It doesn't look good for Lula da Silva.

My guess is that even if they were inclined to uphold his right to be on the ballot - as the UN has enjoined them to do (and UNCHR rulings are legally binding in Brazil) - Temer will stop at nothing to coerce them to rule against him.

Supreme Court justices have families too, after all (nice grandkid you've got there; wouldn't want anything to happen to him...).

Still, if Haddad wins, Lula will most likely be freed before long - though even that is far from certain, given what will surely be intense U.S. Embassy pressure to keep him behind bars.

The main reason? They want Petrobras - Latin America's largest corporation of any type - privatized, and for peanuts.

Something similar's happening in neighboring Argentina, where 51% state-owned YPF is sitting on the world's third-largest unconventional oil and gas field (Vaca Muerta, in SW Argentina).

The Trump goal there is to force Argentina to sell a controlling stake in YPF for cheap - which won't happen if Cristina Kirchner (or her allies) return to office next year.

Thanks for reading, Tiggeroshii. Enjoy your weekend!

from the vast majority of Brazilians who deeply support Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and have, for so many years.

Thanks for your reply to the previous poster. Good information for DU readers to learn. The truth should be heard, along with the devious propaganda, one would hope. Side by side, they are easy to grasp. So sad we don't get the truth as often, isn't it?

If they had found material proof that Lula himself accepted bribes, that would be one thing.

But sentencing him to jail over nothing but hearsay obtained from a another prisoner under duress (OAS president Leo Pinheiro, who is said to have been kept in a filthy cell until he broke), is quite another.

Not least because of an obvious conflict of interest on the part of the ruling party and its allies - who have a vested interest in keeping him from being on the ballot.

I'd watch my back if I were Haddad. Temer and his toadies know that if the PT takes office again, all these abuses against Lula - as well as alleged corruption on their part - will be investigated and possibly prosecuted.

For them, that's more than enough reason to have Haddad killed.

It'll be an interesting couple of months in Brazilian news (in neighboring Argentina as well).

Just the immediate foreground of this hellish situation is grotesque and deadly.

I am more thankful than can be expressed to remember what else is happening throughout what has been boiling around and throughout it all. It's no small matter, is it?

It makes you honor the courage of the good people that much more, and very aware of their committment. With the other side, all they've got is treachery and greed, that's it!

Very glad to get that critically important reminder, sandensea. It won't be hard to keep in mind, now that I've got it. You are so right, and thanks.