SAO PAULO: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday named his vice president as his running mate in Brazil’s October election, as polls showed the veteran leftist president lagging badly behind his main rival.Lula, 80, will seek a fourth term as he faces Flavio Bolsonaro, the 44-year-old son of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being found guilty of plotting a coup against Lula.Recent polls show Flavio Bolsonaro gaining the lead and in a tight race with Lula if they face each other. Lula was ahead by 15 points in December.Lula’s vice president and running mate is Geraldo Alcmin, a moderate conservative and former rival of the president. They teamed up to take on the older Bolsonaro, who was in power at the time, in 2022. Apart from being the Vice President, Elkmin is also currently the Minister of Industry.“My colleague Alcmin will have to leave the ministry because he is again a candidate for vice-president,” Lula said in a public meeting with his cabinet. Dr Alcmin, 73, served four terms as governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s richest and most populous state. He ran for president twice as a candidate for the conservative Brazilian Social Democratic Party.In 2006 he lost the runoff election to Lula.On Tuesday, Lula told his cabinet a story about how in 1978 he won re-election as head of Brazil’s metalworkers union and told his family he would serve one last term, then return to domestic life.He joked, “Fifty years went by and I never did it.”A poll published on March 6 by Datafolha showed Lula with 46 percent of voters’ intention, compared to 43 percent for Bolsonaro, putting them in a draw as the difference falls within the margin of error.The younger Bolsonaro, who serves in the Senate, was appointed presidential candidate by his father after the Supreme Court sentenced Lula to 27 years in prison for conspiring to stay in power after losing a 2022 election to Lula.
