Lula 2022? Brazil poised for sensational political comeback
With former president’s political rights restored, polls suggest he would thrash Jair Bolsonaro if he stands for election
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Fri 30 Jul 2021 10.00 EDT
Anazir Maria de Oliveira has a simple message for the man they call Lula.“Comrade, I want you back,” said the 88-year-old union veteran and black activist as she celebrated the return of her “guru” to Brazil’s political fray.
Until just a few months ago, Lula – full name Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – seemed to have reached the melancholy twilight of a mythical political career. The former factory worker rose to become one of the world’s most popular leaders before, in a dramatic fall from grace, he was jailed and barred from office.But the quashing of corruption convictions against Brazil’s first working-class president has scrambled the South American country’s politics and given believers such as Oliveira the tantalising hope that the septuagenarian politician could make a comeback.
Five months after Lula’s political rights were restored, polls suggest that in next year’s election he would thrash Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing mounting anger over his response to a Covid outbreak that has killed more than half a million Brazilians.
“Seeing him in the presidency again is everything we want … I’m heart and soul Lula,” enthused Oliveira, or Dona Zica as she is known in Vila Aliança, the favela where she lives on Rio’s deprived western limits.
Lula, a two-term president from 2003 to 2010, has yet to formally announce what would be his sixth presidential campaign since he first sought to become Brazil’s leader in 1989 aged 44. In a recent interview the 75-year-old stopped short of confirming his plans but said he had been inspired by Joe Biden’s election at 78. “I’m a boy compared with Biden,” Lula joked.
John D French, the author of a new biography charting Lula’s rise from unionist to president, said he had no doubt Lula would run – and was well-placed to win. “He’s the Pelé of international presidential electoral politics – nobody has a record like he does anywhere in the world,” said French, remembering how either Lula or Lula’s anointed candidate had come either first or second in six successive elections going back to 1998.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/30/lula-2022-brazil-poised-for-sensational-political-comeback
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