José Dirceu disputes leadership with Gleisi to “save” the PT at the polls

José Dirceu, the most powerful minister in the first administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), is concluding his political rehabilitation that began a year ago and is presenting himself to play a crucial role in the attempt to “save” the PT from defeats at the polls in 2024 and 2026. With Lula’s approval, the former head of the Civil House has been acting as a kind of advisor to the party he founded and presided over, demanding a new stance from his supporters in the face of changes in the scenario. More than once, he warned about the risk of the left taking a “block from the right” and about the growing influence of evangelicals in the electoral game. In this role as strategist, the former minister clearly disputes the leadership of the party with its current president, deputy Gleisi Hoffmann (PR).

At 77 years old, José Dirceu’s plan is to resume the role of inductor of major party decisions, acting, even without a role in the party, as an influential actor behind the scenes, following the model implemented for years and which reached its peak between 2003 and 2005 , when he was part of the palace nucleus of Lula’s first term. Two decades later, he resumed his routine of public events and internal PT meetings and even tested his return to the spotlight, from which he moved away after the convictions in the Mensalão scandal and Operation Lava Jato.

With the party under Lula’s absolute dominance and without hesitation in negotiating with opponents, Dirceu still personifies the quest to conquer and preserve power without caring about the means adopted.

For experts heard by the People’s Gazette, Dirceu’s resurgence occurs when the PT seems to return to the crossroads it faced before the victorious campaign of 2002, in which it had to choose between being the locomotive of the left or serving as a lasting gateway to the Presidency of the Republic, including sheltering opposing forces. To worsen this dilemma, Congress increased control over the legislative agenda and federal funds, guaranteeing greater independence in relation to the government. As he did in the past, former deputy Dirceu is willing to face these challenges and lead a review of the party’s programmatic guide, playing with all the cards on the table to guarantee the party’s continuity at the center of national decisions.

Dirceu’s rehabilitation began after the current deputies took office

Without the restrictions of Justice, Dirceu no longer needed to hide and began the path back to the political stage with the choice of his son Zeca Dirceu (PT-PR), in February 2023, to be the leader of the party in the Chamber and with the public nods from Lula, who praised him as a “political agent and activist of the highest quality”. In the same month, during the celebration of the PT’s 43rd anniversary, the president thanked “comrade José Dirceu” for his legacy in the party and for his solidarity in prison.

At the acronym party, Dirceu occupied a seat at the back of the stage. “Dirceu has to put his face out there. We have to build another narrative in society”, commented Lula. During the campaign, fearing wear and tear, the president said that “historical figures” like Dirceu would have no place in the third government. Therefore, after a long period of ostracism, Dirceu’s return to the political spotlight has been gradual. At Lula’s inauguration, on January 1st, he was not among the guests and watched the event from the lawn of the Esplanada dos Ministérios. At the end of that month, during a PT meeting in Congress attended by the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), those present avoided posing for photos with the former minister. But, little by little, he has been regaining influence at the PT leadership by participating in meetings with internal tendencies, regional directorates and historical allies.

In his most recent action to promote course corrections in the PT, José Dirceu got involved in the dispute between the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, and the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffman, seeking to defend the government’s economic agenda from repeated attacks from the top PT member. Haddad himself felt encouraged to counterattack the criticisms of Gleisi and other supporters, considered by Dirceu to be “almost cowardly”.

Lula’s speeches at the party’s electoral conference, recognizing the disconnect between militancy and evangelicals and the middle class, and the reconstruction of the president’s support for Haddad’s goal of fiscal balance have Dirceu’s fingerprint. “When the government presents a policy, our role is to support it,” he said on the Pod13 podcast, from PT da Bahia, in a message to Gleisi. In this interview, he defended the reorganization of the PT to deal with the polarized scenario in the country. “In those years, there was enormous social and cultural change because of religious fundamentalism and the strength of right-wing parties. The left as a whole retreated,” he added.

Historically, Lula recognizes the former minister’s fundamental role as mentor of the transformations that allowed the PT to break the sequence of second places in the presidential elections and reach the Palácio do Planalto in 2003. These changes were marked by commitments made with the market and training of an alliance with Valdemar Costa Neto’s PL, which, today, finds itself on opposite sides, and with the accommodation of the MDB in its parliamentary support base. These agreements with former rivals provided not only victories at the polls, but also governability for Lula for two terms, a situation that ended in the divergent administration of former president Dilma Rousseff (PT).

Analysts see Dirceu’s strategic role in the 2024 elections

Marcus Deois, director of the consultancy Ética Intelligence Politics, suggests that José Dirceu could play a strategic role in preparing PT tickets during municipal disputes. According to Deois, with the unlikely possibility of running for elected office, Dirceu could reemerge as a party leader.

Political scientist André Felipe Rosa adds that Dirceu’s return could provide internal dynamism to the PT, acting as a “necessary evil” for the party, improving Lula’s own fluidity and pointing out internal errors.

Rosa believes that Dirceu represents the essence of the “traditional PT”, and his departure opened space for the reconfiguration of the party, with the rise of figures such as Dilma Rousseff, a period in which the Lava Jato events also broke out.

Luiz Filipe Freitas, also a political scientist, emphasizes that, even with ups and downs in his visibility, Dirceu never stopped being a relevant figure in the PT. Freitas argues that, after the setbacks faced by Lava Jato and the party’s return to power, the former minister and former deputy could resurface.

However, Freitas warns that the PT and the left will be challenged to consider the recent observations and warnings made by Dirceu. He highlights, however, that the former leader remains influential, but not at the level he used to be due to changes over time. He assesses that the first challenge for Dirceu will be to regain his prominence.

Thanks to STF ministers, Dirceu responds to crimes in freedom

Dirceu’s fall from power was triggered in August 2005, at the height of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) that investigated Mensalão. “Get out of there quickly, Zé!”, said the then national president of the PTB, deputy Roberto Jefferson (RJ), looking at the TV cameras, during a statement that harshly attacked the Minister of the Civil House at the time. The deponent sought to clear Lula of the accusations, whom he called an “honorable and correct man”, and attributed the entire orchestration of the scheme to purchase parliamentary support to Dirceu, comparing him to Rasputin, eminence grise of the court of the last Russian tsar. The PL president and then deputy Valdemar Costa Neto was another of Jefferson’s favorite targets.

Dirceu responds to cases free thanks to decisions made by ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), after being arrested four times for corruption, between 2013 and 2019. Currently, he even feels comfortable saying publicly that Mensalão “never existed”. The sentence for active corruption that he received due to this scandal was extinguished. He was recently acquitted in a Lava Jato conviction and still has another. As a result of the operation, he was sentenced to sentences of up to 39 years for conspiracy, ideological falsehood, passive corruption, money laundering, receiving undue advantage, among other crimes.