To the left, the enemy is now different. A month after the former president’s conviction for an attempted coup d’état, a wing that forms part of the base seeks to expose the center as an enemy of society’s interests. This is a strategy to consolidate the PT member’s good political moment, based on the campaign for national sovereignty and the increase in his approval registered in the polls.
However, challenges that have haunted the Planalto for three years, such as the lack of characterization of the left and the government’s own fragility in the face of the center, make it difficult for the situation to remain stable until the elections begin. He ponders the new scenario, saying that Bolsonaro has not completely left the scene. His ideas, he states, continue to be propagated by segments of the center that have joined the right in recent years. According to the deputy, Lula’s opponent in 2026 will come out of there.
“The negotiation between the root Bolsonarism and the center was an agreement to control the budget”, says Valente. “The center became autonomous in relation to the government and many also became Bolsonarized.”
With the former president under house arrest, the deputy now states that the left needs to differentiate itself from other political forces. In other words, the strategy is to exploit defeats, unpopular texts from the opposition and impose its own agenda, in order to incorporate matters into the agenda.
“I defend that the government raises issues, even if it loses, to expose the center”, says Valente. “The government needs to put an end to any illusion that it is possible to please both the market and agribusiness, because they are ideological.”
The rhetoric appears to be, in part, in line with Lula’s recent movements. Last week, the president criticized the low level of Congress, at an event in Rio de Janeiro. On the same occasion, he was booed and heard shouts of “no amnesty”.
Although he is far from the levels of his previous terms, Lula saw his popularity record the highest level of the year. In September, a Datafolha survey showed that the president’s approval reached 33%, the best result since December 2024, when it reached 35%.
According to political scientist Leonardo Belinelli, from UFFRJ (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro), some factors explain the positive situation for Lula: the tariff, which provoked the campaign in defense of national sovereignty, the demonstrations that discarded the coup plot and the condemnation of the crucial core of the coup plot.
“The Bolsonaro camp, partly reflected in the centrão, was very disorganized without Bolsonaro’s leadership, especially because names like and do not seem to have a common project”, says Belinelli. “The role of government communication will be fundamental to consolidating the pro-government momentum.”
For Christian Lynch, political scientist at UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro), the current situation seems to indicate the first cooling, in a decade, of Brazilian enthusiasm for conservatism.
According to him, society saw the center lose its physiological posture and Bolsonarism consume itself in its coup impetus. Nothing, however, that should arouse euphoria on the left. After all, says Lynch, the problems for the government continue, one of them being its minority presence in the Legislature.
“In terms of governability, it has never worked and perhaps there is already a certain renunciation of governability,” says Lynch. This month, the Chamber imposed another defeat on Planalto by allowing the . Capitalizing on defeats exposes, in reverse, a fragile government.
“The government became opposition to the center, trying to propagate the thought that Congress represents backwardness”, says Lynch. “It’s not a positive wave for Lula, but a ripple.”
Former PT president, , is also part of the most critical wing of the center. “The other day they asked me ‘deputy, why don’t we put our agendas to vote, even if we lose?’ I’m in favor, we need to have a dispute of ideas and create a mass movement so that there are better conditions for Lula in a new government”, he says, adding that his reasoning does not encourage anti-politics.
“Thinking against politics manifests itself in other ways, when we tolerate, for example, secret amendments or a proposal to shield parliamentarians.” The deputy is opposed, however, to the idea of renouncing governability, because it would be an electoral thought.
According to Falcão, it is common for the left to operate in a cyclothymia, sometimes melancholy, sometimes euphoric. He recognizes the positive moment, especially because of it, but prefers to avoid euphoria, pointing out deeper problems for the left.
According to the deputy, the PT, in particular, is losing its identity, which, throughout history, offered the population a horizon of social transformation. He states that the party is far from the peripheries and only with popular pressure would it be possible to reverse some proposals in Congress.
In this sense, he says that government communication must stop being just celebratory and become a call to action. “If we want to have a victory, we need a party engaged in struggles,” he says. “We cannot be seen as the system.”
