Brazil’s Lula blames Bolsonaro for the “greatest genocide in our history”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva described the situation his country is experiencing due to the pandemic as “the greatest genocide in our history” and blamed the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, for it.

“On Tuesday, 3,158 people died in Brazil as a result of Covid. This is the biggest genocide in our history,” said Lula, in an interview to the German weekly ‘Der Spiegel’, the first he has given to international media since the Supreme Court overturned the corruption conviction against him,making him eligible for election to public office.

Bolsonaro “did not take seriously” the seriousness of the pandemic and “lied” to his citizens, continues the former president, who holds him responsible for the current situation.

“If he had any grandeur, he would have apologized to the families of the more than 300,000 people killed by Covid. He is responsible for what happened” and Lula insists that Brazil should not continue to be governed by “that man”.

Lula has the possibility of challenging Bolsonaro in the presidential elections scheduled for next year, following the decision of the Supreme Court annulling his conviction, recall local media.

Der Spiegel also alludes to the decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court, last Tuesday, according to which former judge Sergio Moro did not act with “impartiality” in one of the trials against Lula, who claims that justice should now be granted in his favor and against the prosecution that acted in his trial.

“There was a pact between the court system and some media to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office and also prevent my candidacy for the 2018 elections,” assures Lula, who spent 18 months in prison until he was finally released from jail in November 2019.

That period in prison prevented him from running in the 2018 elections, which Bolsonaro won. With the Supreme Court’s decision now, he has recovered his political rights.

Brazil surpassed this week the maximum of 3,000 daily deaths due to the pandemic, which has increased pressure on Bolsonaro, who now claims to seek an “institutional pact” with the Parliament and the Supreme Court.

Source: DW