Brazil: Former President Lula, Highly Likely to Run in 2022 Presidential Elections

Lula, 75, governed Brazil from 2003 to 2011, where there was significant reduction of poverty and high economic growth in the country.

Lula Campaign for Brazil Presidentail Election 2022
Ex-President Lula, highly likely to contest in 2022 elections. Source: The Gaurdian

Former President of Brazil, and leftist politician, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is most likely to enter into the 2022 Presidential race in the country.

Quoted in full by the news portal Brasil 247, in the interview the former president said that he would participate ‘if I am the best placed to win the presidential elections and I am in good health’.

Earlier this year in March, Supreme Court judge, Justice Fachin, annulled all criminal convictions against him. This is in relation to the Operation Car Wash case for which Lula was put in prison for a year and a half, preventing him from contesting the 2018 elections. With the overturning of the judgement, Lula has regained all his political rights, and is now eligible to contest elections.

Lula has been doing a number of interviews and talks, mainly speaking on the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Bolsonaro Government, as well as potential ways to combat the same.

After April 16th, when a bench of the court approved of Justice Fachin’s decision to overrule the conviction, Lula has given strong indication of his plans to contest in elections. Soon after the judgement, he set up an office just 3km away from Congress. In addition, he has set up a number of publicised meetings with politicians from Germany, China, Argentina, and more, to discuss matters such as the pandemic, the environmental sphere and political themes that will mark the upcoming elections in 2022. He even held a meeting with another ex-President, and long time political rival of his, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. According to a tweet posted to Lula’s account on 21st May 2021, the two discussed Brazil, the democratic system in place, and the negligence of the Bolsonaro Government during the Pandemic.

Cardoso has stated that he is hopeful that the PSDB (his centrist aligned party), will reach the runoff in the 2022 elections. If not, however, he is prepared to back anyone running against the incumbent including Lula.

Lula, 75, governed Brazil from 2003 to 2011, where there was significant reduction of poverty and high economic growth in the country. He was convicted in 2018 however, in what is known to be the Operation Car Wash case, whereby he was said to be taking bribes from engineering firms in exchange for public contracts. The Supreme Court invalidated these convictions on the grounds of bias on the part of Sergio Moro, the lead judge in the case. Soon after the arrest, Moro became Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister.

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March 2024
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