arrest the corrupt.”

The candidate promised to generate formal jobs and guarantee benefits to small entrepreneurs. “I’m going to make the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development) the country’s development bank for us to grow again”, he added.

He was greeted at Complexo do Alemão with shouts of “uh, daddy has arrived”. In the 21st Electoral Zone, which covers the neighborhoods around the set of 13 favelas, Lula had 50.9% of the valid votes, against 42.04% for Bolsonaro.

“I doubt you will find a work by this president here in Complexo do Alemão. I doubt you will find a work by him in Rocinha. I doubt you will find a work by him in Rio de Janeiro,” he said.

Complexo do Alemão was one of the showcases for the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) works of the PT governments and for the frustrated pacification program of former Rio governor Sergio Cabral, now in prison.

In 2010, Lula suggested that the Alemão cable car would be a “new postcard”. At a cost of BRL 328 million, the transport closed in 2016 for maintenance and never opened again, due to a legal imbroglio between the state and the managing company.

Before the walk, the former president raised an image of Nossa Senhora de Aparecida, patron saint of Brazil, which was given to him by a resident. During the course, made on a sound car, he raised a Brazilian flag.

In a wheelchair, retired Francisco Rodrigues, 68, followed the beginning of the act. “He is the candidate of the poor. I voted for him in the first round and I make a point of going to vote again. I live in one of the PAC apartments, on Avenida Itaoca,” he said.

Rodrigues says that he started to move around with the chair after sequelae of chikunguya, contracted 4 months ago.

At the time, the former president was wearing white and there were few people in red on the sound cars, in another sign that the suggestion of the candidate defeated in the first round Simone Tebet (PMDB) is being accepted by the PT campaign.

On Tuesday, Lula had asked his supporters to wear white at the Belford Roxo event. For Simone, red scares conservative voters in the interior of São Paulo and the Midwest.

After a more focused agenda in the Southeast to try to reduce the gap with President Jair Bolsonaro, the former president heads to the Northeast, a region where he had major victories in the first round.