Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement launches over 700 pre-candidates for 2024 elections

By Igor Carvalho
From Peoples Dispatch

On July 9, the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) launched more than 700 pre-candidates to contest the 2024 municipal elections in October, when voters will choose the next mayors and city councilors of Brazilian municipalities. The announcement was made during an event at the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) in Guararema, São Paulo state.

Of the total number of pre-candidates, 250 of them, from 22 different states, showed up in person in Guararema to take part in the plenary called by the movement. They discussed the political and bureaucratic aspects of the campaigns. Among the candidates for elective offices are those active in MST encampments and settlements, as well as friends and allies of the MST.

The meeting was also attended by federal deputies Orlando Silva and Simão Pedro, representing the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB, in Portuguese) and the Workers’ Party (PT, in Portuguese), as well as the national president of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL, in Portuguese), Paula Coradi.

“Wearing an MST cap, asking for votes in the name of the MST and speaking in the name of the MST is a commitment to our base, to our people and the movement’s agenda,” said João Paulo Rodrigues, from the MST’s National Directorate at the opening of the meeting.

The MST’s pre-candidates are spread across 12 political parties. The majority are in the Workers’ Party. Simão Pedro welcomed the movement’s pre-candidates. “You taking part in the electoral contest will be crucial for changing the correlation of forces. Where there are no councilors from the MST, we will be able to elect them. Where they are already a reality, we’ll double or triple the number to gain more strength.”

For Coradi, “this year’s election will be complex. Although the far-right lost the 2022 presidential election, it is still organized and strong. There will be a tough battle at the polls.”

During the meeting, the pre-candidates met with strategists from the Workers’ Party campaigns, such as Sidônio Palmeira, who worked on the 2022 presidential campaign of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Otávio Nunes, the marketer responsible for Finance Minister Fernando Haddad’s (Workers’ Party) campaign in 2022, spoke to the landless pre-candidates. João Pedro Stedile, from the National Directorate of the MST, and federal deputy Gleisi Hoffmann, president of the Workers’ Party, also spoke at the meeting.

Orlando Silva celebrated the meeting. “The MST’s agenda goes far beyond the countryside. Organizing candidacies across the country strengthens not only the movement but the entire left. I see a lot of women and young people at this event, and that’s fundamental,” concluded the federal deputy.

This article was originally published on Brasil de Fato.