Socialist former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, currently the frontrunner in the 2022 presidential race, disparaged his rival incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro, as a “court jester” and promised “a little barbecue and beer” for all Brazilians if he returns to power.
Lula, as he is popularly known, made the comments on the TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional primetime news program, which traditionally holds extended interviews with the nation’s top presidential candidates during every election cycle. Bolsonaro sat down for an interview on Monday that rapidly became heated, prompting Bolsonaro at one point to ask host William Bonner to “calm down” as the latter accused him of planning a military coup.
Bonner and cohost Renata Vasconcellos queried Lula extensively about the disastrous economy that his socialist Workers’ Party (PT) left the nation with the last time it held the presidency and the fact that arguably the largest government corruption scheme in the history of the world occurred under his watch. Lula presided over what has come to be known as “Operation Car Wash,” named after the police operation investigating the scheme: a process by which the socialist government hired friendly contractors to complete infrastructure projects at artificially inflated prices. The companies – most prominently the now-defunct Odebrecht firm – would then use the excess taxpayer cash to bribe politicians for more contracts.
Lula was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2019 for purchasing a luxury beachfront property with Operation Car Wash money. The initial arrest and trial prevented him from running for president against Bolsonaro in 2018, but Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) overturned the sentence and freed him, in addition to removing his ban on running for public office.
In conversation with Jornal Nacional, Lula insisted that the only reason police found any corruption while he was president was that they were looking for it.
“For five years, I was massacred,” Lula insisted. “Corruption, it only appears when you allow that it be investigated. I wanted to start by saying something very important to you: it was my government under which the Transparency Portal was created.”
Lula insisted that various government agencies created or empowered to fight corruption made the Operation Car Wash revelations possible and that he deserved credit. The former president then proceeded to criticize the police operation under the name “Operation Car Wash” and to claim that those who pleaded guilty to corruption only did so under police pressure.
“‘Car Wash’ embarked on a delicate political path. ‘Car Wash’ exceeded the limits of investigation and entered the realm of politics,” Lula claimed. “The goal was Lula. The goal was convicting Lula.”
“People confessed, and because of people confessing, they became rich on account of confessing. In other words, it was a kind of plea bargain: not only did you get your freedom for saying what the Public Ministry wanted, but you got half of what you stole,” Lula claimed, without naming any individuals he believed took such a deal.
Lula also claimed that Operation Car Wash caused 400,000 job losses in the country, which Bonner replied was not true: “the investments not made [that would have created those jobs] was not a consequence of ‘Car Wash,’ but of the economic crisis inherited from the administration of Dilma Rousseff.”
Rousseff served as Lula’s minister of mines and energy – a critical role in relation to state oil company Petrobras, which was at the heart of the corruption – and succeeded him as president.
Despite the nature of the Operation Car Wash corruption, Lula shamelessly proclaimed in the interview that, should he become president again, “we’re going to have to put together a big infrastructure investment plan.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Lula described himself as “a 76-year-old with the energy of a 30-year-old” and “the best president in the history of Brazil.” Lula also promised greater economic benefits for the public under his potential presidency, proclaiming, “the people have to go back to having a little kebab, eating a little steak, and drinking a little beer.”
Lula mentioned beer twice in the interview, a notable move given the years of international concern regarding his affinity for alcohol. In 2004, the New York Times, typically a friendly venue to Lula, called his “fondness for a glass of beer, a shot of whiskey or, even better, a slug of cachaça” a “national concern.” Bolsonaro opened his campaign last month by calling Lula an “ex-convict drunkard.”
In another exchange, Lula criticized Bolsonaro for allowing the Brazilian Congress too much leeway in determining the federal budget, calling his administration only “semi-presidentialism” and Bolsonaro a “court jester”:
Lula also condemned Bolsonaro for promoting gun rights.
“There are people who think that it is good to have guns in the house, who think it is good to kill people – no!” Lula proclaimed.
The latest polls show Lula retaining a shrinking lead over Bolsonaro. A national poll published Thursday by the outlet Exame and the pollster IDEIA found Lula in the lead with 44 percent of intended votes and Bolsonaro in second with 36 percent. Bolsonaro cut the distance between the two from the last such poll from 11 points to 8.
To win the Brazilian presidential election, one candidate must receive more than 50 percent of the vote, which means keeping Lula under that threshold even without winning would likely benefit Bolsonaro. If no candidate reaches 50 percent support, the country schedules a runoff election with the top two vote recipients.
Brazilians will go to the polls in October.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.