Brazil’s ex-president to challenge ‘criminal’ Bolsonaro — Analysis

Lula de Silva will run in Brazil’s presidential election, and vows to send “fascism back to the sewer of history”
Former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – known simply as Lula – announced on Saturday that he will run in October’s presidential election, facing off against the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Although Lula is the preferred choice of Bolsonaro, polls show that he leads Bolsonaro. However, his position on the Ukraine conflict has earned him international attention.
“We are prepared to work to not only win the October 2nd election, but to also rebuild and transform Brazil. This will be more challenging.”The former leader of the union addressed a crowd in Sao Paulo. “We need to return to a place where no one ever dares to defy democracy again. We need to send fascism back to the sewer of history, where it should have been all along.”
Lula is a leftist and said that he would ally with centre-left parties. He has also chosen Geraldo Alckmin (centreist former governor of Sao Paulo) as his running partner in order to draw moderate voters away form Bolsonaro. “authoritarian”And an “irresponsible” “criminal.”

Lula was, however, a criminal until very recently. Lula was elected president of Brazil in 2003-2010 and left office in 2010 with an approval rating at 80%. Lula was then sentenced in 2017 to nine years prison for his alleged participation in corruption and money laundering schemes within Petrobras, the state-run petroleum company. This sentence was then increased to 12 year.
Lula insisted on his innocence and stated to RT, 2018: “There was.” “a conspiracy in Brazil between the media, the judiciary, the prosecution service and police”His conviction was overturned. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court eventually agreed and struck down his conviction in 2021, ruling that former judge Sergio Moro, who oversaw the investigation against Lula and was later appointed justice minister, had no jurisdiction to prosecute the former president.
It was assumed that Lula (76) would run again for the office after the annulment. While he had been comfortably ahead in opinion polling for many months, this lead has shrunk to 40% to 35%.
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Brazil’s Lula names people who are responsible for the conflict in Ukraine
Lula rattled the West last week when he suggested the creation of an international currency for Latin America to end the US dominance. He also declared Volodymyr Zelensky the Ukrainian president in an interview published by Time magazine a few days later. “as responsible as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for the war.”
Lula went on to blame NATO expansion for antagonizing Russia, and condemned Western leaders for encouraging and arming Zelensky to continue fighting Russia’s forces.
In the middle of an outcryMikhail Podolyak (an advisor to Zelensky) responded to Western journalists accusingLula to spread Russian efforts to alter the truth
Bolsonaro’s position on the Ukraine conflict is not vastly different from that of Lula. Bolsonaro, the Brazilian leader, has not taken sides in war and rejected allegations that Russia had committed massacres in Ukraine.
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