SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s Workers Party said on Thursday that its founder and former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be its candidate again in the October election, despite losing an appeal against a corruption conviction that will likely bar him.

Party leader Senator Gleisi Hoffmann announced the plan for Lula’s presidential bid at a rally by labour unions. Wednesday’s unanimous ruling against Lula leaves him with little room to appeal to higher courts and electoral authorities are expected to block his candidacy if he registers to run. </s> BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s Workers Party and labour leaders insisted on Thursday that left-wing hero Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would be their candidate in this year’s presidential race, despite his failure to overturn a corruption conviction that will likely bar him.

Political observers expect the Workers Party to back his candidacy for as long as it possibly can, as without the charismatic Lula on the campaign trail Brazil’s second largest party in Congress faces oblivion.

“We are here to reaffirm Lula’s candidacy for president of Brazil. We have no Plan B. He will be our candidate,” party leader Senator Gleisi Hoffmann said at the country’s largest labour union headquarters.

The two-term former president, while popular, has slim chances of undoing Wednesday’s ruling by an appellate court. His exclusion raises the prospect of a right-leaning reformer winning the Oct. 7 election and sticking to Brazil’s austerity program.

Investors are betting it is game over for Brazil’s most influential politician and early front-runner. Sao Paulo’s stock market hit a new high after the decision and the currency strengthened from 3.20 to 3.14 reais to the dollar.

But Lula accepted the Workers Party nomination, which has to be formalized at a party convention, and told a rally in Sao Paulo that he would “fight to the end” to appeal against his conviction.

“I want to be candidate to win the elections and govern this country,” he said to a crowd that chanted “Lula for president.”

Workers Party leaders called for a civil disobedience campaign to oppose his exclusion from the elections and said they would resist any move to arrest Lula, whose prison sentence was increased by the appeals court from nine to 12 years.

“We need social confrontation to stop this coup. There has to be a rebellion by citizens,” said firebrand Workers Party Senator Lindbergh Farias.

With doubts about his ability to run, other parties will be reluctant to ally themselves with the PT, which could eventually be forced to back another candidate.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts during a meeting with members of the Workers Party (PT), that decided Lula da Silva will be its candidate again in the 2018 election, despite losing an appeal against a corruption conviction that will likely bar him, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, January 25, 2018. REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto

“The 3-0 vote to condemn him and the increase in his sentence was a definitive shock to Lula’s political life. It ends it,” said Sergio Praça, a political scientist at FGV think tank in Sao Paulo.

NOBODY LEFT ON THE LEFT

The exclusion of Lula from the 2018 election would not only leave the Workers Party orphaned but also the Brazilian left.

“There is nobody else on the left with a real chance for victory, and certainly nobody from the Workers Party,” Praça said. “There is nobody left on the left.”

Still, some analysts said Lula, while down after the court verdict, was not entirely out, with consultancy Eurasia saying he has a roughly one-third chance of being able to run.

If Lula is ruled out, his party could ally itself with the center-left Democratic Labor Party (PDT), which stands to gain leftist backers for its candidate Ciro Gomes, a former governor of Ceará state.

Another left-of-center option is environmentalist Marina Silva, who has won more than 20 percent of the votes in the last two presidential elections on an anti-corruption platform.

But she publicly supported the conviction of Lula for taking a bribe and his party is unlikely to join forces with her.

The absence of Lula on the campaign trail is not expected to benefit far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, running second in polling and whose support is in part based on a fear of a Workers Party return to power.

Instead it may open the field for more right of center candidates with clear market-friendly stances.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a meeting with members of the Workers Party (PT), that decided Lula da Silva will be its candidate again in the 2018 election, despite losing an appeal against a corruption conviction that will likely bar him, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, January 25, 2018. The sign reads:"In defense of democracy and Lula." REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto

The strongest contender at this point is Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, president of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), the country’s third largest party which privatized state companies in the 1990s and would continue that policy.

Other potential candidates jockeying for position before the race kicks off are lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia and Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, a former banking executive and architect of Brazil’s economic recovery plan.

Maia is a staunch backer of Meirelles’ efforts to overhaul Brazil’s costly social security system, the main cause of Brazil’s budget deficit, and both would ensure pension reform was completed if elected. </s> Brazil's Workers Party said on Thursday that its founder and former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be its candidate again in the October election, despite losing an appeal against a corruption conviction that will likely bar him.

