Brazilian Centrist Alckmin, Lula's Big-tent Bet For VP

Sao Paulo, Nov 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Nov, 2022 ) :Known as a good administrator but dull politician, Brazil's business-friendly centrist Geraldo Alckmin is the wingman leftist president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is betting on to help mend a deeply divided country.

The vice president-elect and his boss are not exactly an obvious match: Alckmin ran against then-president Lula in Brazil's 2006 election, losing badly in the runoff.

But they decided to team up, they say, to defeat a common enemy: far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

"People might think it's strange," Alckmin said in March when he became Lula's running-mate for the hard-fought election that ended with their victory in a runoff election Sunday.

"I ran against Lula in 2006. But we never put the very issue of democracy at risk." Lula on Tuesday appointed Alckmin to lead the transition with the outgoing administration.

Alckmin, 69, rose to prominence as governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest and wealthiest state, in the 2000s and 2010s. The mild-mannered anesthesiologist earned a reputation as a solid managerial type and was well-liked by the business and financial sectors.

But he had fallen into political oblivion, winning less than five percent of the vote in the first round of the 2018 presidential race, which brought Bolsonaro to power.

A co-founder of the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), long the main rival to Lula's Workers' Party (PT), Alckmin switched to the center-left Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) so he could do the once-unthinkable and stand as the ex-metalworker's VP.

"We have to open our eyes and have the humility to see that today, (Lula) is the person who best reflects and interprets the Brazilian people's sense of hope for the future," Alckmin said.