The obsession to remove Lula from Brazilian political life, with full-blown political persecution, confirms that Brazil has left democracy behind and is moving dangerously towards a dictatorship, through a coup d'état, the action or inaction of the Judicial system and systematic campaigns of defamation carried out by the media.

This is what Lula denounces when he says that we are entering a State of exception and what he expresses in his document to the United Nations, following the same route as Julian Assange, supported by the same lawyer.

The political and legal scandal of accusing Lula without any proofs, through unfounded declarations made by a politician, who alleges that Lula had attempted to interrupt investigations of corruption; the attempt to imprison him without any justification, make up a political persecution way beyond the limits of democracy. When the Judicial Power is an accomplice of this persecution, when the media are the principal agents that attempt to make him guilty in public opinion without any proof, the framework of a democratic State of law has been abandoned and substituted by pure and simple persecution.

The attempt to exclude the only leader who enjoys prestige among the people from Brazilian politics is an attempt to impose a coup d’état on the legitimization of Brazilian politics, in order to open a space for the audacious coup perpetrators and the fascist saviours of the fatherland. To achieve this, they have to attempt to invalidate the political leadership that had restored dignity to Brazil and self-esteem to Brazilians. It is indispensable for them to attempt to measure with the same yardstick the corrupt coup perpetrators who are now assaulting the Brazilian state and the popular leader who has contributed most to democratizing the country.

While Lula’s popular leadership continues to be fully exercised, these schemers could not proceed with the systematic destruction of democracy that they pursue, nor with selling off the public patrimony, or destroying the rights of workers, or the public resources that have served to democratize access of the people to the fundamental rights guaranteed by public policies.

Lula is the last pebble in the shoe of the vandals who are attacking democracy and assaulting the Brazilian state. They bring together the most corrupt politicians and those who claim to be fighting corruption. The existence of an unquestionable popular leader such as Lula refutes the thesis that all politicians are bad, that Brazilian political life is totally perverted, that there is no hope of rescuing Brazil, and that we should be on our knees before the empire that they adore. 

The obsession with destroying the public image of Lula can only take place by dictatorial acts of violation of the rights of the ex-president and favourite candidate to return to be president of Brazil. If they confided in the surveys that they have fabricated, they would leave Lula to be defeated by the people in a democratic election. There would be no greater condemnation of Lula than that made democratically by the people. 

The fact is that they know that their surveys are forged. Let Lula face any other candidate in a campaign and see what happens. These others will not even be able to organize the elections since they will not expose themselves to the public denunciations of the population.  Every time Lula meets with the people, in elections, in meetings, in the streets, the coup perpetrators tremble and realize that only through a coup, through juridical and political persecution, can they get him out of the playing field.  But by doing so, they confirm that Brazil is already under a dictatorship.

If Lula's appeal to the United Nations disturbs them, they should provide a demonstration that Brazil still is a democracy, letting the people determine freely whom they want to govern the country. They should definitively abandon the persecution of Lula, renounce their government that came to power via a coup, and the travesty of putting into practice a programme opposed to that for which the coup perpetrator was originally elected.

There is no longer democracy in Brazil if the greatest popular leader in the history of the country is systematically persecuted without any proof against him and prevented from subjecting himself to the democratic decision of the people in an election. The protests against the denunciations made by Lula to the world mean nothing. Until recently, international public opinion was carried by the pro-coup Brazilian media. But when the international press came to Brazil, they realized that the local media had propagated lies and the the Brazilian media were demoralized in the eyes of the world. Now they have lost any credibility.  Meanwhile, the international press have realized that the corrupt are on the side of Michel Temer and Eduardo Cunha, the coup perpetrators, and not with Dilma and Lula.

Now the international press are echoing the denunciations of Lula and the appreciation that the fundamental criterion to judge whether democracy still exists or not in Brazil is to put an end once and for all to the persecution against Lula and to leave Brazil’s destiny in the hands of the Brazilians, rather than of the corrupt coup perpetrators.

01/08/2016

(Translated for Alai by Jordan Bishop)

- Emir Sader, Brazilian sociologist and political scientist is coordinator of the Laboratory of Public Policy in the State University of Río de Janeiro.