“This is Lula’s house!” » Moisés Selerges, president of the metalworkers union of the ABC region, has no shortage of arguments or evidence to support his claims. On the walls of his office, overlooking the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, south of Sao Paulo, hang half a dozen portraits of the president of Brazil, who here rubs shoulders with Lenin, Che Guevara and Frida Kahlo. “For us, Lula is both father and son! »proclamation.
With a gray cap and shiny skull, the 58-year-old heads the largest union organization in Brazil. Since 1959, it has defended the interests of tens of thousands of metal workers at ABC, this suburban chain of Sao Paulo., concentrated around the cities of Santo André, Sao Bernardo do Campo and Sao Caetano, and which remains the largest industrial park in Latin America. “The sacred land of the working class!” “, exclaims Mr. Selerges.
Lula and Sao Bernardo do Campo have been one for five decades. It was here that, between 1978 and 1980, the then young turner led huge strikes against the military junta. Here he studied, asserted his charisma and imagined his Workers’ Party (PT). Here too, precisely in the union yard, where he celebrated, on November 9, 2021, his release from prison. “I owe these union people everything I have”declared Lula, moved to tears.
The PT lost widely on October 6
Even today, the leftist president is still registered on the electoral lists of Sao Bernardo do Campo. “He’s a friend first!” When I go to Brasilia I see him without an appointment! »laughs Moisés Selerges from his crystal citadel. And yet, even here, the left is far from having the wind at its back. And nothing indicates that the PT will emerge victorious from the municipal elections that will take place on October 6.
In Sao Bernardo do Campo, a gray, endless suburb of 810,000 inhabitants, Lula certainly won the 2022 presidential election with 53.83% of the vote against Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right. But in the municipal elections, the PT candidate was largely the loser, surpassed in the polls by two right-wing candidates, the outgoing vice mayor, Marcelo Lima (Vamos), and deputy Alex Manente (Cidadania). An affront in the cradle of Luluism.
The left ruled the city for a long time, before being taken away in 2016. Swept up by the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal, the PT was then in a state of collapse and lost half of the cities it administered in Brazil. In Sao Bernardo the right led by Orlando Morando wins. Two years later, in 2018, 59.57% of The people of Sao Bernardo vote for Jair Bolsonaro in the second round of the presidential elections.
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