Last Friday (24), during a press conference in Indonesia, he stated that “drug dealers are also victims of users”. The phrase, said while commenting on the international policy of , sought to make a social reflection, but was interpreted as the president’s leniency towards organized crime. Within hours, , saying that he had “expressed himself poorly”.
The damage, however, was already done. On the same day, the words “trafficker”, “faction” and their variations —which are often mentioned in everyday digital life— reached an all-time high in messages since the start of monitoring of more than 100,000 public groups in real time. The volume surpassed both mentions of and mobilization. Lula’s speech acted as a trigger for a wave of attacks on the government.
The episode found an inflamed international environment. had been celebrating in the Caribbean and Venezuela, even calling the . In this context of global radicalization of the discourse on security, two days later at the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in Portuguese) summit in Malaysia.
The meeting was received positively and interpreted as an attempt to rebuild diplomatic bridges between the two countries. The dialogue, described by both sides as “frank and constructive”, reinforced Lula’s effort to reposition Brazil as a responsible and pragmatic actor on the international stage. During the conversation, the —precisely the epicenter of the North American agenda on drug trafficking and the activities of cartels.
While seeking to project leadership abroad, Lula faced an increasingly sensitive issue at home: public security returned to the center of the political dispute. In Ceará, Ciro Gomes used the PT government of Elmano de Freitas; in São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas was pressured after operations that linked the PCC to Faria Lima and, subsequently, by the methanol crisis. In this environment, the MBL also grew by incorporating the fight against factions into its political identity, defending, in a warlike tone, the “enemy’s criminal law”.
Any subject that has the words “PCC” or “Comando Vermelho” has great potential for engagement, because it touches a real desire of the population. The feeling of fear expressed on social media is constant, and politics has learned to exploit it. In 2022, the issue of organized crime was one of the most sensitive points of the electoral campaign, and the episode of the cap with the acronym “CPX”, worn by Lula on a visit to Complexo do Alemão, .
At the institutional level, the federal government seeks to respond to this pressure with the Public Security PEC and, more recently, with the , presented this week by the Ministry of Justice. Still, the technical and legislative effort is not translated, for now, into a public narrative.
Today, the public security agenda should be at the top of the government’s priorities —both in action and in communication— if the intention is to mitigate electoral risks in 2026. The government has already consolidated, through public policies, the image of those who care about the poorest; Therefore, narratives that attempt to deny this commitment do not gain traction. The Achilles heel lies elsewhere: the perception of leniency in the face of the advance of criminal factions.
Now, with the escalation of anti-drug discourse, the fight against organized crime has also gained a diplomatic dimension. Public security is no longer just a domestic issue and becomes part of the foreign policy agenda — a topic in which Brazil, if it wants to maintain its international protagonism, will need to demonstrate internal authority and global coherence.
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