SAO PAULO: Brazil's Workers Party said on Thursday that its founder and former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be its candidate again in the October election, despite losing an appeal against a corruption conviction that will likely bar him.

Party leader Senator Gleisi Hoffmann announced the plan for Lula's presidential bid at a rally by labour unions. Wednesday's unanimous ruling against Lula leaves him with little room to appeal to higher courts and electoral authorities are expected to block his candidacy if he registers to run. </s> Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) on Thursday began a meeting to reaffirm its plans to register President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as its presidential candidate, even though an appeals court's decision to uphold his corruption conviction has cast doubt on his eligibility to run.

Lula, who governed Brazil between 2003 and the end of 2010 and remains his country's most towering political figure, is taking part in what the PT calls a "historic meeting." </s> Lula barred from running in October elections; Haddad will lead the PT slate

Brazil's top electoral court, TSE, on early Saturday ended the political comeback plans of former president Lula da Silva, barring him from running in elections in October. Lula is in prison having been sentenced to twelve years for corruption last April.

The six to one vote denied the request to register the popular politician, who is comfortably leading opinion polls, and also banned Lula da Silva from advertising on radio and television, as the electoral campaign period takes off September first.

His defense has ten days to appeal the TSE sentence and could also attempt to make a presentation before the Supreme Court, or Supreme Federal Tribunal.

The former president claims he is innocent and the conviction is part of a political ploy designed to keep him out of the election. This comes in spite of repeated rulings by Brazil’s court system that he was guilty of accepting favors from construction companies that had dealings with the national oil company Petrobras.

The sentence means that Lula da Silva's current vice president candidate, Fernando Haddad, ex Sao Paulo mayor, will head the PT presidential slate having Manuela D'Avila, a deputy from the Brazilian Communist Party as his running companion following on an earlier accord between the two political groups.

We are facing a very simple operation of applying an unequivocally clear law that consecrates the ineligibility of someone who has been convicted, said the lead judge on the case, Luís Roberto Barroso. I declare the ineligibility of the candidate.

The decision promises to further complicate what is already the most unpredictable election in the recent history of South America’s largest economy. The next Brazilian president will need to implement reforms to help an economy still struggling to emerge from recession and resolve a crippling budget deficit that is threatening the country’s long-term solvency.

Lula da Silva was registered by his Workers’ party, PT, as its candidate for this year's election in spite of a clean slate law that forbids people who have had a criminal conviction upheld on appeal from running for public office.

Recent polls showed him potentially transferring votes to his likely replacement, Fernando Haddad, giving the economist and former São Paulo mayor a strong chance in the election.

In the latest Datafolha poll, 49% of respondents said they would or might vote for a candidate anointed by Lula da Silva.

Outside the jail where Lula is locked up in the southern city of Curitiba, supporters gathered earlier in the evening for a vigil, lighting candles and holding placards reading Free Lula.

Following the midnight decision PT made public a release complaining that the TSE sentence rejecting Lula da Silva's candidacy was a political cassation, based on lies and arbitrary arguments, just like in the time of the dictatorship.

Despite the violence of the decision barring Lula, PT will continue fighting by all means to ensure Lula's candidacy, and anticipated it will be presenting before all the courts to have Lula's political rights, as established by law and international agreements ratified by Brazil, recognized.

The former president defense's team argued that the TSE must follow on the United Nations Human Rights Commission statement recommending that Lula be allowed to participate in the coming October election.

However Brazil's Attorney General Raquel Dodge said that the UN Human Rights Commission recommendation could not be applied in this case, since Brazil never promulgated the international accord which mandates submission to that UN body.

It was the defense of human rights that motivated the Clean Slate bill in first place. It was a citizenship initiative, following massive demonstrations of the civil society, approved by Congress and sanctioned by then president Lula da Silva, said Dodge.

The Attorney General added that the Clean Slate bill supports democracy and good governance, and this specific case, contrary to violating fundamental rights, it protects them”. </s> Brazil's highest electoral court on Friday night ruled that Luiz Inacia Lula da Silva, the popular Leftist former president who is serving a 12-year prison term for corruption, cannot stand in October's presidential election.

