Thread by @OliverStuenkel

Irrespective of what you think about Lula: the former president's capacity to engage an international audience and directly impact the way Brazil is seen abroad is just remarkable. His CNN interview with Amanpour helps him strengthen his narrative for the 2022 elections 🧵👇

By urging Biden, on US-American television, to call an emergency coronavirus summit, Lula seeks to send a message to voters in Brazil: if he wins, Brazil will no longer be a ridiculed pariah, but seek to actively participate in global decision-making processes -- like it used to.

Any other presidential candidate would have sounded preposterous by urging the US president to do anything. But Lula, one of Latin America's most experienced statesmen, managed to pull it off coming across as fairly presidential.

Lula's strategy to project himself as a calm and experienced leader (reminding people that, yes, he governed as a centrist), may pay off particularly if Bolsonaro struggles to articulate a clear strategy to lead Brazil out of the mess it currently finds itself in.

Interestingly enough, Lula is freer to shift to the center during the campaign as there will be no challenger on his left -- neither Boulos, nor Dino nor d'Ávila would go against him. Biden, on the other hand, had to fend off Sanders's challenge from the left.

Also, while Biden needed to tag left to mobilize Sanders voters in the general election, Lula can be pretty sure he'll have their support no matter what -- I would even expect him to pick a conservative running mate, perhaps a business tycoon, like he did in 2002.

All this suggests that Lula's decision to move the PT's ideological position towards the left after Dilma's impeachment in 2016 - in order to avoid the emergence of a challenger on the left - may have been smarter than many analysts recognized at the time.

Since 2016, the PT was in "opposition mode", embracing a pretty radical stance to keep loyal followers mobilized. Now that it has a real shot at returning to power, Lula is going into "governing mode", projecting itself as the moderate center-left leader he used to be in 2003.

All that is only possible because Lula is more skilled at moving back and forth between left and center than any other politician. Most other leaders struggle to adjust even once. Lula moved from far-left (80s) to center (2002-10) to the left (2016-2020) back to the center (2021)