The Olympics are ours: Temer out!

Like everything else done by Temer's coup government—destroying social and political achievements; portraying himself as the savior of the nation; and lying shamelessly—now he also intends to appear as the one responsible for the Olympics in the country. What hypocrisy.

In fact, the holding of the Olympics in Brazil, a dream of Brazilians for almost 100 years, was essentially an achievement of former President Lula and his actions and words spoken at the right time.

In a speech to the International Olympic Committee in 2009, when competing with Tokyo, Madrid, and Chicago, Lula said: "Our time has come. It has arrived! Among the ten largest economies in the world, Brazil is the only country that has not hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games. For the others, it will be just another Olympics. For us, it will be an unparalleled opportunity. It will increase the self-esteem of Brazilians, consolidate recent achievements, and stimulate new advances."

With his vision of Brazil's importance as a political leader in Latin America – a fact to which Temer and Serra are stupidly blind – Lula said: "This candidacy is not just ours. It is also that of a continent with almost 400 million men and women and about 180 million young people. A continent that has never hosted the Olympic Games. It's time to correct this imbalance."

The truth is that thanks to Lula and Dilma, the Olympics are now a reality that will allow Brazil to be seen by 5 billion people around the world.

After much struggle to secure Brazil's bid to host the Olympics, Lula left office having already begun all the infrastructure work, a project that was subsequently continued by President Dilma Rousseff, and which is now a reality that will change the lives of many Brazilians.

We will not allow the vampire Temer to receive applause as the one responsible for the project. Out with Temer. The international community has recognized since 2009 the decisive role of President Lula in Brazil's victory in hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.

The British magazine The Observer stated in an article that year that Rio de Janeiro's victory as host of the Olympics reflected the Lula government's commitment to placing the country among the world's leading political nations.

The publication highlighted the performance of Brazilian diplomacy which, under Lula's leadership, managed to consolidate the importance of the G20 – a group that brings together the twenty largest economies on the planet.

The G-20 was recognized in the United States as the forum responsible for making decisions on a global scale, replacing the G8.

According to The Observer, this "new attitude" in Brazil is largely due to the actions of the Brazilian president.

According to the magazine at the time, Lula is among the South American heads of state who "are helping to put the so-called 'forgotten continent' back on the map."

That same year, the American news agency CNN stated that "Rio's victory is also Lula's victory."

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Olympic Games "crystallize Brazil's rise as an economic and political power."

The Spanish newspaper El País recalled that, upon assuming his second term, President Lula stated that Brazil "was tired of being an emerging country."

According to the Spanish newspaper, the choice of Rio for the Olympics "rewarded Brazil's geostrategic position and the rising economic strength of this gigantic country, which is increasingly emerging and less third-world."

According to El País, Lula's ambition to elevate Brazil to the status of a "developed" country will make him a figure in history. "The future of Brazil, with its lights and shadows, will undoubtedly determine the future of Latin America."

Yes, our struggle to remove Temer's coup government from power is indeed part of the struggle of the Latin American peoples against the advance of imperialism and fascism, and in defense of the hard-won rights of all workers, democratic freedoms, and human rights on the continent.