Lula Speeds Up Public Works Tour As Security Debate Pressures Campaign

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is accelerating a calendar of public works inaugurations in Brazil’s largest electoral states as his government tries to contain political pressure over public security and regain control of the 2026 campaign narrative.

According to O Globo, the presidential schedule prepared by the Planalto Palace runs until July 4, the legal deadline for pre-candidates to attend this type of official event. It includes highways, federal institutes and hospitals, with special focus on São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s largest and third-largest electorates. Both states are also politically sensitive because they are associated with the country’s two best-known criminal factions: the First Capital Command, or PCC, which originated in São Paulo, and Comando Vermelho, or CV, rooted in Rio.

The push comes after the United States classified the PCC and CV as international terrorist organizations on May 28, a decision reported by BBC News Brasil as a significant diplomatic defeat for Lula’s government. Brasília opposed the designation, arguing that Brazilian law distinguishes organized crime from terrorism and that the U.S. move could create risks to national sovereignty. Lula’s allies also see the decision as politically useful to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the right-wing presidential pre-candidate and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had defended the measure during a recent visit to Washington.

Lula has responded by combining a sovereignty argument with promises of tougher federal action against organized crime. In May, his government launched the “Brazil Against Organized Crime” program, structured around four priorities: financial strangulation of criminal groups, prison security, better homicide investigations and weapons-trafficking enforcement. The Planalto said the program was built with states, experts and security forces. A TVCidadeVerde report said the package includes R$1 billion in federal funding and R$10 billion in credit from Brazil’s development bank, BNDES.

At the launch, Lula said Brazil was willing to cooperate internationally against crime but would not accept foreign interference. He also said that, once a proposed constitutional amendment on public security is approved by the Senate, his government will create a Ministry of Public Security. The ministry would separate the issue from the current Justice and Public Security portfolio.

The electoral logic is clear. O Globo reported that Lula’s campaign does not expect him to beat Flávio Bolsonaro in Rio or São Paulo, but hopes that repeated official appearances can improve the president’s popularity and preserve his 2022 vote share. In São Paulo, Lula won 44.7% of the vote in the second round. He is expected to visit Mauá and São Bernardo do Campo, his political birthplace, to inaugurate federal institutes. In Rio, he has increased health-related deliveries and is expected to inaugurate a four-kilometer duplicated stretch of the Serra das Araras section of the BR-116 highway.

Rio is especially strategic because Flávio Bolsonaro represents the state in the Senate. Lula’s allies intend to link him politically to the wear on former governor Cláudio Castro, a Bolsonaro ally who, according to O Globo, has been targeted by two Federal Police operations in two weeks. Lula is also relying on former Rio mayor Eduardo Paes, a centrist politician and pre-candidate for governor in the president’s alliance, to broaden his appeal beyond the left.

Minas Gerais remains the main obstacle. The state has Brazil’s second-largest electorate and a long record of backing the winning presidential candidate. UOL reported in 2025 that Lula had tried to build his Minas strategy around then-Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco. But O Globo now says Pacheco has withdrawn from the gubernatorial race, leaving the president’s camp searching for alternatives such as businessman Josué Gomes or former Belo Horizonte mayor Alexandre Kalil. A Workers’ Party candidate is also not ruled out.

Until that decision is made, Lula’s team has held back some inaugurations in Minas, including events tied to the Divinópolis Regional Hospital, the BR-381 highway — widely known as the “Road of Death” — and federal institutes in the interior. For a campaign trying to turn government delivery into electoral momentum, the missing Minas platform is more than a local problem.