RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said Tuesday (17) that he never wanted to be president of Brazil much as he does now.
“I am not a candidate yet. But I am in line. I’m going to confess to you that I never had as much desire to be president as I have now at 75 years old,” assured the socialist leader in a message on his social networks.
“I have no right to retire or to stand still or to carry hatred. And the PT (Workers’ Party) has an obligation to return (to power). Later we will define the candidacy,” added the leader and founder of the largest and most criticized leftist formation in Latin America.
Lula has admitted his intention to contest the 2022 presidential election since he left prison in November 2019, after serving 580 days for two corruption convictions.
He reinforced those aspirations this year after the Supreme Court annulled the proceedings for which he was sentenced and enabled him politically, since he had lost the right to contest elections for having been convicted and lost his appeal,
Although his entourage considers his candidacy a fact, Lula has made it clear that he will accept the nomination only if asked to do so by leftist forces. In that case, he would be willing to run against Brazil’s sitting president, conservative leader Jair Bolsonaro, who is his main political opponent and is seeking re-election.
The former president revisited his possible candidacy after starting on Sunday a ten-day tour of six states in northeastern Brazil, the poorest region of the country and an electoral stronghold of PT, to meet with political and social leaders.
“I thought I had accomplished the mission of my life when we managed to remove Brazil from the hunger map. I thought my trajectory of struggle was over. And it was then that I learned one thing, that a human being who has a cause only stops fighting when he dies,” said the former president about the resumption of his political activities.
“I am eager to talk and make political alliances. There is only one thing I will not give up: that the people be included in the budget. From now on, we will never stop. We are going to travel around this country”, he assured when referring to the conversations he has had with leaders of different parties to assemble a broad coalition for next year’s elections.
In Recife, the largest city in the country’s Northeast and the first stop on his trip, Lula met with leaders of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), which branched off from the PT but has distanced itself in recent years because of the corruption scandals that have characterized the PT presidential era.
The socialist leader begins his tour of the northeast precisely when Bolsonaro is promoting a new subsidy distribution program for the poorest, which exceeds in values and scope Lula’s “Bolsa Familia” and will mainly favor families in the region and could have a strong electoral effect.