Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Bolsonaro is coming and Lula is going there to do political nonsense

The correction of the Income Tax table may come out by provisional measure this month. Also in April, the release of the FGTS for some 40 million workers begins. It has the anticipation of the 13th of the INSS. No more charging the extra tariff on the electricity bill.

These are measures that do not win elections — nor do they lose. It’s all “life as it is”, small gestures, reminders that “Bolsonaro is coming”.

In January, gas vouchers began to be paid to around 5.5 million Auxílio Brasil families. In March, debt relief from Fies (college funding) began, which can benefit one million young people or their parents. The anticipation of the INSS benefit is not extra money, but it alleviates the situation of some 30 million people.

Last month, there was a huge increase in fuel prices. Inflation reached its highest level in nearly 20 years, also the longest-lasting outbreak of famine since 2002-2003. Bolsonaro’s prestige no longer fell because of this. Inflation may also have been offset by the downturn in the labor market.

With regard to the number of employed people, formalization of employment, discouragement and dissatisfaction with hours worked, it returned to the level immediately prior to the beginning of the epidemic, in February 2020. The purchasing power of the average salary dropped a lot, but the opportunity to have some work and perspective seems to partly offset losses.

In the April polls, Bolsonaro remained the same or grew by a notch compared to the beginning of the year, even in the scenario in which Sérgio Moro (União Brasil) remains in the dispute. Bolsonaro’s problem is that, without Moro in the parade, he risks losing in the first round.

There’s a lot of campaign ahead. But Bolsonaro’s first objective is to guarantee the second round. Any two or three points in the polls are crucial. The readjustment of the basic education teachers’ floor was sold as an act of the federal government. It’s not, but maybe it doesn’t even matter: more people will be a little less unhappy with life.

At the end of the season of treats, in May, June, the crushing of Lula da Silva (PT) begins. It won’t just come from bolsonarismo, even though the STF and TSE have promised to cut the wings of digital militias. Lula will be beaten more the fewer political, economic and social agreements he makes.

It is not about this nonsense of “dinners with Faria Lima” (a bloc which, by the way, does not exist), but to convince not only the owners of the big money (but also them) that there will be a viable government, which Lula will not be able to achieve. in small talk with two dozen rich people. It still needs to add cadres and support from people who are even waiting for a sign, including the beleaguered elite. Moreover, if “Faria Lima” won elections, the PSDB would not have lost five of them in a row.

Instead, Lula says politically and economically harmful nonsense about public spending or demagoguery about Petrobras (identical to Bolsonaro’s, apart from the fanciful threat to privatize the company). With these nonsense, an eventual government of yours is shipwrecked in 2023.

Lula stopped negotiating more and bigger deals after his alliance with Geraldo Alckmin — keeping him as decorative deputy won’t do much good. More recently, she has spewed electoral nonsense such as calling on militancy to press congressmen, discussing abortion in a politically thoughtless way or saying that the middle class is “slavery”.

In Brazil, this accusation can fall badly on the ears of 40% of the population, from the well-off to the rich who call themselves that because they are not very millionaires. It is precisely in this electorate that Bolsonaro already draws with Lula.