Decision on when Worker’s party leader should start 12-year jail term expected to further polarise the country’s politics

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The fate of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in the balance as the country’s supreme court prepares to hand down a ruling that could lead to him being jailed before October elections for which he is currently the frontrunner.



Tensions are running high with Brazil rocked by the recent killing of a Rio councillor, Marielle Franco, and Wednesday’s judicial decision seems likely to further polarise an already bitterly divided country. If Lula is jailed, his supporters will cry political persecution; if not, his detractors will allege corruption.

Lula’s conviction for corruption and money laundering was upheld by an appeals court in January and his sentence increased to 12 years. On Wednesday the supreme court must decide whether to uphold a 2016 ruling that defendants should begin prison sentences after the first appeal is rejected.

Lula’s Worker’s party says the conviction was politically motivated to prevent the former president, who remains popular with poorer Brazilians, from running again in October. The case was part of Brazil’s sprawling “Car Wash” investigation that has jailed dozens of top executives and politicians.



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“I did not accept the military dictatorship and I will not accept this dictatorship of the prosecutors,” Lula said on Monday night to a roaring crowd in Rio de Janeiro.

Anti-Lula protests are planned across Brazil on Tuesday, organised by groups that led demonstrations for the 2016 impeachment of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, which brought in President Michel Temer’s rightwing government.

Pro-Lula demonstrations by unions and social movements are planned in the capital, Brasilia, on Wednesday.

The supreme court’s president, Cármen Lúcia, made a televised appeal on Monday night for “serenity in times of intolerance” to avoid social disorder.



Two Lula-branded buses were shot at last week during a campaign tour of southern Brazil. No one was hurt, and the former president was not in either of the two buses, which were carrying guests and journalists.

Prosecutors say Lula was promised a beachfront apartment worth BR$2.2m (£470,000) in a BR$88m graft scheme to help the construction company OAS secure contracts with the state oil firm, Petrobras.

Lula’s lawyers have repeatedly protested his innocence and said the prosecution has produced no material evidence for his conviction.

The supreme court will decide on Wednesday on a habeas corpus request from Lula to keep him out of jail to pursue further appeals. If denied, Lula could be arrested the same day.

“All of the signals from the judiciary so far indicate Lula will be jailed, it’s just a question of time,” said Maurício Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro’s State University. “The Brazilian press would be extremely critical of the supreme court if the request was granted.”

While technically barred from the elections because of his conviction, Lula leads opinion polls by a wide margin. Jair Bolsonaro, a hardline rightwing former army captain and military dictatorship revisionist often labelled the “Brazilian Trump”, is second.

Born in poverty, Lula became Brazil’s first working-class president and is fondly remembered by poorer sections of the population for his Worker’s party’s social policies. Other supporters say his conviction is an attack on democracy.

“We are here, reaffirming that what we want is democracy,” said Marcia Regina Coelho Chalfun, a 55-year-old teacher, at the Lula event in Rio on Monday night. “I have always voted for Lula and would vote for him again. He is an icon, an ex-president who changed the face of this country. It’s really important that Lula is free.”

If jailed, it is unlikely that Lula, now 72, would serve a long sentence. Last week the former São Paulo congressman, mayor and governor Paulo Maluf, once wanted by Interpol, was released and transferred to house arrest on health grounds after serving four months for corruption.

Lula’s court session might be delayed, buying him more time, but pressure is mounting on the politician.



“The change in jurisprudence, in this case, will imply the release of countless convicted persons,” says a petition signed by more than 5,000 Brazilian magistrates.

One of the signatories – the lead “Car Wash” prosecutor, Delton Dallaganol – tweeted that he would “fast and pray” for Lula’s detention.

Additional reporting by Ciara Long

