Lula da Silva to Tour Brazil in Attempt to Mobilize Workers' Party Base

05/14/2015 - 08h44

In an attempt to rescue the reputation of the governing Workers' Party (PT), which has been severely damaged by the corruption scandal at Petrobras, ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is due to meet social movements and trade unions throughout the country at the end of June.

Lula hopes that the tour will help to recover the support of the party base, bring former supporters back to the party and mobilize them in defense of the PT's twelve years in power.

He will prioritize visits to states where PT support is more consolidated and where the party won in the second round of last year's presidential election, such as Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte.

Lula will also visit large cities with a traditional PT presence, such as Campinas (in São Paulo) and Porto Alegre (in Rio Grande do Sul). Last week, he was in Acre.

The assessment of Lula and other PT top brass is that the party needs to reconnect with the left, in order to overcome the current crisis and ensure that the PT remains competitive for the presidential elections of 2018.

In the May 1 celebrations, organized in São Paulo by the Unified Workers' Central (CUT, in its Portuguese acronym), Lula had indicated that he would undertake a tour of the country.

According to allies and advisors of the former president, Lula has become concerned with the hostility shown towards President Rousseff and with the increasing rejection of the PT across various sectors of society.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

Read the article in the original language

	Ricardo Stuckert/Divulgação/Instituto Lula
	In an attempt to rescue the reputation of the PT, Lula is due to meet social movements throughout Brazil at the end of June