2022 Race

Three days before Election Day, Lula commits to fiscal responsibility

inflation lula letter election Lula pledged to seek zero deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Photo: Marcelo Chello/Shutterstock
Lula pledged to seek zero deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Photo: Marcelo Chello/Shutterstock

With the runoff campaign reaching its end, election frontrunner and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is set to publish an open letter to the Brazilian people, reassuring them that he will respect fiscal responsibility if he wins the election on Sunday. The Brazilian Report obtained access to the document.

“We can combine fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, and sustainable development — and that’s what we’re going to do, following the trends of the world’s biggest economies,” reads the letter.

Entitled the “Letter to the Brazil of Tomorrow,” the document follows Lula’s tradition of issuing grand declarations of moderation to the population — but above all to financial markets — in the run-up to elections.

In 2002, Lula published the now famous “Letter to the Brazilian People,” in which he promised that his potential future government would respect existing domestic and international contracts, dispelling fears of financial elites. He went on to win that year’s election runoff with over 60 percent of the vote.

Lula has been held to task throughout the campaign for a perceived lack of economic commitments. For instance, he has remained tight-lipped about who he would appoint as his potential future Economy Minister.

At the beginning of the year, Gleisi Hoffman, chairperson of Lula’s Workers’ Party, argued that the former president would not bend to the “whining of the market.” This latest letter to the population appears to contradict that.