In a 2 April interview with the Portuguese television station RTP, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 75, noted that he would run for the presidency of Brazil in 2022 if “necessary”. The March verdict by Brazil’s Supreme Court invalidating the former president’s conviction has become a big game changer in the country’s politics by opening the door for Lula to potentially run for re-election.

This has sounded alarm bells for President Jair Bolsonaro and his powerful supporters. However, it’s unlikely that the military, who endorsed Bolsonaro in 2018, will try to hinder Lula’s campaign if he runs, says Brazilian diplomat and politician Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim, who twice held the position of foreign affairs minister between 1993 and 1994 under President Itamar Franco and then between 2003 and 2010 under President Lula da Silva. But what if Washington and multinational corporations try to throw a spanner in Lula’s works?

Sputnik: What are Lula’s chances of winning the race?

Celso Amorim: Lula as many others, as many of us, – I say that because I feel personally linked to him, also – we are now concentrated on what can be done to improve the life of the Brazilians because of the pandemic. Brazil has a record number of deaths per day. It’s a country that holds the greatest number in the world. This, of course, is accompanied by recession, unemployment, and a lack of income for the poor. So all these things now have concentrated his attention. Of course, if you ask the question, he’ll say “Well, I may run,” I don’t know exactly what he said to [Portuguese] television, but I have heard him some other time saying: “Well, if there is a request from my party and from the progressive forces, the ones that are more linked to social ideals in Brazil with more independence in foreign policy, if these forces ask, I’ll run.” But as I’ve said, it’s a bit early.

Of course, Lula is a gigantic force in Brazilian politics, so he’ll have a great influence anyhow. And of course, many people, like myself, hope that he’ll run. But, of course, as I say we are a little far away, and we are in the midst of the pandemic, a big health crisis, a big economic crisis, a big potential social crisis, also. So it’s a bit too difficult to make a precise forecast.

© AFP 2021 / NELSON ALMEIDA

Brazilian former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a meeting organized by unionists and members of the Workers Party (PT) in Sao Paulo downtown Brazil on March 4, 2016

Sputnik: What reaction can Lula expect from Washington, given that the Biden administration is at odds with the Bolsonaro cabinet? Will Washington try to meddle in the Lula campaign?

Celso Amorim: Washington is not such a simple concept. There are different forces in the United States that act in different ways. Certainly, if you had the Trump administration, they would support Bolsonaro. With the Biden administration – we don’t know yet. So far, his policies toward Latin America have not shown much progress. But you know, when Lula was president we had good relations, and that was with President Bush and President Obama. Of course, there may be interests of American companies in Brazil. There may be some other strategic interests. But, it’s no longer what used to happen in the 1960s or the 1970s.

Even the kind of meddling is different: I think if it happens it will happen by means of the Brazilian media, of the Brazilian economic elite. And the Brazilian economic elite, they are now a bit disconcerted because, of course, they supported Bolsonaro and now, at least, a lot of them regret it.

So, I don’t see really why they would try to do anything to block Lula’s campaign, because actually Lula has always been a person who was open to dialogue, even in relations with difficult questions like Venezuela, to speak about a regional aspect here.

© AP PHOTO / ARIANA CUBILLOS

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right, listens to his Foreign Minister Celso Amorim during the inauguration of a general consulate of Brazil in Caracas, Thursday, Oct. 29,2009

Sputnik: Could multinational corporations try to hinder Lula’s campaign, given that he is opposing more privatisation?

Celso Amorim: Certainly, there are, in Brazil, forces who are more linked to let us say this neo-liberalism that want to privatise and they can gain from this process also, in Brazil. And, of course, there may be other international companies that may be interested in Brazil but they don’t have dominance. They may have some support, internationally speaking, that will oppose Lula because they want to have more privatisation, more space to make gains, immediate gains.

On the other hand, even because of the pandemic, because of the high unemployment, because of the policies that have to do with the price of oil, there is a growing sense in Brazil – which goes beyond traditional progressive forces – that we need a presence of the Brazilian state in the economy in order to re-launch the economy. This is happening even in the United States. What Biden is doing now in the United States is something that has not happened since FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the time of the [Great] Depression, in the way he is injecting money including by increasing taxes, taxes on the rich, taxes on the corporations.

