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Agence France-Presse

Brazil’s leftist icon Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of prison on Friday, injecting new energy into a weakened opposition.
The former president’s exit drew cheers from supporters who had gathered to celebrate the release of the man who rose from poverty to lead the country through an economic boom.
Hundreds of red-shirted Brazilians applauded the popular, 74-year-old politician as he walked out of the federal police building in the southern city of Curitiba.
His release came less than a day after the Supreme Court ruled that a person can be imprisoned only after all the appeals have been exhausted.

Da Silva, who is appealing his conviction of corruption and money laundering in connection with the purchase of a beachfront flat in Sao Paulo state, embraced his daughter, raised his fist to the sky and made his way onto a stage surrounded by his girlfriend and others.
“You have no idea the dimension of the significance of me being here with you,” Da Silva told jubilant supporters, thanking individual union leaders and members of his leftist Workers’ Party, known as PT. “They didn’t arrest a man. They tried to detain an idea. An idea doesn’t disappear.”


Da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, has been imprisoned since April 2018. His release is likely to reinvigorate an opposition weakened by corruption scandals, the impeachment of Da Silva’s hand-picked successor, Da Silva’s imprisonment and, more recently, a clobbering in the 2018 general elections. But it’s not clear what political role he will seek now that he is free.
While he is barred from office as his appeals run their course, the former leader of the Workers’ Party remains a popular figure on the left. Still, he could find himself back in jail if his appeals do not go his way.
Election court bans imprisoned Lula from Brazil presidential race
His release also could anger right-leaning Brazilians who had viewed his imprisonment as proof Brazil was finally serious about putting an end to impunity. Lula’s 2018 jailing drove the two sides of Brazil’s already-polarised society even further apart, and his release is set to reignite tensions.
In addition to promising to root out corruption and curb violence, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro ran a strong campaign on anti-Workers Party sentiment. He won the election with 55 per cent of the vote and was sworn in on January 1.

Da Silva, who governed from 2003 to 2010 had been favoured to win the 2018 presidential election, but his conviction eventually prohibited him from running.
The former president has said that when free, he would travel around the country rallying opposition. Political analysts say he might not immediately enter into a direct confrontation with Bolsonaro, seeking instead to influence the next presidential election in 2022.
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“The thing that makes Lula most dangerous to Bolsonaro is that Lula understands the long game,” said James Bosworth, founder of Hxagon, a political risk analysis firm, stressing that the politician had run four times before being first elected in 2003.
“Lula is an old school union and political organisers who is going to take his time placing PT and other allies into positions to take advantage of Bolsonaro’s weaknesses in the coming years,” he said.

The former union leader is widely referred to as a “political animal”. He presided over a period of rapid growth fuelled by a commodities boom that expanded the country’s middle class.
His huge Bolsa Familia welfare program helped lift millions from poverty, and he left office with an approval rating above 80 per cent. His impassioned oratory can just as easily elicit laughter or tears from those among his supporters.
For Claudio Couto, a professor in political science at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas university in Sao Paulo, Da Silva’s release will have profound consequences on both sides of Brazil’s political spectrum.

On the one hand, it will serve Bolsonaro’s anti-PT and anti-Lula rhetoric, Couto said. “On the other hand, it ends the PT’s ‘Free Lula’ rhetoric, and forces the party to take on another agenda.”
Left-leaning supporters hailed the release of their standard-bearer, but want more and are now advocating for his name to be cleared.
While he is out of jail, the former leader remains entangled in several court cases.
Aside from the beachfront flat, he was also sentenced by a lower court judge in a case centred around ownership of a farmhouse in Atibaia, outside Sao Paulo. If he loses his appeals in either conviction, he could find himself imprisoned once again.

Da Silva has denied any wrongdoing and accuses Car Wash prosecutors and then-judge Sergio Moro, now Justice Minister, of political persecution.
In a separate Supreme Court debate, justices will decide whether Moro was biased when he delivered his rulings. Protests supporting Moro and his anti-corruption crusade have been scheduled this weekend in major Brazilian cities.
Sitting beside his girlfriend in the back seat of a car driving him away from the prison where he spent the last 19 months, Da Silva reassured his supporters in a brief Facebook live: “I’m going to work for the rest of my life to repay you, with gratitude, with love, with work.”


