Brazil’s Lula launching presidential bid to unseat Bolsonaro

GBNews24 Desk//

Chants of “Lula, warrior of the Brazilian people!” rang out as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the country’s best-loved politician, took the microphone at a May 1 Labour Day event in front of Sao Paulo’s iconic Pacaembu football stadium.

“We do not accept this hatred that is being imposed by this genocidist who governs the Brazil,” the gravel voiced, two-time former president told the crowd, referring to country’s current head of state, President Jair Bolsonaro, reports Al Jazeera.

Lula, now 76, will launch his sixth bid for Brazil’s presidency on Saturday amid rocketing living costs and growing fears of authoritarianism in Latin America’s largest democracy.

Bolsonaro, a gun-loving nationalist who admires leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, has repeatedly claimed without evidence that Brazil’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud, setting the stage for a potential crisis when votes are counted.

Brazilian pollster Datafolha said in March that Lula held a comfortable, 17 percentage point lead over Bolsonaro in the first round of voting on October 2 – but experts predict it will tighten as the elections approach.

“It’s going to be a very tough election,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst and former communications minister for Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT). “For Lula, getting elected is just the first step.”

Hunger, poverty key issues
Born into extreme poverty in the rugged dry backlands of Brazil’s northeast, Lula led metalworker strikes in Sao Paulo’s industrial suburbs in the late 1970s during the country’s military dictatorship and afterwards went into politics.

Elected president on his fourth attempt in 2002 during a global commodities boom, international experts lauded his policies of hunger eradication and social inclusion in one of the world’s most brutally unequal countries.