Brazil is a global pariah': Lula on his plot to end reign of 'psychopath' Bolsonaro

[Judi Lynn]

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

Fri 21 May 2021 05.05 EDT

Brazil can be rescued after being turned into a Covid-stricken global outcast by its “psychopath” president Jair Bolsonaro, the politician best placed to defeat him in next year’s presidential election has insisted.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brazil’s former leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – who is widely tipped to challenge Bolsonaro for the presidency after regaining his political rights – stopped short of explicitly confirming he would run. But Lula, who rose from rural poverty to become Brazil’s first working-class president, left no doubt he was plotting an extraordinary finale to one of the world’s most enduring and dramatic political careers.

“I ran eight kilometres before this interview … and I usually run 9km a day, Monday to Friday, because walking around Brazil is going to be very tough, very tiring and I need to get my legs ready to fix this country’s problems,” said Lula, a former shoeshine boy and union leader who was president from 2003 until 2011.

“I’ll be 77 by [next year’s election]. I thought that was old. But then I saw Biden win the elections at 78 and said, ‘Well, I’m a boy compared to Biden so perhaps I’ll be alright.’”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/21/brazil-lula-bolsonaro