Lula urges Recife mayor to rush infrastructure projects before election season

President Lula arrived in Recife on a Friday in early April with a straightforward message for the city's mayor: get your projects finished and inaugurated before the election season locks you down. The legal reality is blunt—once campaigning officially begins, a sitting mayor running for reelection faces strict limits on ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Lula, speaking at an event to green-light eighteen slope-stabilization projects in the city's outlying neighborhoods, made the calculus explicit. The work would cost roughly forty million reais through the Ministry of Cities, addressing a critical need that had become urgent after torrential rains killed more than 120 people in May 2022. "If we planted, if we watered, we will harvest," Lula said. "From a certain month onward you can't even inaugurate a project anymore, so whatever you can inaugurate, inaugurate it."

The advice carried weight because João Campos, Recife's mayor, is an ally—and because the PT, Lula's party, has designs on him that go well beyond friendly counsel. The party wants to place one of its own as Campos's running mate for his reelection bid. Campos has resisted, preferring someone closer to his own circle, a choice that makes sense given his larger ambitions: he is eyeing a run for governor in 2026 against the incumbent, Raquel Lyra of the opposition PSDB. The PT's strategy is to corner him. If Campos steps down before his term ends, the party would reclaim the Recife mayor's office—a seat it held from 2001 to 2012. If he serves out his full eight years, the party wants his backing for a PT candidate for governor. It is a calculated squeeze, dressed in the language of partnership.

During the ceremony, Campos handed Lula something freighted with history: the last microphone used by Eduardo Campos, the former governor and the mayor's father, in a speech before his death. Eduardo had died in a plane crash in 2014 while running for president against Dilma Rousseff, Lula's chosen successor. The two men had been close despite standing on opposite sides of that election. Lula accepted the microphone as a gesture of continuity and respect.

Later that same day, Lula traveled inland to Iguatu, a city 365 kilometers from Fortaleza, to oversee work on the Transnordestina railway and sign off on the Apodi branch line—a project designed to shorten the route between the northern axis of the São Francisco River diversion and the Castanhão reservoir. The infrastructure push is part of Lula's broader effort to remake the Northeast's economic geography.

But the visit was interrupted by something the president had not scheduled. A cluster of protesters—teachers and students—gathered with signs demanding that Ceará's governor, Elmano de Freitas, also a PT member, invest more in education and hire more teachers. They called for respect for the profession and better pay. Lula, watching from the stage, did not dismiss them. Instead, he defended their right to speak. "I saw some comrades with signs there, protesting," he said. "I think it's wonderful that you can protest, because there was a time when you couldn't participate, couldn't even raise a sign." The reference was unmistakable—a nod to Brazil's military dictatorship, when dissent was dangerous. After the event, Elmano met with some of the protesters and committed to advancing dialogue on their demands.

In his remarks, Lula circled back to a theme he has returned to often since his return to office: he did not come back to the presidency to repeat what he had already done. "I need to do more, I need to do better, I need to care for this people," he said. "And it's not easy because I'm competing with myself." It was a statement of ambition and, perhaps, of the weight he feels in trying to exceed what he had accomplished in his first two terms, from 2003 to 2010.

As the ceremony wound down, Lula called forward the railway concessionaire's representative and a construction worker who had spoken earlier. In a moment of joshing, he scolded the worker for having kissed the first lady, Janja. "Never kiss my wife again, my friend," Lula said with a grin. "Never touch my wife to kiss her because I get worked up, I get nervous." It was the kind of banter that plays well in a crowd, a reminder that even as Lula navigates the intricate politics of the Northeast, he remains a man who enjoys the theater of power.