Brazil's president Bolsonaro continues to deny the Covid crisis, as Lula's return to politics creates shockwaves from the favelas to Wall St.

Paul Jay

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Brazil is mired in perhaps the worst COVID crisis on the planet, as President Bolsonaro continues to deny there even is a crisis. He's making Trump look rational as COVID cases and death continue to surge in the largest country of South America and the ninth largest economy in the world. In the midst of such calamity, former President Lula da Silva was declared eligible to run for president in 2022. As a judge of the Supreme Court he essentially found, he was railroaded into jail by another Supreme Court judge who went on to be Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice.

The possibility of Lula running again for president—and he already leads in most polls even though he hasn't said for sure he's even going to run—has caused shockwaves from deep in the Brazilian favelas to offices at the top of Wall Street banks. Well, Lula lead a broad front against Bolsonaro. And if he wins, what kind of policies will he advocate?

In a recent speech to the Metalworkers' Union, Lula said, 'It's always important to reiterate, whenever you can, the planet is round. And Bolsonaro doesn't know it.' Well, has Brazil had enough of the insanity of Bolsonaro? Will he follow Trump out the presidential door in 2022? And if he loses the election, will he leave? Or will the Brazilian military intervene to stop a new era of Lula and the Brazilian left in power. That said, there was lots of criticism of Lula from the left as well while he was president. So if he wins, will he resist international finance or try to get along, as many people think he did too much of in the past?

Now joining us is Lorena Barberia. She's a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of São Paolo. Thanks very much for joining me, Lorena.

Lorena Barberia

Thanks. It's good to be with you tonight.

Paul Jay

So start with what's been going on. So there's a couple of decisions. The first judge that said that Lula could be retried, but for now, he can run again as president. But then there's another decision I think happened yesterday or today. So where are we at with this process?

Lorena Barberia

So we're in the process where . . . That's correct. After many, many months, it's very important to say that Lula has been outside of jail. He was freed several months ago. But since he was freed up to now, he's been very low profile in the media. He hasn't been granting interviews or giving major speeches because his case was under review and was awaiting a decision in the Supreme Court.

And a decision was made that found that the decision was really important because, as you explained, it allows for him to be able now to present himself for office if he wishes to come forward as a candidate in 2022. So that's a first decision.

But following very shortly after the decision regarding Lula, there was a second decision this week which was discussing the judge who originally made the decision that put Lula in prison, ruling that there was bias in the way that decision was made and in the way that the procedures that were undertaken in the investigation.

And so that second decision has also been very important because the judge who prosecuted Lula,