Lula da Silva will return to Brazil’s presidency in stunning comeback
COPENHAGEN — Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will return to the presidential dais for the first time since being banned from running in 2002, in the latest development in his quest to overturn a court ruling.
The former leftist president and leftist guerrilla leader, who is also a Catholic, could return to the capital with a large police presence to hear his appeal that a court ordered him to stay out of the race indefinitely for violating electoral law because of a political attack on him.
“Lula will appeal immediately. And he will be going to (the congress) on November 15,” the leftist governor of Rio de Janeiro Marcelo Cezar Filho told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the appeal will be filed on Friday.
A day earlier, in a televised address, Lula gave the world his first direct response to his removal from office and his arrest and conviction by a new judge, and promised to return to the presidency in Brazil in six months.
If the appeals court upholds the ruling, Lula could be allowed to run in the 2014 presidential election for the first time in 16 years on the Socialist Workers Party ticket, with a party he founded, but without the support of the left.
Lula has been jailed since December for allegedly inciting a revolt against the austerity measures and inhumane prison conditions of Brazil’s right-wing administration of President Dilma Rousseff.
If the appeals court upholds the ruling, Lula could be allowed to run in the 2014 presidential election for the first time in 16 years on the Socialist Workers Party ticket, with a party he founded, but without the support of the left.
Lula, who has received treatment for cancer in prison, has also suffered from financial troubles and a series of controversies over his leadership.
The leftist agitator has become symbolic of a political force that has sought to challenge Brazil’s economic oligarchy from below, demanding democratic reforms and the redistribution of power.
Brazil’s former leftist guerrilla leader, who is also a Catholic, could return to the presidency in stunning