Anti-Bolsonaro struggle reshapes political arrangements for 2022 Brazil

It was revealed on May 21 that Brazil’s two most prominent political figures since redemocratization had sat down to lunch earlier that month. Though a meeting between former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) and his center-left successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) was not in itself headline news, Mr. Cardoso also announced that he would vote for Lula in a potential runoff against incumbent far-right President Jair Bolsonaro come the 2022 election.

After much rancor between the two men — and between the two major parties for which they stand as avatars — this change in tone is significant. Lula reflected on the lunch, quipping “there was much democracy on the menu,” while Mr. Cardoso returned the favor, calling Lula “a democrat.”

Though the next election is still over 16 months away, discussions have been ongoing for some time over constructing a broad “democratic front” against Mr. Bolsonaro. 

Figures from the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) had previously insisted that the democratic front not include Lula’s center-left Workers’ Party. In 2018, Mr. Cardoso famously opted to spoil his ballot in the second round of the presidential race — opposing Mr. Bolsonaro and Lula’s understudy, Fernando Haddad. 

There had long been enmity between Mr. Cardoso, the former sociologist, and Lula, the former trade-unionist. 

They squared off against each other in 1994 and 1998, with Mr. Cardoso winning both elections in the first round. When Lula won in 2002, he constantly complained of the “cursed inheritance” his administration received upon taking office. Things came to a head between the two when Mr. Cardoso backed the impeachment of Lula’s appointed successor Dilma Rousseff in 2016.

Mr. Cardoso’s position, though, had already softened in recent months, after he admitted that he “felt bad” for his abstention in 2018.

Last week’s announcement signals further rapprochement with his old foe Lula. While insisting he would not vote for the Workers’ Party candidate in the first round — and lamenting the absence, thus far, of a viable “third-way” candidate — Mr. Cardoso made it clear he would not abstain a second time. Lula would be the preferred option, Mr. Cardoso told Radio Eldorado, because “he builds bridges, and in certain circumstances, it is better to have a bridge than to have someone who destroys them.”