Lula admits 'possible' PT guilt in offenses against Dilma.

After blaming the "white elite" for the insults directed at President Dilma Rousseff at the opening of the World Cup, former President Lula changed his tone: "It smelled like something organized (the attack on the president). The prejudice, the anger shown. Possibly we are to blame for not having handled this with care. The PT cannot run a campaign without discussing the issue of corruption. We cannot, like ostriches, bury our heads in the sand and say 'this issue is not ours'. We have to debate it," he said in an interview on SBT News.

June 26, 2014, 08:10 pmUpdated July 11, 2018, 06:05 pm

After blaming the "white elite" for the insults directed at President Dilma Rousseff at the World Cup opening ceremony, former President Lula changes his tone: "It smelled like something organized (the attack on the president). The prejudice, the anger shown. Possibly we are to blame for not having handled this with care. The PT cannot run a campaign without discussing the issue of corruption. We cannot, like ostriches, bury our heads in the sand and say 'this issue is not ours'. We have to debate it," he said in an interview on Jornal do SBT (Photo: Roberta Namour).

247 – Former President Lula changed his tone when referring to the insults directed at President Dilma Rousseff at the opening of the World Cup. After blaming the "white elite" for the offenses, he admitted that the government "possibly bears some responsibility" for not having "carefully addressed" the dissatisfaction of part of the population.

"It smelled like something organized (the attack on the president). The prejudice, the anger shown. Possibly we are to blame for not having handled this with care. The PT cannot run a campaign without discussing the issue of corruption. We cannot, like ostriches, bury our heads in the sand and say 'this issue is not ours'. We have to debate it," said Lula, in an interview with Jornal do SBT.

Since last week, the Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Gilberto Carvalho, has been advocating for a review of the PT's (Workers' Party) regarding the episode. After hearing criticism from the PT leadership for denying that insults directed at Dilma came only from the 'white elite', he reaffirmed that the PT is wrong in its diagnosis of the dissatisfaction with the government, due to "the illusion that the people think everything is fine".

On Wednesday, the former president also commented on the trial of the so-called "mensalão" scandal. "My thesis is that this was possibly the trial that was judged with the greatest pressure from certain sectors of the media in the history of humanity. Never before have the people involved in a trial been condemned so far in advance as in this case. I am not judging the ministers, and I will not judge them, even if one decision or another displeases me. It is not my role to judge the Supreme Court. What I think we have to do now is to retell this story."

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