Lula hopes to enter Brazil govt:

Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a key player in the political storm engulfing Latin America’s biggest country, said Saturday that he hopes the Supreme Court will approve his entry into the government by Thursday.

Current President Dilma Rousseff named Lula her chief of staff in a bid to stiffen her desperate campaign to avoid impeachment in Congress.

However, the appointment was temporarily blocked in the Supreme Court after an opposition outcry that Lula was scheming to gain ministerial immunity so that he could avoid arrest in a federal corruption probe.

The court is due to make a final ruling shortly.

“On Thursday I will take up my post as chief of staff, if the Supreme Court approves, so that I can help President Dilma”, Lula told a rally in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza.

“We have to guarantee Dilma’s ability to govern”, he said in a speech, quoted by the website of his Workers’ Party.

Lula’s struggle to enter the government is one of the many subplots of a political upheaval paralyzing Brazil as it sinks into its worst recession in a generation.

The court’s ruling will come just as the impeachment fight approaches a new peak.

Rousseff, accused of illegal government accounting practices, will wrap up her defense at a congresional impeachment commission on Monday. The commission will deliberate before issuing its recommendation on about April 11. (AFP)