2022 Race

Low in the polls, Ciro Gomes stands by his candidacy

ciro gomes candidacy
Ciro Gomes addressed voters on Monday: “They want to silence dissident voices,” he said, throwing a jab at former President Lula. Photo: Twitter/@cirogomes

Presidential hopeful Ciro Gomes, of the center-left Democratic Labor Party, held a live social media broadcast on Monday morning reaffirming his candidacy six days before Election Day. 

Mr. Gomes is under pressure from left-leaning and centrist circles to drop out of the race to narrow the field of opponents to incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and facilitate a first-round landslide in favor of frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who served as head of state between 2003 and 2010.

“Nothing will stop my will to spearhead a new national development project and also to denounce corrupt, fraudsters, and demagogues who try to deceive the popular faith with false promises,” he said.

Mr. Gomes has yet to break the 10-percent mark in the polls, and multiple pollsters suggest his support is waning, which has cost him the backing of several party allies. 

At least two high-ranking members of his Democratic Labor Party have declared support for Lula, to the detriment of Mr. Gomes’s candidacy. In July of this year, the party had passed a resolution forbidding its members from campaigning for candidates of other political groups — but has recently decided not to punish defectors.

Pro-Lula activists have urged the anti-Bolsonaro electorate to vote “tactically,” backing Lula in the first round to unseat Mr. Bolsonaro without the need for a runoff.

Ciro Gomes has blamed “sectors of the media and the intelligentsia” for “spreading a false narrative that only one candidate can defeat the other.” Only Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro have polled in the double digits over the past year.