More than ever, Lula

No country in the world – especially not in the critical situation Brazil is in – can afford not to have the best president the country has ever had to overcome the worst crisis in its history.

Two months with Lula imprisoned – without a crime and without evidence – only strengthens the contrast between a destroyed country, a dismantled government, and a leadership increasingly consolidated by popular support and the personification of the project that made Brazil experience the most virtuous moment in its history.

This is only possible because the coup and the forces that carried it out are dedicated to dismantling the country's productive structure, the rights of the masses, and the leadership that could lead Brazil to resume building a just, democratic, and sovereign nation.

Keeping Lula imprisoned is part of a process that benefits speculative capital, large international corporations, and the US – hindering Brazil's path to becoming a great nation in the world, a just and supportive society, and a state serving the country and its people.

They are all part of the same plot against Brazil and its people: the corrupt media, the judges dedicated to persecuting Lula, and the congressmen elected with money from large private companies. It is not enough for them to testify without evidence against a president recently democratically re-elected by the people. To prevent the destruction of Brazil from being reversed, they need to make Lula's candidacy unviable and remove him from the very political life of the country, where he daily denounces judicial abuses, social injustices, and the sell-out of national assets.

Persecuting Lula is an intrinsic part of the project to destroy Brazil as a nation, as a solidarity-based democracy, as a just society. If they don't do this, by the most arbitrary means, they know what will happen. Lula will be elected president, he will call a referendum to repeal the monstrous laws approved by the coup, he will reverse the neoliberal economic model, he will recover the State's capacity to lead economic development and social justice.

Therefore, they are all part of the same anti-national, anti-popular, anti-democratic project: the Temer government, with all the gang that seized power; the Supreme Court and its complicit silence regarding the abuses of Lava Jato; the owners of the main media outlets; the parliamentarians and parties that supported the coup and the arbitrary measures that have been implemented since then.

They have a government they built, an economic policy imposed against the popular will, an illegitimate Congress, a Judiciary that commands arbitrary power, and a large business sector that only wants to profit from financial speculation. They have all of that, but they don't have the support of the people. And, most importantly, they have against them the only great political leader in Brazil, Lula.

Lula is the thorn in the side of the right wing, the coup, the coup-mongering media, the illegitimate government, and the arbitrary judiciary. Every time his figure reappears, as yesterday, as a witness in a trial, his image reappears in the eyes of the people as who he is: the President of all Brazilians, with his speech, his energy, his persuasive ability, his brilliant humor and spirit, displaying all his leadership capacity. His image projects even further over other politicians, with his greatness and his leadership ability. He is a ghost that keeps the right wing and its spokespeople awake at night.

They took away Lula's freedom, preventing me from addressing the people every day, from traveling throughout the country, from directly coordinating the leftist forces, from being with the people daily, but he continues to rise in the polls and his opponents, of all kinds, have no significant support. Lula's figure, far from leaving the race as so many pre-candidates want, only grows larger, showing how indispensable he is, and the only way to defeat the coup and rebuild Brazil.