Brazil’s center-right struggles to unite around a ‘third way’ candidate

On Thursday, the trial to analyze the alleged bias of former Operation Car Wash judge Sérgio Moro in his conviction of former PresidentLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva began in Brazil’s Supreme Court. While Lula’s sentences were quashed by the country’s highest court last month, the outcome of Mr. Moro’s trial is set to have important ramifications on Brazilian politics and the 2022 election.

Lula has recovered his political rights, so the corruption case against him will now return to square one. However, if Mr. Moro is judged to have acted in a biased manner, prosecutors will have to gather evidence against the former president from scratch. In practical terms, this would remove any possibility of Lula’s reconviction before next year’s election, cementing his place on the ballot against the incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro.

While the return of the center-left icon has left Mr. Bolsonaro scrambling, Lula’s resurgence has caused an even bigger problem for the political center and moderate right-wing.

Their fear is that, with the electoral polarized between two popular and divisive figures such as Mr. Bolsonaro and Lula, there will be little room for candidates in the middle.

Center-right and right-wing parties have stepped up talks to form a united front for the 2022 election. These discussions have been in progress since 2019, when these more moderate groups already considered the Bolsonaro administration “a failure,” as one party leader from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party told The Brazilian Report.

Even center-left forces have entered the talks, with the Democratic Labor Party...