Anti-corruption crusader says he won’t run for president
BRAZIL - The man many Brazilians thought would shake up October’s presidential election, Joaquim Barbosa, Brazil’s first black Supreme Court justice, announced on Tuesday that he would not run, upending the already unpredictable race. Mr. Barbosa, 63, had joined the Brazilian Socialist Party in April, raising the prospect of a presidential bid. Even without declaring his candidacy, he was the choice of 10 percent of the respondents in a nationwide poll, thanks to his image as an anti-corruption crusader at a time when all of the major parties and many top politicians have been tainted by a wide-ranging bribery scandal. But on Tuesday, in a message on Twitter, he said: “It’s decided. After many weeks of reflection, I have finally reached a conclusion. I do not intend to be a candidate for the president of the Republic. Decision strictly personal.” “It changes the entire scenario,” said Monica de Bolle, a Brazil expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Polarization wins the day.” Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who last month began serving a 12-year prison sentence after a corruption conviction, is leading in the polls, but he is likely to be barred from running. Next in line is Jair Bolsonaro, a congressman and ultraconservative former army captain who was recently charged with inciting racism. According pollsters, Mr. Barbosa might have been able to unite voters on the left and the right because of his socially progressive agenda and his highprofile battle against corrupt politicians from Mr. da Silva’s Workers’ Party during his years on the Supreme Court. Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children, worked as a janitor in a courtroom before enrolling at the University of Brasília. In 2003, he was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he oversaw the trial of politicians implicated in a vote-buying scheme. When he retired in 2014 he was approached by a number of political parties.
Mr. Barbosa’s decision not to run is likely to fuel the already deep divisions in Brazilian politics, but it will also open up space for candidates trying to seize the middle ground, in particular Marina Silva, a former environment minister who left the Workers’ Party to create her own political movement.
(NY Times)