The impact of Lula

Lula da Silva, in São Bernardo do Campo, after being released from prison in November 2019.

The decision of a judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil to annul four processes in which former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of corruption opens a new political scenario by allowing the veteran leader of the Workers' Party (PT) to attend the presidential elections scheduled for 2022. The ruling does not enter into the merit.

The decision is due to a doubt about the jurisdiction of the Curitiba court chaired by the controversial magistrate Sergio Moro, who took the case, and establishes that the processes must be developed in a federal court in Brasilia.

The legal question is still alive, and the Supreme Court itself prepares a new pronouncement in collegiate composition on the issue, pending the evaluation of whether Moro - who gave the great surprise when he became Minister of Justice of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro - acted partially, which could generate a strong expansive wave in multiple trials of the huge Lava Jato plot.

In any case, the possible return of Lula to politics leaves no one indifferent.

His presidency (2003-2011) was one of the most prosperous periods in Brazil and when he left office he enjoyed 80% popularity.

He achieved extraordinary success in lifting tens of millions of citizens out of poverty and inspiring confidence in the future of the country.

However, the emergence in subsequent years of cases or suspicions of corruption that affect the veteran leader and the PT —as well as some of his policies— have generated a deep rejection of a relevant part of the electorate.

It would be undesirable for his return to politics to aggravate the polarization of society, a circumstance in which Bolsonaro has a special responsibility - with his unacceptable rhetoric of dubious democratic commitment, in addition to his disastrous management.

Brazil needs a better political climate, and one that allows it to leave behind the unfortunate period of Bolsonaro, which citizens pay in these months with the dramatic consequences of a disastrous health management of which the current president is the culprit.