So, the world is changing a little bit. We can’t think only through the models that we had, even the models that we had until ten years ago, they became already, in a way, overcome, surpassed. So, there’s a new world. I think that the fact that we have BRICS for instance, we have the possibility, Russia has just proposed, I saw my good friend [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov, with whom I interacted for many years as foreign minister and before as ambassador to the UN, proposing that Russia could abandon the dollar.

I don’t know if Brazil can abandon the dollar, but we could have our trade among BRICS countries with our currencies. So I think it’s very important to reinforce BRICS.

I think Brazil has to work within the groups like BRICS and, of course, to have normal relations with the United States, as well. It’s not easy because Latin America is seen by many people in the US as their backyard, as somehow was implied in your question. But I think also this is changing: we have progressive governments in Mexico, in Argentina, in Bolivia. So, if Lula is elected… and I think if he runs, he has a big chance of being elected, and almost certain that he would be. If he is elected we’ll be able to work both with the integration of South America and with groups like BRICS, and also with the United States, and also with the European Union.

© AFP 2021 / MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL

Brazilian former president (2003-2011) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, delivers a press conference at the metalworkers’ union building in Sao Bernardo do Campo, in metropolitan Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 10, 2021

Sputnik: Which domestic issues will Lula address right away if he wins the presidency? What changes in foreign policy might one expect if Lula wins?

Celso Amorim: The immediate issue that he is addressing now [is the pandemic], because Lula is a big figure in Brazil, what he says and does has an influence. Even, for instance, when Lula criticised the minister of health, Bolsonaro sacked his minister of health. He did not criticise the minister, he criticised the policy, and the minister was sacked some days later. Bolsonaro had never used a mask, and when Lula spoke about these things, he started using it, because he knows that Lula has great influence and he wants to preempt him.

Brazil has a fantastic health system, one of the best in the world – it was not properly used by Bolsonaro, by the present government, – but thanks to that, the situation is not even worse. It’s more or less like the National Health [Service] in Britain. Of course, we are a developing country and don’t have the same kind of resources, but it permeates the society.

In terms of foreign policy: well, of course, the world changes, so I can’t say that he will do exactly the same things as he did 10 years ago when he was in power. But certainly, we’ll try to work along two or three lines, I’ve just mentioned it: to have a more multi-polar world, reinforcing groups like BRICS, that’s essential for Brazil and I think it’s essential for the other member groups. We’ll work on integration in South America and we’ll develop multi-polar relations with all the world, with great emphasis in Africa because Africa is very near to Brazil.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

Brian Mier, co-editor of Brasil Wire based in São Paulo, described to Sputnik the significance of the recent Brazilian Supreme Court decision to invalidate the conviction of former President Lula da Silva. Mier detailed the origins of the prosecution against Lula, which lie in the now infamous joint US-Brazilian “anti-corruption” investigation Operação Lava Jato (aka Operation Car Wash). Lava Jato, Mier explains, was revealed to be tainted from the beginning by political bias and improper conduct by both the judge and chief prosecutor in the case, following the leaks of private Telegram messages between the two.

Sputnik: Can you explain what Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato) was and its relevance to the prosecution and conviction of former Brazilian President Lula da Silva?

Brian Mier: Operation Car Wash [Operação Lava Jato] was initiated as a joint international anti-corruption investigation in partnership between a small group of public prosecutors in the provincial [Brazilian] city of Curitiba, the US Department of Justice, SEC [Securities and Exchange Committee], and the Swiss federal police — ostensibly to combat corruption. But in fact, what it did was paralyse some of Brazil’s key industries and attempted to annihilate the careers of some important leftist politicians, including former President Lula [da Silva].

Sputnik: As you’ve just noted, Lava Jato was eventually revealed to be rather skewed in terms of who it focused on and who it did not, with accusations emerging that it was a form of “lawfare”. Can you explain exactly how that panned out in practice?

