His most popular opponent is still in prison.
Who is that? If it’s Lula you may have missed the news but the Supreme Court released him out of jail in 2019. He is free but without political rights, at least for now because there are possible developments on the horizon...
Supreme Court is scheduled to analyze the Lula trial and decide whether Sérgio Moro (judge who sent Lula to jail) was partial or not after the revelations that came out from “The Intercept Brasil”, with leaked messages of Moro. If they decide Moro was partial, Lula would regain his political rights.
I don’t think Lula is the only opponent Bolsonaro has though. Bolsonaro is worried about a possible campaign of Sérgio Moro himself, who he fired during the pandemic due to Moro accusing him of illegally trying to interfere inside Brazilian federal police (Bolsonaro tried to do it to protect his sons from justice). Moro would win votes from the right if he were to run.
The Brazilian right who elected Bolsonaro is now very divided. There are the remaining Bolsonaro supporters and also a growing base that supports Sérgio Moro and is now very against president Bolsonaro because they feel he betrayed them by abandoning the “anti-corruption” agenda represented by Moro for the sake of protecting his family from corruption.
There is actually a right wing protest scheduled for this next Sunday against Bolsonaro lmao. It’s basically the anti-corruption “Car-wash” Sérgio Moro base that is angry about the Supreme Court nomination and the president government. They consider Bolsonaro a “traitor”.
Meanwhile, even from the left, Lula is not the only option. Ciro Gomes could be a conciliatory name for those who just want to end polarization. If the PT were to not run anyone in 2022 just to back Ciro from the background, Ciro would come quite strong (think of Cristina Kirchner running as Fernández VP in Argentina for comparison). The left still has lots of dialogue and organization to do between themselves though. Both Lula and Ciro want to be protagonists, or at least in Lula’s case, he wants his party to be.
Don’t forget the prescience of COVID 19.
