Jailed Lula set to bow out of Brazil’s presidential race

CURITIBA: Jailed former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was set to throw in the towel in his legal battle to run in the Oct 7 election and allow his Workers Party to announce running mate Fernando Haddad as its candidate, party sources said.

Lula had hoped that the Supreme Court would agree to an appeal for more time to switch the head of the Workers Party ticket after Brazil’s top electoral court last week banned him from running due to a corruption conviction and gave him 10 days to remove his name.

Two sources with knowledge of Lula’s decision said Haddad would become the official candidate with an announcement yesterday outside the Federal Police headquarters in the southern city of Curitiba, where the leftist icon has been jailed since April, serving a 12year sentence for receiving bribes. Despite appeals still pending before the Supreme Court, Lula decided it was time to pass the baton to Haddad on the deadline set by the court and not run the risk of the votes for his party’s ticket being annulled by the electoral court.

The letter anointing Haddad would be read out to supporters who have camped outside the police building for five months to protest his jailing, which they deem a plot to keep him from returning to power, a party official said.

Lula and Haddad huddled together on Monday afternoon in his jail room and began to draw up the letter, he said.

Lula was president from 2003 to 2010 and remains Brazil’s most popular politician.

But he is ineligible for office under Brazil’s “Clean Slate” law, which prohibits candidates from running if they have convictions that have been upheld on appeal.