Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday made his return to politics, attacking Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his “imbecile” COVID-19 policies, but declined to say whether he would run against him next year.
Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, has emerged as a top contender to unseat the far-right incumbent, after a judge on Monday annulled the leftist’s corruption convictions, reinstating his right to run for office.
In his first comments since the ruling, Lula, 75, gave a scathing takedown of Bolsonaro’s record, but he declined to formally throw his hat in the ring for the election in October next year.
Photo: AFP
“It would be petty of me to be thinking about 2022 right now,” he told a news conference. “Party leaders need to be talking about vaccines, about salaries.”
He was especially biting on Bolsonaro’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brazil has the second-highest death toll worldwide, after the US.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed COVID-19, flouted the advice of experts on containing it and made comments against vaccines.
“Don’t follow any imbecile decisions by the president of the republic or the health minister: get vaccinated,” Lula said. “The Earth is round and Bolsonaro thinks it’s flat... Without all this craziness that has swept the country, a lot of deaths could have been avoided.”
Bolsonaro fired back that his government “did its part.”
“There was never a lack of resources” for the pandemic, he told CNN Brasil. “Lula’s launching his campaign and since he has nothing to show ... it’s based on criticism, lies and disinformation.”
Lula, a former metal worker and union leader, led Brazil through an economic boom, and is remembered for programs that lifted tens of millions of people from poverty.
Opinion polls suggest that he is the best-placed politician to challenge Bolsonaro’s re-election, but he remains a highly controversial figure after being sentenced to a total of 26 years in jail on charges of taking bribes.
The allegations stem from “Operation Car Wash,” an investigation into a corruption scheme in which top politicians and business executives systematically siphoned billions of dollars from state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro.
Lula was jailed in April 2018 — taking him out of the running for that year’s presidential election, in which he was the front-runner — and spent more than 18 months in prison before being released pending appeal.
Supporters have said that he was the victim of a conspiracy to eliminate him from the 2018 race, which Bolsonaro ultimately won.
However, Lula still faces a series of corruption and influence-peddling charges, including the ones for which he was jailed.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin ruled that the court that convicted Lula did not have jurisdiction, but the decision was procedural and did not cover the merits of the cases, which are to be transferred to another court.
Lula said that he would resume touring Brazil once he is vaccinated against COVID-19 next week.
“I still feel young enough to fight, and I want you to know I’ll never give up,” he said, speaking at the headquarters of his former union in Sao Bernardo do Campo.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS