Brazil’s Lula faces new grilling by anti-corruption judge
CURITIBA: Brazil’s once hugely popular president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva faces a new grilling Wednesday by the country’s chief anti- corruption judge, Sergio Moro, in a case that could decide whether Lula can return to power.
Lula, who is a frontrunner in the October 2018 presidential election despite multiple corruption charges, will be questioned by Moro in the southern city of Curitiba.
The testimony is part of 71-yearold Lula’s trial for alleged bribe taking from the scandal-plagued Odebrecht construction giant. He is already a defendant in four other corruption trials.
And in July, Moro sentenced Lula to 9.5 years prison after being convicted in a sixth trial of receiving a seaside apartment from the OAS construction company in return for help obtaining lucrative contracts with the Petrobras oil company.
Lula, the founder of Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party, is free pending appeal of that sentence and hopes to string out or defeat the other cases so that he can run for a third term next year.
But problems are mounting for the man whose 2003-2010 presidency made him Latin America’s new leftist giant.
Although Lula tops the polls, that is partly because campaigning hasn’t started and name recognition gives him a head start. Also, his negative ratings are far higher than for other candidates.
A recent bus tour of his electoral heartland in the north- east of Brazil met a lukewarm reception, drawing core supporters but not the kind of massive crowds that might have made judges afraid of tough action. — AFP