Mr da Silva, 72, has been incarcerated since April for accepting a bribe, but remained the front runner among Brazilians to win the election.

But barring dramatic events - the judges can reconsider their decision after the vote of the last two magistrates - the former president, who is best known as Lula, cannot run for a third term.

In an extraordinary session the Superior Electoral Court dashed Mr da Silva's hopes after six hours of debate, with the result coming in at 4-1 before the last two judges cast their votes - enough to seal his fate.

Moments later his Workers' Party (PT) vowed to "fight with all means to secure his candidacy". </s> Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva amid supporters during the final rally of his week-long campaign tour of southern Brazil, in Curitiba, Parana state, March 28, 2018. AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
• Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva looks likely to be jailed after an unsuccessful fight against a corruption conviction.
• Lula would be the highest-profile Brazilian figure brought down in the Car Wash corruption investigation.
• His exit would also significantly change the makeup of the upcoming presidential election, in which he is the front runner.

In the early morning hours on Thursday, Brazil's top court voted 6-5 vote a deny a request from former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to stay out of jail while he appeals a corruption conviction.

That ruling was followed by federal judge Sergio Moro, who has led the Car Wash corruption investigation that has shaken Brazil's business and political worlds, giving Lula until 4 p.m. ET on Friday to turn himself in and begin serving a 12-year sentence.

A petition to quash the warrant was denied late on Friday afternoon, but Lula's supporters counted down the final seconds, chanting "There is no surrender" after it passed. Lula himself was reportedly on his way on his way to address supporters from a sound truck outside the union headquarters, with riot police also on site.

"According to Moro's office, [Lula's] not technically a fugitive, until Moro issues an order that says he is, which he hasn't, basically because ... we know where he is, on a sound truck," Globe and Mail Latin America correspondent Stephanie Nolen wrote on Twitter late on Friday afternoon.

"Federal prosecutors in Curitiba tell AFP that Lula's missed deadline is kind of OK for now. He's not officially a fugitive. Not yet. This is Brazil," AFP correspondent Sebastian Smith said on Twitter.

Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves to supporters in front of the metal workers' union headquarters in Sao Bernardo do Campo, April 5, 2018. AP Photo/Nelson Antoine

Lula's party, the Workers' Party, has condemned the decision and pledged he will remain its candidate for the October presidential election.

"We consider this to be a political imprisonment. An imprisonment that will expose Brazil before the world," party chairwoman Gleisi Hoffmann said Thursday. "We will become a banana republic."

His lawyers have said they will file injunctions to keep him out of jail, but those are unlikely to be granted. Being jailed would not necessarily end his candidacy, as the country's top electoral court will make final decisions about who can run in August.

Lula can continue seeking his release and still has not exhausted his appeals.

But the Thursday ruling has "major implications" for the race, said Thomaz Favaro, Control Risks' analyst for the Southern Cone region, making it much more likely the court will reject Lula's run based on the Clean Slate Law that bars candidates with convictions that have been confirmed by an appeals court. (Though he could still be granted an exemption to that.)

A demonstrator holds up a sign that reads, in Portuguese, "Lula, a thief's place is in prison" as people shout slogans against Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in front of the Federal Police Department in Curitiba, April 6, 2018. AP Photo/Leo Correa

The party's vow to keep Lula on the ballot means he "is therefore likely to remain on campaign mode and he will continue to seek legal loopholes that would allow him to run," Favaro told Business Insider. "The questioning of the judiciary's decision serves the PT's narrative of being victims of a politically motivated trial."

That narrative seems unlikely to resonate with many voters however.

With Lula's strong rebuke of the judiciary and investigators, "he was kind of playing into some of his core supporters from the left and moving away from the center position that actually got him elected before," Fernando Mello, chief political analyst at the Brazilian news site Jota, said on a Friday conference call.

"By aiming his discourse to the left supporters," Mello added, "Lula might have eliminated more the center or the majority of the population, because we have not seen many people going to the streets, for example, to defend him."

That response has also likely been shaped by attitudes toward the legal proceedings against Lula, which have been viewed as fair, even if the prosecution itself is seen as misapplied.

