Lula launches presidential campaign to ‘rebuild Brazil’
SAO PAULO: Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched his campaign for a new presidential term Saturday, vowing to rebuild Brazil after what he called the “irresponsible and criminal” administration of far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
The campaign launch sealed a remarkable political comeback for Lula (2003-2010), four years after the 76-year-old leftist icon was jailed on controversial corruption charges.
“We’re ready to work not only to win the election on October 2, but to rebuild and transform Brazil, which will be even more difficult,” the charismatic but tarnished steelworker-turnedpolitician told a rally in Sao Paulo, standing before a giant Brazilian flag.
Speaking in his trademark gravelly voice, he said Bolsonaro – whom he did not mention by name – had made Brazil a “pariah” with polarizing policies, attacks on democratic institutions and surging destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
“We need to change Brazil once again... We need to return to a place where no one ever dares to defy democracy again. We need to send fascism back to the sewer of history, where it should have been all along,” he told a cheering crowd of thousands, calling on “all democrats” to join him.
It was hardly a secret Lula, who has enjoyed a long –though shrinking – lead in the polls, would jump into the campaign, which does not officially start until August.
He has been in unofficial campaign mode since March last year, when the Supreme Court annulled the corruption convictions that sidelined him from politics.
The ruling instantly set up this year’s elections as a polarizing clash between arch-enemies Lula and Bolsonaro.
Lula left office with approval ratings of 87 percent, after presiding over a golden period that lifted some 30 million Brazilians from poverty.