Lula has just said that he feels in conditions to, in 2026, aspire for the fourth time to the presidency. The Brazilian president, who has ruled 10 years and 8 months discontinuously, needs another decade to get his country to become what has so far been a timid power tied to the figure of the leader of the Workers Party (PT).
Lula’s case reminds us that leaving power is more difficult than reaching him. And that Lula had to do politics for three decades from civil society until, finally, he won the presidency after trying to reach her four times, not counting that he was in jail when he was a trade unionist and opposed the dictatorship (1964-1985). But since he arrived in Planalto (headquarters of the Government) he has built a figure that today, more than politics, seems mythological.
It is not just his thing. Nayib Bukele also refuses to leave power: he wants to govern who knows how long, and that is why he has just reforming the Constitution. Like the Brazilian, Bukele is one of those who believe they are essential, thus the law prohibits indefinite re -election.
We have recently known that Gustavo Petro would also like to return to the presidency of Colombia, although he has refused to say it publicly. But its people, on rallies, usually shout: “re -election, re -election.” As it cannot be re -elected next year, it wants to convene a constituent assembly, which is, ultimately, a commitment to change the re -election rules. Yes, he wants to return in 2030.
The list is long. In order not to talk about the dictators of the authoritarian regimes of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, you can think of Evo Morales, which, although they are liked, tried to return to power for the fourth time on the institutional path, but was blocked by the Bolivian courts in a judicial precedent that has marked the policy of all Latin America. In 2024, the Constitutional Court disabled Morales and said that the re -election “is not a human right”, like him, rhetorically, defended from the streets of Bolivia, ignoring the decisions of the OAS and the Venice commission about this assumption.
Reelection, whether in the country, is not a human right, but tends to be a Latin American phenomenon. It is not that it is only here – in France, for example, many presidents are re -elected – but there are cases that are repeated in the region and, of course, they become a trend. One can associate this reelectionist tendency with hyper -presidentialism, with the weakness of the parties, with polarization, and all this is true. However, there is something else that makes us look so attractive: interest in personalist leaders. Long -term projects terrify us, but not so much when they are the proposal of a person who wants to make history, such as Getúlio Vargas, and promises to transform everything, correct the meaning of things in a country. Fascinated, we have fallen into these projects: with Roses or Perón, with Haya de la Torre or Fujimori, with Velasco, with Pérez Jiménez or Chávez.
Those who propose to change everything, and usually invoke the revolution (the human, the social, the order) to rewrite the story, almost always are tempting to stay in the armchair, or stay. Instead of proposing a project that continues with another politician or, desirable, is led by a party, Lula, such as Bukele, have preferred to follow what Perón did: insist on Bukelism or lulism, and forget about the PT or the new ideas, platforms already empty of power.
In the mind of the personalist leader, power cannot be given. It cannot be given, for example, Fernando Haddad, the eternal candidate of the PT, who again sees that the president of Brazil, Lula, wants to be a candidate. Again. Again. Again.
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