According to a survey conducted Thursday by Ideia Big Data, "80% of the Brazilian population think that the trial was a fair trial," Mauricio Moura, the firm's founder and chief pollster, said on the Jota conference call, adding that 55% of Lula voters said the same.

Supporters of Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with signs that read, in Portuguese "No to prison for Lula," outside the Metallurgic Union headquarters, after an arrest warrant for Lula was issued, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 5, 2018. AP Photo/Andre Penner

"Nine out of 10 Brazilians support ... the Car Wash operation, and 85% support the work of judge Sergio Moro," Moura said. "And from the Lula voters, 75% think that he is going to jail in the next day, so they already internalized the fact that he's going to jail."

"Lula was convicted in open court. Ruling unanimously upheld by 3-judge appellate panel. Ensuing motions rejected by higher courts [including the] Supreme Court. So, this was not one 'renegade' judge. He had due process," Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, said on Twitter. "On the other hand, if you're intellectually honest, it's impossible to justify why Lula is going to jail when so many other corrupt politicians walk free (& still hold office)."

Lula's likely exclusion from the race means more trouble for Brazil's already divided political left. While Lula, who left office after two terms as president with over 80% approval, has successfully boosted other candidates before — helping Dilma Rousseff follow him into office — he may not play kingmaker this time around.

"Local pollsters indicate that his party colleagues, Jacques Wagner and Fernando Haddad, have less than 5% of voting intentions in their best scenarios, with rejection rates north of 50%," Favaro said.

"Although the polls are probably underestimating the electoral strength of a PT candidate, it is nevertheless clear that no substitute would be able to reach Lula's levels of support."

Taking Lula out of the mix may also undercut Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, an extreme-right candidate who has been polling in second behind Lula, buoyed by attacking the left.

The current president, Michel Temer, who is considering running, has record-low approval, with 72% of Brazilians rating his government "bad" or "terrible." Just 5% said it was "good" or "great."

"The votes originally intended to go to the former president are likely to be scattered through leftist and centrist candidates," Favaro told Business Insider.

Other candidates from the left and center, like Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labour Party or Marina Silva of the Sustainability Network, could get a boost in a Lula-less field, Favaro said, but those votes may come from a much smaller pool.

"A substantial amount of Lula's supporters are likely to engage in some form of protest vote — or simply refrain from voting at all," Favaro added. "An electoral race without Lula would most likely report the lowest turnout in recent history." </s> Demonstrators against Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva watch as Supreme Court justices’ votes are made public outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil’s top court is voting on whether da Silva can stay out of prison while appealing a corruption conviction, a decision that could radically alter October’s presidential election in Latin America’s largest nation. (Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SAO PAULO — A federal judge issued an arrest warrant on Thursday for former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, dealing a major blow to the once wildly popular leader who was trying to mount a political comeback ahead of October’s elections.

The warrant came several hours after the country’s top body, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, voted 6-5 to deny a request by da Silva to stay out of prison while he appealed a corruption conviction that he contends was simply a way to keep him off the ballot.

Judge Sergio Moro gave da Silva 24 hours to present himself to federal police in the southern city of Curitiba. In a note, Moro said he was giving da Silva the opportunity to come in on his own accord because he had been a president of the nation.

Last year, Moro convicted da Silva of trading favours with a construction company in exchange for the promise of a beachfront apartment. That conviction was upheld by an appeals court in January.

Earlier Thursday, the head of Brazil’s Workers’ Party warned that jailing da Silva would turn Latin America’s largest nation into a “banana republic.” Da Silva’s lawyers put out several statements saying they were filing injunctions in hopes of keeping him out of prison.

Despite the conviction and several other charges against him, da Silva leads preference polls ahead of the presidential election in October.

“We consider this to be a political imprisonment, an imprisonment that will expose Brazil before the world,” said Gleisi Hoffmann, chairwoman of the Workers’ Party. “We will become a banana republic.”

Hoffmann also insisted that da Silva, 72, would be the party’s candidate in October. Da Silva, who Brazilians simply call “Lula,” has not spoken since the ruling.

Like so much in a nation that has become deeply polarized, the reality that the once popular leader would be jailed was being interpreted differently by supporters and detractors.

“Brazil scored a goal against impunity and corruption,” said Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a right-leaning former army captain who is second in the polls after da Silva.