Brian Mier: Well, everyone suspected this from the beginning in Brazil, all in the progressive community, at least, on the left, everyone suspected it was being used to target [former President] Dilma Rousseff before her illegal impeachment and Lula and other party leaders of the Workers’ Party while sparing basically everyone from the PSDB party [Social Democracy Party], which has historic ties to the US Democratic Party. However, once these leaked Telegram messages – that were hacked by a man named Wagner Delgatti – were released, first on a small scale to The Intercept, but now on a much larger scale to the Supreme Court and, Lula’s defence team, we see that the entire time during the course of the investigation, there were illegal meetings being held every 15 days to plan the operation out with a group of FBI agents.

This supposedly impartial judge [Sergio Moro] was giving instructions to the prosecution on how to damage the public image of targets of the operation and how to selectively give out media leaks. And it also shows them praying that [President Jair] Bolsonaro would win the elections. And we had this quid pro quo where the judge in the operation was immediately rewarded with a justice minister position after Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil.

Sputnik: Can you elaborate a bit further on the US role in the Lava Jato investigation?

Brian Mier: In 1970, [the US] passed a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which has been expanded over the years. Initially it was to try and punish US companies for committing corruption abroad. But through its adhesion to this anti-corruption act, that was passed internationally in 1997, any signatory to it opens up their sovereignty for US agents to operate against companies that either are American or that [are] traded on the US stock exchange, or even if they have property in the US or an office, or if they’ve ever paid a bribe in US dollars, they’re open to investigation, in partnership with local authorities, by US authorities. And this FCPA, as it’s called for short, was used as justification, for example, when FBI agents raided FIFA headquarters in Switzerland in 2015 and arrested some of their vice presidents.

So from the beginning, there was an FCPA partnership between the US Department of Justice and SEC, and these Brazilian public prosecutors. Through the operation, in 2015 alone, the US collected more than $3.5 billion in fines from some of the key companies in Brazil’s industry, and also through the operation, they paralysed the five largest construction companies in the country in 2015. Analysis conducted now shows that the result of Lava Jato was that 4.4 million Brazilians lost their jobs and $173 billion of foreign investment didn’t end up arriving in Brazil because of this operation.

So, we really view it now as a kind of economic and political terrorism that was committed against one political party in Brazil, mainly the workers party, but opened the door for this neo-fascist takeover by Jair Bolsonaro and the military generals who were running the country with them, which is handing over all of the results, natural resources at below-market rates to US and European multinationals right now.

Sputnik: What exactly is it that Lula da Silva was convicted of?

Brian Mier: Lula da Silva was convicted of committing indeterminate acts of corruption, because the judge and prosecutors were working together in a process that had no jury, couldn’t find any material evidence that he’d committed any crime. Ostensibly, it was related to receiving free reforms and an upgrade on an apartment in a beachside building in Guarujá, São Paulo, but they had no proof that Lula or his family had ever spent the night there. They had no proof that reforms were ever made there. And most importantly, the deed was never registered in Lula’s or any of his family’s names. So not only had he never really been there, I mean, they visited the building once, they’d never like spent any time there, not only had reforms never taken place, but they had no proof that they own the place. The place was registered in a construction company’s name.

© REUTERS / NACHO DOCE

Brazilian Court Re-Confirms Lula’s Charges, Hikes Prison Term to 17 Years Ahead of Appeal

Also, the alleged gift of these reforms and upgrading [the property] allegedly took place after [Lula] left office. So, it was impossible to prove any kind of quid pro quo either. So, in the ruling against Lula, Judge Sergio Moro said, “we don’t have any, we don’t have enough material evidence to specify what the crime was, but I have a strong conviction that Lula has done something wrong”. That was basically the sentence, and it’s been thrown out now because of illegal forum shopping. The apartment, allegedly owned – but not proven in any way – by Lula, is located in São Paulo state. But he was tried, not only for this alleged crime but for two others, in a neighbouring state, in a neighbouring district court, in the City of Curitiba, which had no jurisdiction. It was forum shopped to a jurisdiction that they knew was working in partnership with the US DoJ. What they did to be able to move the case to Curitiba was [to make] a frivolous accusation that this was connected somehow to the Petrobras state petroleum company, which operates nationally.

