Scene set for epic clash as ‘Lula’ re-enters the fray

Brazil’s Leftist former leader uses comeback speech to criticise president’s Covid response

AS Brazil’s hard-Right president addressed the nation this week with an attack on his rivals, keen-eyed observers would have noticed a strategically placed globe on his desk. Broadcast on

Facebook on Thursday, Jair Bolsonaro attacked the country’s former Left-wing leader, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, who this week was cleared by a court to return to politics. The addition of the globe was a direct response to claims in Lula’s comeback speech that Mr Bolsonaro believed the Earth was flat.

Mr Bolsonaro has been condemned during his two years at the helm of Latin America’s largest economy for climate denial and Covid scepticism.

The country is now gripped by one of the world’s worst coronavirus crises.

Hospitals are strained and death toll records are broken daily, while restrictions are loose. Global experts are calling for a science-based plan to save the country from becoming a “natural laboratory” for new variants.

On Monday, a Supreme Court decision quashed Lula’s corruption convictions and reinstated his political rights, setting up a showdown between the Leftist icon and Mr Bolsonaro in next year’s presidential election.

Lula, who served as president between 2002 and 2010, gave a widely praised speech on Wednesday, reinforcing the importance of vaccination and social distancing to help curb Brazil’s Covid-19 crisis.

Criticising Mr Bolsonaro’s catastrophic pandemic response, the former president claimed Brazil “has no government”.

In response to Lula’s attacks, Mr Bolsonaro feigned an about-turn on his pandemic stance, claiming he had never called Covid-19 a “little flu” and had not cast doubt over the efficacy of vaccines.

In his Facebook live-stream, he barked back at Lula. “I am the most important person right now,” he said.

“That sack of meat said yesterday that I should speak to [science minister] Marcos Pontes, who has been to space, and ask him if the Earth is round.

“Look at the quality of my science minister and that criminal’s cabinet and then we’ll talk.” Lula, a former trade union organiser, has not yet declared if he will stand. However, he has hinted: “I am 75 years old. I say jokingly that I have the energy of a 30-year-old.”

Rodrigo Maia, a former house speaker, said: “You don’t have to like Lula to understand the difference between him and Bolsonaro. One has a vision for the country, while the other can’t see past his own belly button.”

With 19 months to go until the election, Brazil expects a fiery and polarised contest between the country’s two most popular political figures.

A survey released on Friday showed Lula and Mr Bolsonaro neck-and-neck in a statistical tie, with nothing to choose between them in a potential run-off vote.