Without Lula, there will be no election, says Luis Felipe Miguel.

247 - See the analysis published by political scientist Luis Felipe Miguel on his Facebook:

A Datafolha poll, published in today's Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, shows that despite the intensified persecution against him, Lula continues to win in all scenarios for the presidency. In fact, his approval ratings have improved and his rejection rate has fallen. I believe it is no coincidence that the newspaper does not present any line graph, which would allow one to observe the evolution of voting intentions over time.
The fact is, if there's an election, Lula will win. If he would win today, imagine with an election campaign, when he will have access to the media and can present his version of events and somewhat counterbalance the angry campaign that has been waged against him for years.

Without Lula, there will be no election, at most an "election." It is truly incredible the tranquility, the composure, the nonchalance with which the Brazilian Judiciary is willing to remove the clear favorite from the competition, based on flimsy evidence, to say the least, and in a questionable and contested process. In any other country in the world, the implications of such a step would be weighed, and the risk of emptying the electoral process of meaning would only be assumed if there were compelling and indisputable evidence against the candidate.

Ah!, say the defenders of Lava Jato, but this is proof that the "institutions" are working wonderfully. Justice is blind, it doesn't care who the defendant is and issues its decisions based on the case files, without worrying about collateral consequences.
But that's not the case – this doesn't reflect the Brazilian justice system, much less its branch in Curitiba. However, the institutions are indeed functioning, certainly not as the Constitution that was torn up preached, but in accordance with their historical role of protecting the interests of the ruling class.

The predictable conviction of Lula, with the consequent removal of the frontrunner from the presidential race, shows that the right wing has gone for broke. After the coup, it decided to completely disregard the veneer of popular legitimacy that should be present in the exercise of power. It shows this every day, with the unpopular measures of the usurper government, and it shows it by removing from the 2018 elections the slightest chance of representing a reconnection between the people and the rulers.

Not even the former president's repeated overtures to members of the coup-plotting political elite and to the gods of the market, as a way of demonstrating that his return to the Planalto Palace will not represent a rupture, are enough. In the Brazil that the coup is creating, there is no room for this type of agreement, no room for a government that dares to think about compensatory policies, however timid they may be.

A few pages later, the continuation of the Datafolha survey reveals that "voter support for democracy" has fallen, measured by agreement with the statement "democracy is always better than any other form of government." I won't even go back to discussing how epistemologically bizarre these opinion polls are. But I'll put myself in the position of a citizen with little political education, that is, the vast majority: if what we have here is what they call "democracy," how can I judge that it's a good form of government?
Perhaps what is really collapsing is support for the oligarchy, a word that much better defines the government we have.