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Brazil

Brazil ex-president Lula da Silva released from prison after controversial court ruling

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is received by a crowd of supporters as he leaves the Federal Police building in Curitiba. Photo: Agencia Estado via Xinhua

A supporter of Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves a Workers Party (PT) flag, outside the Federal Police headquarters where Lula is serving a prison sentence, in Curitiba, Brazil November 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

epa07981443 Demonstrators protest outside the headquarters of the Federal Police after the ruling of the Supreme Court that could release from prison former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Curitiba, Brazil, 08 November 2019. A very controversial decision taken this Thursday by the Brazilian Supreme Court opened the doors of the prison to former President Lula da Silva and thousands of prisoners with pending appeals, with an unpredictable political impact. EPA-EFE/HEDESON ALVES

Supporters of Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrate his freedom after his release from prison, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil November 8, 2019. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares REFILE - CORRECTING DESCRIPTION OF SCENE

Supporters of Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gesture outside the Federal Police headquarters where Lula is serving a prison sentence, in Curitiba, Brazil November 8, 2019. REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

Brazil’s ex-president Lula da Silva is temporarily released from prison to attend grandson’s funeral

Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2-L) is escorted back to his prison after attending the funeral of this grandson Arthur Araujo Lula da Silva, in Curitiba, Brazil. Photo: EPA-EFE

epa07409165 Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva leaves the place where the funeral of his grandson Arthur Araujo Lula da Silva is celebrated, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, 02 March 2019. Former President Lula da Silva was allowed by the Brazilian Justice to attend the funeral of his grandson, who died on 01 March 2019 by meningitis. EPA-EFE/Fernando Bizerra

Supporters of Brazilian former president (2003-2011) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gather outside the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba, Parana state, Brazil where he will arrive after a federal court authorised his release for a few hours to attend his grandson's funeral in Sao Paulo, on March 2, 2019. - Lula, who is serving two concurrent 12-year sentences for corruption, was granted leave from prison to attend the funeral of his young grandson in Sao Paulo, who died at the age of seven. (Photo by Franklin De FREITAS / AFP)

A police helicopter carrying Brazilian former president (2003-2011) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, arrives at the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba, Parana state, Brazil where he is serving a 12-year prison sentence, after a federal court authorised his release for a few hours to attend his grandson's funeral in Sao Paulo, on March 2, 2019. - Lula, who is serving two concurrent 12-year sentences for corruption, was granted leave from prison to attend the funeral of his young grandson in Sao Paulo, who died at the age of seven. (Photo by Franklin De FREITAS / AFP)

Brazil’s Lula da Silva, languishing in jail, finally ends his presidential bid and names running mate as successor

In this file picture taken on August 7, Manuela D'Avila (left), of Brazil's Communist Party jokes during a press conference with former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad, of the Workers Party, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Haddad has stepped up as the Workers Party’s presidential candidate after the withdrawal of jailed ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose photo serves as a backdrop at the press conference. D'Avila was named as Haddad's running mate. Photo: Agence France-Presse

(FILES) In this file picture taken on January 16, 2018 Brazilian former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a meeting with intellectuals at Oi Casa Grande Theater in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. - Brazil's jailed ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva resigned his candidacy for another presidential term on September 11, 2018 as he serves a corruption sentence and named his running mate Fernando Haddad as his replacement for the October 7 election before a court-ordered deadline. (Photo by Mauro PIMENTEL / AFP)

Workers' Party presidential candidate Fernando Haddad arrives to attend a campaign rally outside federal police headquarters where former President Luiz inacio Lula da Silva is jailed for corruption, in Curitiba, Brazil, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018. Brazil's Workers' Party replaced da Silva with Haddad as its presidential candidate for October's general election, clarifying one of the biggest question marks hanging over the vote to lead Latin America's largest nation. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Brazil’s president feels the heat as Amazon inferno rages

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Reuters

TOPSHOT - Handout aerial picture released by Greenpeace showing smoke billowing from forest fires in the municipality of Candeias do Jamari, close to Porto Velho in Rondonia State, in the Amazon basin in northwestern Brazil, on August 24, 2019. - Brazil on August 25 deployed two Hercules C-130 aircraft to douse fires devouring parts of the Amazon rainforest. The latest official figures show 79,513 forest fires have been recorded in the country this year, the highest number of any year since 2013. More than half of those are in the massive Amazon basin. Experts say increased land clearing during the months-long dry season to make way for crops or grazing has aggravated the problem this year. (Photo by Victor MORIYAMA / GREENPEACE / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / GREENPEACE / VICTOR MORIYAMA" - NO MARKETING - NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - NO RESALE - NO ARCHIVE - IMAGE AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION AND DOWNLOAD UNTIL 09.09.2019 - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO C

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Supreme Court decision paves way for release of thousands of convicts
Mobbed by supporters, Lula vows to ‘continue fighting’ for ordinary Brazilians



Leftist icon allowed to go thanks to controversial Supreme Court decision that paves way for release of thousands of convicts.


Americas and the Caribbean

Brazil ex-president Lula da Silva released from prison after controversial court ruling

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Supreme Court decision paves way for release of thousands of convicts Mobbed by supporters, Lula vows to ‘continue fighting’ for ordinary Brazilians

Supreme Court decision paves way for release of thousands of convicts

Mobbed by supporters, Lula vows to ‘continue fighting’ for ordinary Brazilians