But we now have Telegram conversations showing them talking about how they knew there was no connection and they were even joking, like, “as long as he’s filled up his tank with gasoline, from a BR petrol station, this is enough to connect it to Petrobras”. They were laughing about it on Telegram. So, the minute the case was transferred into this other district that was working in partnership with the US DoJ, they dropped the Petrobras charge and Lula’s defence filed a motion to dismiss in 2016, for lack of jurisdiction. They have explained this in every press conference since, but the Anglo media kept repeating this lie, that Lula was tied up in a graft scheme with Petrobras, even up to the eve of his political imprisonment in 2018. So, that’s why it was thrown out eventually. The Supreme Court recognised the fact that this court had absolutely zero jurisdiction over any of the cases Lula had been charged with in Lavato Jato. So, what happened is they mounted frivolous charges, forum shopped them to a district that was working together with the US DoJ, and destroyed the chances of a non-fascist government in 2018 by removing the leading candidate from the election based on frivolous charges that have now been thrown out. [Lula] can’t get back those 580 days he spent illegally in prison, and Brazil is going to take a long time to recover from the damage caused by this US-backed operation which put [President Jair] Bolsonaro in power.

Sputnik: So the Supreme Court dismissed the charges and invalidated the conviction on the basis that it was illegally forum shopped, but not based on corruption between the judge and the prosecutors or state malfeasance?

Brian Mier: No, to the contrary. What they did do, though, was they admitted the evidence of the six terabytes of leaked Telegram conversations. They’re allowing the defence team to use that as evidence. But the reason the case was thrown out was for forum shopping. And a lot of people think it was being done to protect [Judge] Sergio Moro and Chief [Lava Jato] Prosecutor Delton Dallagnol from a criminal investigation that was underway in the Supreme Court, connected to Lava Jato. Because we know, once again, from these Telegram conversations that the prosecution considered the [Supreme Court] justice who made this ruling [invalidating Lula’s conviction], Edson Fachin, to be on their team, in their pocket. There’s a Telegram message where Delton Dallagnol was kind of like yelling and going, “woo-hoo Fachin is ours”, from the time that Lula was arrested. So, in a way, it was just like damage control by the Supreme Court, they’re trying to protect themselves. And also, they’re trying to protect themselves from more and more incriminating leaks coming out now from these Telegram conversations. But de facto, it ended up benefiting Lula and Brazilian democracy.

Sputnik: How significant is the court’s decision on Lula’s case and will there be wider ramifications for the country as a whole?

Brian Mier: Definitely wider ramifications. And I’ll give you the first example right now. Once Lula’s political rights were restored, he gave this historic three-hour press conference last Wednesday in which he just ripped into the federal government and the Bolsonaro administration’s criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 [pandemic]. He said, “unlike our president, I believe the Earth is round. I don’t believe [Hydroxychloroquine]… or in any other miracle cures”. And as a result, immediately afterwards, Bolsonaro gave a press conference on Facebook Live, [during] which he put a globe on the table to show that he doesn’t believe the Earth is flat, even though he’s made comments to that effect. And he was wearing a mask for the first time in weeks, and now it looks like his health minister is on the way out. He announced that he wants to resign with his entire team [on 14 March 2021]. We don’t know if Bolsonaro is going to let him resign or not, but, the way it’s playing out, it looks like the health minister is resigning and most analysts believe this is a direct result of Lula’s press conference last Wednesday.

© REUTERS / AMANDA PEROBELLI

Brazil’s Supreme Court Annuls Lula’s Conviction, Legalizing 2022 Election Run

[Lula] is leading in all of the polls for the presidency next year, and he also has the lowest rejection rate of any of the 10 top candidates. This is something that’s not been properly reported in the English-language media. They’re lying about him having this really high rejection rate, which is untrue. And he’s 13 points ahead of Bolsonaro in the polls. And so even if he decides not to run, he is going to be a major political force next year. If he doesn’t run himself, the candidate he supports will probably win the election. If there are free and fair elections, if there’s not some kind of fascist clampdown.

*This article has been edited for clarity and concision.