Brazil’s Lula launches bid to retake presidency

BRAS LIA: Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has never taken the easy path but yesterday the onetime shoeshine boy turned political giant embarks on his most audacious challenge yet: to recapture the presidency — and avoid prison.

The presidential election won’t take place until October 2018 and the many potential candidates are still keeping below the radar. Campaigning is not even officially allowed.

But when Lula embarks late yesterday on a bus tour of around 20 cities through the northeast, there’ll be no doubting what he wants.

Modelled on a marathon tour of 359 cities that Lula made two decades ago, the ‘Lula for Brazil’ bus trip is the fiery speaker’s opening bid for a spectacular comeback.

A spokesman said there’ll be rallies at universities created during his 2003-2010 rule, meetings with small-scale farmers, and events aimed at defending antipoverty projects now under threat from the centre-right government’s austerity cuts.

In other words, 71-year-old Lula will be going back to the leftist base that once made him Latin America’s most influential politician.

“He’s a candidate who needs to touch people, to hug babies. The sheer physical contact can generate iconic images and will strengthen Lula’s aura of a messianic leader,” said Paulo Moura, a political marketing specialist.

The question is: will that love extend beyond diehard fans?

When he left office after two terms, Lula was feted at home and abroad for his use of commodities driven wealth to lift tens of millions of people from poverty. He seemed untouchable.

But as the bus tour heads off, the fiery speaker and former union leader is a diminished figure. — AFP