Lula Launches Reelection Bid Amid Worker Challenges

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched his re-election campaign on Sunday from São Bernardo do Campo, where he stood on a table in 1979 to address striking metalworkers. The event at the Vila Euclides football stadium drew about 20,000 supporters, many wearing red associated with his Workers Party (PT). Lula emphasized his working-class roots and thanked supporters for believing in him as a candidate who could represent their interests.

The campaign launch comes amid challenges for Lula to connect with a new generation of digital app-based gig workers. These workers, numbering 2.1 million, have grown 170% between 2015 and 2025 but are less connected to traditional unions and formal employment structures that once formed the backbone of PT's support base.

The PT is trying to adapt its message by backing a shorter work week and proposing new protections for app-based workers, including regulations covering pay, working conditions, social security benefits, and platform algorithms. However, resistance from companies and skepticism from workers have mostly sunk these efforts so far. Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, Lula's main right-wing rival, stands ready to court this constituency with promises of lighter regulation.

At the heart of Lula's dilemma is a surge in jobs outside Brazil's system of formal employment, which provides workers with labor rights and social-security benefits. The share of workers who held formal jobs fell to 38.2% in December from 46.7% at the end of 2010, even as unemployment ended 2025 at a record-low 5.1%. Brazil's unionization rate has nearly halved over the past decade, falling to 8.9% in 2024 from 15.7% in 2014.

The challenges reflect a party rooted in labor organizing struggling to keep pace with workers increasingly detached from unions and traditional employment structures. Lula's campaign will need to address these shifts if he hopes to maintain his lead over Bolsonaro ahead of the October election.

Lula vowed that as long as he lived, he would not allow the 'shameless' right to return to power. He recalled the chaos and violence during Jair Bolsonaro's presidency, including hundreds of thousands of citizens dying during a COVID outbreak and gun ownership soaring due to relaxed laws. Lula promised to improve education, healthcare, and security by targeting rich organized crime bosses.

Lula was speaking at the Vila Euclides football stadium, where his political career began in 1979 when he spearheaded historic strikes that helped end the military dictatorship. During his first two terms from 2002 until 2010, Lula was credited with fighting hunger and expanding social welfare programs.

In 2018, Lula was jailed for alleged corruption but spent only 580 days in prison before the supreme court quashed his conviction. Bolsonaro won that year's election, ushering in four years of environmental destruction and international isolation. In 2022, Lula won his third term by a razor-thin margin.

Polls suggest Lula holds a slender advantage over Flavio Bolsonaro with 43% of intended votes to his rival's 40%. The election is scheduled for October 25 if no candidate secures 50% of the vote in the first round on October 4.

The campaign has drawn international attention, with concerns about potential US intervention and interference in Brazil's presidential election. Some activists expressed fears that the decision to classify Brazilian drug factions as terrorist groups could be used as a pretext for a US attack.