“praising Bolsonaro’s ministers is easy”

The announcement of the billion-dollar investment for the construction of the Santos-Guarujá tunnel, jointly between the federal government and the São Paulo administration, was overshadowed by the political rapprochement and alignment of speeches between the President Lula (PT) and the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans)during the event in Porto de Santos, last Friday (2).

The partnership with Lula generated a reaction from allies of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the former Minister of Infrastructure’s main mentor and electoral campaigner in the elections for the São Paulo government in 2022.

After praise from Lula, greetings, exchanged laughter and even an invitation to “return to the PT” addressed by activists during the event, the Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) used social media to respond to the President of the Republic and posted a photo with governor Tarcísio de Freitas, tipped by the Brazilian right for a presidential contest against Lula’s reelection in 2026. “Praising Bolsonaro’s ministers is easy, it’s difficult to praise Lula’s ministers,” he countered on X, formerly Twitter.

The former president’s son also accused PT governors of removing the Military Police from Bolsonaro’s security during presidential trips to states headed by political opponents during the last term. “Irresponsible. Lula must be incredibly jealous that Tarcísio is Bolsonaro”, adds Flávio in a post on the social network.

After the temperature of the political relationship between the federal and state governments started the week on a high because of the Santos-Guarujá tunnel, last Tuesday (30), Lula and Tarcísio met in Brasília (DF) and aligned the schedule and hearings public to discuss the modeling of the project for the work costing almost R$6 billion with resources divided between the Union and the Statein addition to a Public Private Partnership (PPP).

During this Friday’s event, Lula and Tarcísio repeated that “they are together” to get the connection work awaited for 100 years off the ground between the cities of Santos and Guarujá, separated by 800 meters with the need for a tunnel immersed in the sea, in the area that has the largest flow of ferry vehicles in the world with a peak of 30 thousand vehicles per day.

“That’s why I’m here. To announce that Tarcísio and I are together. Who he will vote for is his problem. Who I’m going to vote for is my problem. But we are together in our commitment to serving the people of this state”, stated Lula during the speech, which promised to leave political differences until the 2026 elections.