Fernando Haddad

“I would say that I am an academic in politics. I have never abandoned my academic approach to observe reality, independently from the subject and its constant changes.”

“My master's was in economics, and my Ph.D. was in philosophy, and I became a professor at USP. But after three years, I was invited to be secretary of finance for Sao Paulo mayor Marta Suplicy. They reached out to be because of my economics background.”

“A lot of people abroad know Lula's campaigns against poverty and hunger, but he had a tremendous legacy in education too. He invested 2 percent of GDP, more than other administration, putting the PT's education programs in motion.”

“Everyone knows that the Workers' Party governments did much more good than bad for the country.”

“In the nineties, the PT had wrongly decided to attribute its electoral failures to its virtues.”

“When I'm out there on the streets, I enjoy meeting people and listening to their complaints and critiques. It's something that I take great pleasure in.”

“Without public investment, without families spending, without cheap credit, the economy won't recover.”

“Lula is off the charts. You cannot reproduce Lula; and you will always have to count him in.”

“Bolsonaro is adopting a regressive policy as regards rights but a neoliberal policy when it comes to economic policy.”

“I really believe in the power of social control coming from within the community itself. The community protecting itself, its children, its teenagers, you know? I think that's far more effective than a police presence.”

“What seems not yet to have been sufficiently explored is the emancipating potential of the discursive form of psychoanalysis in politics as a counterpoint of marketing.”

“Bolsonaro is a tropical Trump. They have a very common agenda, a very regressive agenda, when it comes to civil rights, social rights, and environmental rights.”

“I'm against using Petrobras to combat inflation.”

“Brazil needs peace and not hate.”

“Lula's foreign policy goal was to turn Brazil into a sub-imperial power, with a presence in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This strategy must be understood as a reaction to his concerns that the extractive sector would threaten Brazil's industrial tissue.”

“For the conservatives, Lula is seen as someone who constantly seeks demarcation and even rupture. For the Left, however, Lula is always seen as someone who conciliates, as he acknowledges the role of owners in improving the conditions of workers.”

“We combine fiscal responsibility with social responsibility.”

“No one thinks of controlling inflation of a continental-sized country by holding back municipal tariffs. Macroeconomic stability cannot be achieved through microeconomic intervention.”

“Lula aimed to both internationalize big Brazilian capital and improve the domestic market and the condition of the poorest in Brazil. In the gaze of a lot of people, this was a big contradiction, but for Lula, this was the most natural thing in the world, to think about these two things together.”

“My father - a Lebanese-origin small businessman - had a stroke in 1997 and couldn't work anymore. I paused my career and made sure he was taken care of by overseeing the sale of his businesses, but after that, I was able to dedicate myself to politics. It's what I had always wanted.”