Brazil holds breath for court ruling on Lula’s future

PORTO ALEGRE, (Reuters) - Brazilian politicians, voters and investors will find out on Wednesday whether an appeals court will allow the country’s most popular leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to run for president this year after being found guilty of accepting a bribe.

The former two-term, leftist president was convicted in July of corruption and money laundering for accepting a beachside penthouse apartment from an engineering company vying for government contracts.

If the court’s three judges uphold the conviction, which carries a sentence of nine years and six months, Lula would be ineligible to run for reelection on the Oct. 7 ballot and he could be sent to jail.

That would radically alter the political landscape of Brazil ahead of a campaign in which Lula is the early favorite, with 36 percent of voter preferences according to pollster Datafolha.

That is double the percentage of his nearest rival, the far-right congressman and former army captain Jair Bolsonaro.

The case has polarized Brazil, with Lula’s critics calling for him to be put behind bars and his Workers Party supporters claiming the charges were trumped up to stop him from running.

The appeals court, known as the TRF-4, has confirmed 95 percent of the convictions and sentences handed down by crusading anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro, who sentenced Lula.

Brazil’s benchmark Bovespa stock index has risen more than 10 percent in the past month on the prospect of Lula being barred from the election sooner than expected.

That would improve the odds of a more centrist, market-friendly candidate winning this year’s race originally and continuing austerity policies to reduce a budget deficit run up by Lula’s impeached successor, Dilma Rousseff.