Bala Chambers
22 July 2022•Update: 22 July 2022
LONDON
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was officially nominated Thursday by his leftist Workers’ Party as its candidate to run in October's presidential election.
The politician, who served as president from 2003 until 2010, was not present at the party's convention in Sao Paulo, according to Brazilian news source Globo, as he was already campaigning in his home state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil
According to the latest polls, the 76-year-old leads against incumbent far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in what analysts have described as one of the country's most polarized elections in decades.
This will mark the sixth presidential bid by Lula, who has held a long and close association with the Workers' Party.
According to news site Poder 360, no Brazilian has ever been elected to office three times by direct vote. Lula was elected the first time in 2002 and again in 2006. Prior to him, three other politicians were elected twice by direct vote.
In 2018, he was also a candidate for the party until a corruption and money laundering conviction curtailed his plans, taking him out of the running, as Bolsonaro went on to take office in the South American nation.
In 2019, Lula was released from prison, with his convictions overturned last year after the Supreme Court ruled that the judge overseeing the case, Sergio Moro, had been biased.
The ruling meant that Lula would be able to run for office this year after spending 580 days behind bars on corruption charges.
In a bid to attract disenchanted Bolsonaro voters, reports say Lula has softened his socialist image, picking former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin, a centrist, as his running mate.
In recent days, Lula has pledged that Brazilians will be able to eat at least three meals a day if he wins the Oct. 2 election, describing it as his “commitment.”
“I want you to know that we are going to change this country,” he told his supporters in Pernambuco, noting that his policies removed “more than 30 million Brazilians out of absolute poverty.”
"I am coming back because I believe that this country needs you and we are the spokespeople for you. It only makes sense to win, if we do not forget that the poor people were not born to be poor all their lives," he told supporters.
