Lula evaluates his candidacy for 2022 with great caution

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this Friday that he will define “at the beginning of next year” if he launches his candidacy for the presidential elections of October 2022 against Jair Bolsonaro, whom he described as “totally incompetent” and maintains high levels of rejection, highlights AFP.

“I have said that I am not a candidate because I am only going to decide my candidacy, possibly at the beginning of next year, ”said Lula, 75, at a well-attended press conference in Brasilia, one year after the election that is anticipated as the most polarized in history.

“I have not decided yet because I am going to do it at the right time, and I am going to talk to everyone,” added the former Brazilian president (2003-2010) and head of the leftist Workers Party (PT), at the end of a week of meetings with political leaders in the Brazilian capital.

Lula, widely favored in the polls , can be a candidate after having recovered his political rights in March thanks to the annulment of the corruption convictions handed down against him, one of which landed him in jail for almost 18 months, between 2018 and 2019.

A majority of analysts believe that Lula is delaying his definition by strategy, and that he will end up running. If he does, it will be his sixth candidacy to fight for a third term, after having led the country between 2003 and 2010.

Next will be “an electoral year in the one that we are going to be able to fight a lot, so that we can fix this country, “promised Lula, who described the far-right Bolsonaro as” totally incompetent. “

” This country you will need to be wise enough to choose someone on Election Day who respects democracy and who doesn’t talk nonsense all the time. He (Bolsonaro) should shut his mouth and rule, “he added.

” Everything has been destroyed “

Since he was politically empowered by the courts, the former president has kept a low profile, continuing to forge alliances with leaders of the left and center to prepare his duel with the current president.

This week, in Brasilia, he also met with parliamentarians allied with Bolsonaro, who registers the lowest level of approval since he came to power in 2019 due to his chaotic management of the pandemic – which leaves almost 600,000 deaths-, unemployment and inflation that in September returned to double digits in 12 months.

“It is very serious to have a president who never made a gesture of solidarity with not one victim of the coronavirus and much less with the families of the 600,000 people who have already died ”, declared Lula.

According to the latest survey by the Datafolha Institute , from September 17, Lula would obtain 44% of the votes, against 26% of Bolsonaro, who faces several judicial investigations, including one for prevarication for allegedly not reporting signs of corruption in the purchase of anticovid vaccines.

Shoeshine in his childhood, Lula left the presidency with more than 80% approval, in large part because during his tenure, pushed by the wind in favor of the world economy, some 30 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty.

“It is sad to see that everything we have built has been destroyed,” he lamented.

“One of the things we must do first is to regain international credibility. Americans will like Brazil again, China will like Brazil again, Macron and France will like Brazil again, “he said.

Lula also confirmed that he will travel to Europe in November, to “Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Brussels”, where he has “meetings in the European Parliament”.