Jailed Lula Endorsed by Workers’ Party for Brazil's Top Job

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s left-wing Workers’ Party formally endorsed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the upcoming presidential election, even though the former leader’s been in jail since April. Former President Dilma Rousseff, removed from office in 2016, is also hoping for a comeback.

The Workers’ Party, known by its Portuguese acronym of PT, pushed ahead with Lula’s candidacy during a convention on Saturday in Sao Paulo. “Our democracy is at risk,” Lula said in a letter read by a TV soap-opera actor at the event. “They want to rig the election.”

Lula, 72, denies any wrongdoing, saying he’s been imprisoned to pull him out of the election race. The PT has yet to announce his running mate, but local media outlets reported Sunday the most likely choice would be former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad.

The party also put forward Rousseff, 70, as a candidate for Senate on Sunday. Brazil’s first female president, a former Marxist guerrilla-fighter, was impeached two years ago after being found guilty of breaking the country’s fiscal stability laws.

Lula leads opinion polls but is likely to be barred from running because of his criminal conviction for corruption and money-laundering. While he remains hugely popular among the millions of Brazilians who saw their quality of life improve during his administration, he’s loathed by many for a sweeping corruption scandal and populist economic measures pursued by his party that helped trigger a crippling recession.

Trailing Lula in the polls are Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, and Ciro Gomes, a leftist former governor who’s pledged to undo recent, market-friendly reforms. But the electoral landscape remains fluid. According to pollster Datafolha, roughly 80 percent of Brazilian women are undecided or intend to annul their vote.

On Saturday, other candidates were also endorsed by their parties for Brazil’s top job. The center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party, knows as the PSDB, backed Geraldo Alckmin, 65, in a convention in Brasilia.

“I want to reform the state,” Alckmin, Sao Paulo state’s former governor who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign against Lula in 2006, said at the event. “The current state inefficiency suffocates Brazilians’ capacity to create businesses and innovate, while punishing those who invest, produce and create jobs.”

Alckmin’s candidacy got a boost last month after he secured a coveted alliance with a group of centrist swing parties, assuring him ample free advertising time on television. On Aug. 2 he confirmed Senator Ana Amelia as a running mate, a move seen boosting his standing among rural and female voters.

Former Environment Minister Marina Silva, 60, was named the official nominee for her party, Rede Sustentabilidade. Silva is making her third presidential bid even though her party has just three representatives in Congress.

With no clear favorite and many undecided voters, Brazil’s October presidential election looks the most uncertain since the nation’s return to democracy in 1985. Voters will head to the polls with memories of the country’s worst recession on record and a historic corruption probe fresh on their minds.

--With assistance from Matthew Malinowski.

To contact the reporter on this story: Samy Adghirni in Brasilia Newsroom at sadghirni@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Raymond Colitt at rcolitt@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Mark Niquette

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