Lula’s Comeback Is Just What Brazil Didn’t Need
The overturning of his convictions has roiled the country’s judiciary, energized political ambulance chasers, inflamed partisan passions and jumpstarted the 2022 presidential race.
This Lulapalooza will end in tears.
Photographer: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images South AmericaThe stock market plunged, the dollar spiked and digital frenzy swept Brazil on Monday. Another record-breaking day for Covid-19 fatalities, or one more assault on civility by the nation’s provocateur-in-chief, President Jair Bolsonaro?
None of the above. What has Brazilians in a lather is a new variant of a more familiar affliction — Lulapalooza. Until this week, the much admired and widely loathed — pick your flag — former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was damaged goods, convicted of corruption cases and banned from electoral politics for the foreseeable future. Credit his redemption to Edson Fachin, the Supreme Court justice entrusted with the spoils of Carwash, the epochal graft case which over the last seven years had locked up dozens of crooks in suits and their political enablers, not least the former Workers’ Party icon. Having reviewed Lula’s court cases (two convictions, two pending cases), Fachin on Monday voided the sentences on jurisdictional grounds, so gifting Lula and his orphaned followers with the right to run for office again.