Could Brazil’s “third way” come from the left?

Brazil is still 16 months from its next presidential election, scheduled for October 2022. But, for many pundits, the result of the first-round vote is already cut and dried. The discussion now rests on who — if anyone — can threaten the current frontrunners: incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The sheer clout of the two leading candidates on the far-right and left seem poised to swallow up anyone looking to present themselves as a third way.

Since Donald Trump’s election defeat in the U.S. last November, there has been a desperate search in the political center and moderate right for a “Brazilian Joe Biden” — an imagined combination between conservative and liberal stances to stand in the way of more “ideological” alternatives. 

As The Brazilian Report explained in April, the center-right field is crowded with candidates hoping to take on the mantle of Mr. Bolsonaro’s opponent, vying for the support of an electorate which is as heterogeneous as it is large. Meanwhile, the pathway to the presidency via the center-left appears narrower still, with Lula casting as big of a shadow as possible — and beating Mr. Bolsonaro in the polls.

Despite battling the odds, the sharp-tongued Ciro Gomes — a former Finance Minister and one-term governor of northeastern state Ceará — believes he can go all the way.

Nominally left of center, Mr. Gomes supports state regulations in the economy and taxing large fortunes, but has also adopted certain causes popular among the right, such as backing a return of printed ballots to supplement Brazil’s 100-percent electronic voting system. The bulk of his presidential platform consists of portraying Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro as one and the same, ideologically opposed yet cut from the same cloth.

Among Brazil’s third-way wannabes, Mr. Gomes is by far the best-known nationwide. He has decades of public service under his belt and ran for president on three occasions. In his last attempt, in 2018, he finished in third with 12.5 percent of the vote. In a country where people often make last-minute voting decisions on Election Day, name recognition is a powerful asset.

Having bounced around seven political parties since the beginning of his career, Mr. Gomes is now a leading figure in the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), which was founded in 1979 based on the tenets of Brazilian trade unionism and the legacy of Getulio Vargas — the country’s president-cum-dictator between 1930 and 1945, credited with creating Brazil’s generous labor legislation. In recent decades, the PDT has taken on more of a social democratic stance, moving toward the center.

“We attempt to differentiate ourselves from [Lula and Jair Bolsonaro] by presenting a candidate who has a project for Brazil,” said party chairman Carlos Lupi. “Our project...