Ex-president plots return

BRAZIL’S LUIZ DA SILVA TELLS HIS SUPPORTERS HE WILL RUN FOR OFFICE IN 2018 Former leader facing bribery and corruption charges.

Brazilian ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hinted strongly at seeking a return to power this week in a fiery speech that dismissed corruption charges against him.

Lula, who was massively popular when he left office in 2010 and remains a giant of Latin America, was campaigning in western Rio de Janeiro on behalf of Jandira Feghali, a communist candidate running for mayor in local elections next Sunday.

But the appearance before some 1 000 excited activists was far more about Lula’s own campaign to make a comeback at the 2018 presidential election.

“You will be my electoral support in 2018,” he said to enthusiastic cheers.

A one-time barely literate shoeshine boy who founded the Workers’ Party, or PT, and became one of Brazil’s most influential presidents, Lula spent much of the half-hour speech recalling his achievements in reducing poverty and expanding education.

“I proved it’s possible for people to change the history of this country,” he said. “In Brazil the poor stopped being a problem. The poor became part of the solution.”

Federal prosecutors have charged him with taking bribes in a vast embezzlement scheme centred on state oil company Petrobras that they say he oversaw while he was president. A trial could fatally damage his electoral ambitions.

Defiant against what he considers to be a campaign to diminish his historic role and to destroy the PT, Lula is not shy about blowing his own trumpet.

“They say Lula compares himself to Jesus Christ,” he said, referring to mocking accusations that he thinks too highly of himself.

“I don’t compare myself to Jesus Christ,” he said, before adding, “but I, too, was persecuted.” – AFP