“It was applied to only one person,” she said. “As if Lula were the only thief in this country.”

Da Silva, president between 2003 and 2010, is the latest of many high-profile people to be ensnared in possibly the largest corruption scandal in Latin American history. Over the last four years, Brazilians have experienced near weekly police operations and arrests of elite, from top politicians to businessmen like former Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht.

Investigators uncovered a major scheme in which construction companies essentially formed a cartel that doled out inflated contracts from state oil company Petrobras, paying billions in kickbacks to politicians and businessmen.

The list of targets of the so-called “Operation Car Wash” investigation includes President Michel Temer, who took power in 2016 after da Silva’s successor and protege, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached and ousted from office.

Last year, Temer was twice charged with corruption but remained in office because in both cases Congress, which must vote on criminal cases involving a sitting president, decided to spare him prosecution. Many members of Congress have been charged with corruption or are being investigated.

Da Silva was convicted in July of helping a construction company get sweetheart contracts in exchange for the promise of the apartment. He denies any wrongdoing in that case or in several other corruption cases that have yet to be tried. An appeals court upheld the conviction in January, and the three reviewing magistrates even lengthened the sentence to 12 years and one month.

Technically, the Supreme Federal Tribunal’s decision doesn’t keep da Silva off the ballot. In August, the country’s top electoral court makes final decisions about candidacies. It was expected to deny da Silva’s candidacy under Brazil’s “clean slate” law, which disqualifies people who have had criminal convictions upheld. However, da Silva could appeal such a decision, though doing so from jail would be more complicated.

Sen. Lindbergh Farias from the Workers’ Party said vigils would be organized nationwide beginning on Friday.

“People want to be close to President Lula after this injustice,” he said.

Whether the Workers’ Party will be able to mobilize major demonstrations remains to be seen. During the impeachment trials against Rousseff in 2016, many demonstrations were small despite calls by major unions to take to the streets. </s> Brazil’s top electoral court has barred jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from running in the upcoming presidential election.

The Supreme Electoral Court ruled on Friday that Lula da Silva, who is serving a 12-year sentence for a corruption conviction, cannot run for a third term, eliminating the front-runner ahead of the October’s election.

“I declare the ineligibility of the candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva based on the first article, subsection one, letter A, items one and six, of the law 64 of 90 of the Clean Slate law and as a consequence, I reject his registration as a candidate to compete for the presidency in the 2018 elections,” said Luís Roberto Barroso, the judge presiding over the case.

Brazil's top electoral court also barred Lula from taking part in any election campaign advertising on radio and television.

Lula was the 35th president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011, with an approval rating of above 80 percent, and has been serving a 12-year prison sentence since April after being found guilty of money laundering and corruption. The 72-year-old veteran politician has dismissed his conviction as part of a plot to prevent him from returning to power.

Brazil’s most popular politician has been leading early opinion polls. Lula’s lawyers have said they would appeal the supreme court’s decision. Under Brazilian electoral law of Clean Slate, politicians are not authorized to run for office within eight years of being found guilty of a crime.

Lula’s Workers’ party, PT, registered its founder as its presidential candidate for the October 7 vote, arguing that he is innocent and the victim of political persecution.

“When you prevent the most popular leader in the country from running for election, the risk for Brazilian democracy is very high,” the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, said in an interview before the court ruling.

Running a campaign largely from his prison cell, the leftist leader has been able to garner nearly 40 percent of prospective votes for October’s presidential election, according to the latest polls. His nearest rival, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, enjoys 19 percent of voter support.

The Workers’ party has until September 17 to replace Lula with another candidate or forfeit the presidential bid. The party is widely expected to cast Lula’s vice president, Fernando Haddad, as his replacement.

In mid-August, a United Nations panel ruled that Lula cannot be disqualified from the election because his legal appeals are underway. The Brazilian government, however, described the committee’s conclusions as a recommendation, saying it was not legally binding.

Lula is convicted of taking $1.2 million in bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht in return for granting the company public contracts. He also faces another six trials for other corruption charges, but has denied any wrongdoing.
The Brazil Workers' Party (PT) insists that former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be their candidate for the upcoming presidential election even as a conviction for corruption bars him from participating. The São Paulo stock market hits new highs and the value of the Brazilian real strengthens.