By EFE-EPA

Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil – Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva warned current head of state Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday, a day after he was released from prison, that he is back and ready to resume an all-out political struggle.

Supporters of Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (C) carry him on their shoulders in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, on Nov. 9, 2019. (EPA-EFE / Sebastiao Moreira / MANILA BULLETIN)

“They have no idea of the desire I have to fight for this country” and for its workers, Lula told thousands of people who had gathered outside the headquarters of the ABC metalworkers’ union in Sao Bernardo do Campo, where the 74-year-old icon of Brazil’s left first rose to prominence as a labor leader.

PREDICTS BOLSONARO DEFEAT IN 2022

On Saturday, Lula told his supporters that will travel all over Brazil to spread his political message “because it’s not possible that we live in a country in which the wealthy get richer and the poor are always poorer.”

In that regard, he accused Economy Minister Paulo Guedes of being a “destroyer of dreams.”

Brazil’s head of state from 2003 to 2011 also said he is certain that when the next presidential elections are held in 2022 “the so-called left that that Bolsonaro is so afraid of is going to defeat the far right that is governing today.”

Lula said Bolsonaro’s market-friendly economic policies were having a devastating impact on the most needy, adding that he plans to tour the country to remind people that his administration has already shown that “it’s possible to govern for the neediest,” ensure that the poor can attend university and generate employment and prosperity.

PRISON OVER EXILE

Lula acknowledged that despite his release from prison he has not yet overturned two convictions and still faces several other corruption charges, but he said those cases are nothing more than “one lie after another.”

The ex-president left prison on Friday after the Supreme Court – in a 6-5 decision on Thursday night – ruled that defendants convicted of crimes should not be imprisoned until they have exhausted all of their appeals. Some 5,000 people also could benefit from the high court’s decision.

In April of last year, the ex-president began serving a sentence of more than 12 years (later reduced to eight years and 10 months) for allegedly accepting bribes from Brazilian construction company OAS, one of the companies embroiled in a $2 billion corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras.

The ex-head of state also was convicted by federal Judge Gabriela Hardt in another corruption case in February of this year and sentenced to 12 years and 11 months behind bars.

In both cases, Lula was found to have accepted bribes in the form of property renovations even though he never owned the real estate in question.

Those cases also were based largely on plea-bargained testimony from people already convicted of corruption offenses.

His incarceration led to his being barred from the 2018 presidential election amid polls showing that he would have won by a wide margin.

Lula’s exclusion from that balloting paved the way for Bolsonaro – a professed admirer of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime – to win the presidency.

Despite Lula’s release, he will not be able to run for office again unless he is able to get his criminal conviction overturned.

On Saturday, Lula said he had been unjustly convicted but still chose prison over exile because he needed to prove that the charges leveled against him were lies.

“I could’ve gone to an embassy, to another country, but I needed to prove the lie and that Sergio Moro (who was the federal judge who handed down the conviction in the OAS case and is now Brazil’s justice minister) wasn’t a judge but rather a swine,” Lula said.

Serious questions have been raised about Lula’s first conviction in the wake of the publishing on June 9 by online news outlet The Intercept of the leaked contents of private communications among prosecutors and Sergio Moro, the judge who presided over the OAS case and is now Brazil’s justice minister.

Moro rose to prominence by overseeing a sprawling probe – known as “Lava Jato” (Car Wash) – into a massive corruption scandal centered on Petrobras.

Messages exchanged between Moro and prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol via the Telegram app show that the then-federal judge was deeply involved in shaping the prosecution strategy against Lula.

A member of Lula’s legal team, Cristiano Zanin Martins, said on June 11 that he and his colleagues will use the conversations to buttress their case for overturning the former president’s conviction.

The team expects Brazil’s Supreme Court to rule on the habeas corpus motions already filed questioning the impartiality of the trial, the attorney said.

BOLSONARO’S REACTION

The current head of state commented for the first time on Lula’s release on Saturday outside the presidential palace.

“He’s free, but with all his crimes on his back,” Bolsonaro said, adding that “most Brazilian people are honest, hard-working” and will not “be tolerant with convicts.”