The EconomistJanuary 27th 2018 331T
HE verdict was a bombshell but not a
surprise. On January 24th, with police
helicoptersin the sky over Porto Alegre, a
city in Brazil’s south, and snipers on roof-
tops, a three-judge panel ata federal court
unanimously upheld the conviction of
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former presi-
dent, on charges of corruption and money-
laundering. Awaiting the decision, thou-
sands of his supporters camped less than a
mile away. They were both angry and defi-
ant. “It’s political persecution,” insisted Ev-
eraldo de Souza, a construction worker
from the southern state of Santa Catarina.
The court’s decision has big implica-
tions for Brazil’s presidential election, to be
held in October. Lula is the most popular
potential candidate by far. A recent poll
suggested that36% of voters would back
him, double the share who support his
nearest rival, Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing
extremist. The confirmation of Lula’s
guilty verdict will not deter him from run-
ning. Indeed, he was expected to an-
nounce his candidacy asThe Economist
went to press. The presidential campaign
has, in effect, started in a courtroom.
This means that the election, thought
by some to be the most important since the
end of dictatorship in 1985, will be a mess.
The ficha limpa(clean record) law, signed
by Lula himself in 2010, barscandidates
whose convictions have been upheld by
an appeals court from running for office for
eight years. If Lula finds a way around that,energise Lula. He embarked on a tour of
Brazil, drawing enthusiastic crowds, espe-
cially in hisnative north-east, which bene-
fited more than other regions from social-
spending programmes that he initiated.
This week’s affirmation of the guilty
verdict begins a race by the courts against
the electoral calendar. The ficha limpalaw
can be invoked only after Lula registers as a
candidate with the supreme electoral tri-
bunal (TSE), which must happen by August
15th. Lula can appeal against any objection
to his candidacy to the TSEand then to Bra-
zil’s supreme court. In the meantime, he
can campaign. If the courts move slowly,
he could win the election only to have his
candidacy annulled by the supreme court,
perhaps triggering a new election. That
dire prospect will spur the judges to act
quickly, reckons Christopher Garman of
Eurasia Group, a risk-analysis firm.
If they bar Lula before September 17th,
his Workers’ Party (PT) could replace him
with another candidate. Gleisi Hoffmann,
the party’s president, says there is no “Plan
B”. In fact, the PTwould probably put up
another candidate should Lula drop out,
perhaps Fernando Haddad, an ex-mayor
of the city of São Paulo, or Jaques Wagner, a
former governor of Bahia, a north-eastern
state. Butthe longer Lula stays in the con-
test before withdrawing, the more votes
his understudy is likely to win.
The prospect of an election without
Lula has cheered financial markets, which
fear that he would resume Ms Rousseff’s
spendthrift policies. After the news from
Porto Alegre, Brazil’s currency jumped by
more than 2% against the dollar.
Many of Lula’s foes would prefer him to
stay in the race, in part to persuade his sup-
porters to respect the outcome. “It would
be better for him to be defeated politically,”
said Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, to
Folha de S. Paulo, a newspaper. Even rivaland wins, Brazil may face a constitutional
crisis. His candidacy would enrage voters
who think the right place to send him is jail,
not the presidential palace. Billboards in
Porto Alegre depict him in prison uniform;
40% of Brazilians would never vote for
him, the polls say. But if he is kept off the
ballot in the first round on October 7th, the
slightly smaller group that supports him
will damn the election as illegitimate.
Lula left office at the start of 2011 with an
approval rating of 83%. But in 2014 the
economy entered its worst recession on re-
cord. Then, in 2016, his protégée and suc-
cessor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached. In
September of that year Sérgio Moro, the
federal judge in charge of Lava Jato (“Car
Wash”), a vast corruption investigation,
agreed to hear charges that Lula accepted a
seaside apartment worth 2.2m reais
($690,000) from OAS, a construction firm.
In return, prosecutorsalleged, Lula encour-
aged Petrobras, the state-owned oil com-
pany, to award contracts to OASduring his
time in office. Last July Mr Moro found Lula
guilty and sentenced him to more than
nine years in jail. The judgment was sus-
pended pending appeal. The appeals-
court judges increased the sentence to 12
years, but are not enforcing it immediately.
Lula says the apartment was never his
and vigorously protests his innocence. He
accuses Mr Moro of plotting to deny him a
third term as president.
The original guilty verdict seemed toBrazilNot beaten yet
PORTO ALEGRE
A court has confirmed a guilty verdict against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. That may
not end his careerThe Americas
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