Brazil braces for corruption appeal ex-president Lula
BRAZIL - Civil unrest expected as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, still hugely popular despite corruption conviction, fights to stay in upcoming election race
Brazil is bracing for a historic court decision which could remove the most popular leader in modern Brazilian history from an election he is currently poised to win and may prove devastating to the leftwing Workers’ party he founded. Nerves are stretched taut ahead of yesterday’s appeals court decision, in which three judges will decide whether or not to uphold the conviction of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on corruption and money laundering charges. Lula who is still hugely popular after his 2003-2010 two-term presidency is currently the early favorite in October’s presidential election.
Porto Alegre’s rightwing mayor Nelson Marchezan asked for the army to protect the city from thousands of Lula supporters expected to descend. The Workers’ party president, Gleisi Hoffmann, said last week that for Lula to be arrested, “they will have to kill people” although she later qualified the remark. Authorities have closed airspace over the court, sealed off the surrounding streets, and plan to deploy helicopters, elevated observation platforms and even rooftop sharpshooters. Lula’s many enemies are already planning victory celebrations in a park on the affluent side of the city, but his successor Dilma Rousseff said upholding the conviction would stop Brazil reducing the brutal inequality her party fought since first winning election in 2002. “We are looking at the future of our country,” she told the Guardian in an interview in Porto Alegre, where she now lives. “This is not a shortterm conflict.”
(The Guardian)