Morales Won’t Run in Bolivia’s Next Election, Deputy Says

EFE. November 21, 2019

MEXICO CITY – Bolivia’s former vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera told EFE on Thursday that while neither he nor erstwhile president Evo Morales will run in elections expected early next year, they will insist on being allowed to return to the country for the campaign.

“It’s clear that Evo and Alvaro will not be candidates so as not to generate opposition from the coup forces,” Garcia Linera said in Mexico City, where he and Morales arrived on Nov. 12 after the Bolivian military forced them to resign.

The interim government in La Paz “is prepared to continue killing Bolivians” to keep the deposed president and vice president off the ballot, Garcia Linera said.

Both Morales’ leftist MAS party and the leader of the interim government, right-wing Sen. Jeanine Añez, have presented legislation to enable fresh elections.

Bolivians just went to the polls on Oct. 20, but the opposition refused to accept results showing a victory for Morales, claiming fraud, and weeks of unrest culminated in the ouster of the country’s first indigenous president.

Garcia Linera, 57, demanded that Añez allow for a transparent electoral process open to participation by all of the Andean nation’s political forces.

“We won’t be candidates, but we have the right to speak, to opine, to think, to propose, to support someone. It is our constitutional right,” the ex-vice president said.

“If they are free elections, with respect for constitutional guarantees, we have to recognize the result, whoever wins,” he said when asked about a possible victory for the right.

Garcia Linera, who took office along with Morales in 2006, acknowledged that MAS underestimated the reaction from the right to their decision to seek a fourth term in last month’s balloting.

“We did not calculate this highly racialized and fascist awakening of the comfortable sectors of the middle and upper classes against the indigenous people,” he said.

Echoing sentiments he expressed in an interview with EFE in 2016, Garcia Linera said that he initially didn’t want to accompany Morales on the ballot this year, but felt obliged to run when urged to do so by Bolivia’s main labor federation.

Three years ago, Garcia Linera told EFE that he had already made up his mind to leave office in 2019 and return to civil society to wage an “ideological struggle” in defense of the process of change begun by Morales.

Even so, he said on Thursday that he had no regrets about running with the 61-year-old Morales.

The elections were clean, Garcia Linera said, and the elected judges of Bolivia’s Constitutional Court upheld Morales’ right to seek another term.

Asked about Añez’s claims that Morales was instigating road blockades in Bolivia with the intent to create food shortages, Garcia Linera said that mobilizations against the interim government “are not organized by telephone, or by WhatsApp, or by Skype.”

“The magnitude of the mobilization, especially in the city of El Alto, is a matter that has nothing to do with leaders close to us. It’s an explosion that comes from below,” he said.

“When they kill you, what can you do to defend yourself?” Garcia Linera asked, alluding to the deaths of at least 29 people during protests against the interim government.

As he was talking to EFE in Mexico, Bolivian police were using tear gas to break up a procession of thousands of people carrying the coffins of the eight activists who died in an encounter with security forces earlier this week in El Alto.

The march from El Alto reached the center of nearby La Paz just before 2:30 pm and participants had paused on the edge of Plaza San Francisco square when police launched tear gas canisters, sending people scurrying down side streets to escape.

Simultaneously, motorcycle-mounted riot cops plowed into the multitude, made up overwhelmingly of members of Bolivia’s indigenous majority.

The day after the Oct. 20 vote, the Organization of American States (OAS) said that Morales and former head of state Carlos Mesa had appeared to be headed for a runoff before an “inexplicable change” in the trend of the vote count occurred.

Morales maintained that his late surge in the balloting came after votes from remote rural areas were counted. Yet he agreed to an OAS audit of the votes against a backdrop of violent protests.

The OAS released its findings Nov. 10, saying that there had been a “clear manipulation” of the process and calling for a new election.

Morales responded to the OAS statement by immediately agreeing to a new vote. But the armed forces commanders appeared on television to “suggest” that the president step down.

Hours later, amid a wave of mob violence that included an arson attack on the home of the president’s sister and the abduction of family members of MAS officeholders, Morales and Garcia Linera announced their resignations in a video posted online.

Bolivia’s socialist party considers a future without Morales

CARLOS VALDEZ. AP. November 21, 2019

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — After a month of deadly unrest, the political party of former Bolivian President Evo Morales appears to be positioning itself for a future without the man who led the country for 14 years.

New indigenous leaders in the Movement Toward Socialism party are talking about change, a sign that they are open to the idea of contesting elections without Morales as a candidate.

“We’re an organized party and we have to be revamped for the elections,” said Mónica Eva Copa, a party leader who is the new Senate president.

“We’re open to change,” Copa said.

Even so, there appear to be divisions in the party once led by Morales, who resigned Nov. 10 after a disputed election in October and sought asylum in Mexico.

While some members say Morales should let others lead, one Movement Toward Socialism lawmaker has suggested Morales is entitled to be a candidate in any new elections.

Bolivia’s interim president, Jeanine Áñez, has sent a bill on holding new elections to congress, which is dominated by the Movement Toward Socialism.

Bolivia is struggling to stabilize after weeks of violence in which at least 30 people have been killed.

Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, claimed re-election in last month’s vote, but the opposition alleged fraud and protests against the president broke out. An audit by the Organization of American States concluded there were irregularities in the vote and Morales quit after the military urged him to do so.

While some Morales supporters want him to return from exile and he has described himself as “president-elect,” some leading lawmakers in his party are taking a more nuanced position.

Lawmaker Juan Cala of the Movement Toward Socialism is a critic of the interim government that replaced Morales, but he also said the rank-and-file of his party had become increasingly isolated from Morales toward the end of his rule.

“Now his inner circle is in exile, we’re still here and it’s up to us to renovate politics,” Cala said.

Áñez, the interim president, has said Morales could face prosecution for electoral fraud if he returns to Bolivia. Her government has also accused the former leader of stirring up violent demonstrators from his base in Mexico.

Morales’ party, though remains powerful. Most of Bolivia’s mayors, governors and biggest unions are affiliated with the Movement Toward Socialism.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated that the U.S. believes Morales has no place in Bolivia’s political future.

“Those who participated in the egregious irregularities and manipulation of the vote in the flawed October 20 election must, for the good of Bolivia, step aside and let Bolivians rebuild their institutions,” Pompeo said in a statement.

Three dead in Colombia protests: defence minister

AFP. November 22, 2019

Three people were killed during nationwide demonstrations in Colombia as part of a general strike protesting against the policies of President Ivan Duque's right-wing government, the defence minister said Friday.

Carlos Holmes Trujillo told reporters that the deaths had taken place during disturbances in the western Valle del Cauca department.

"Over the last few hours, the authorities have confirmed the death of two people during clashes in Buenaventura and of another in Candelaria, municipalities in Valle del Cauca," the minister said.

Hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets in the capital Bogota and other cities on Thursday to protest Duque's economic, social and security policies.

There were reports of arrests and clashes as trade unions, students, opposition parties and the South American country's indigenous organizations took to the streets.

In a statement late Thursday, Duque announced that he had heard the protesters' demands, but did not respond to their request for direct dialogue.

"Today, Colombians spoke. We hear them. Social dialogue has been a main principle of this government and we need to deepen it with all sectors of society," he said.

The protests come amid social upheaval across South America, as a wave of unrest over the past two months has battered governments in Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.

The popularity of Duque's right-wing government -- a key US ally -- has been on the wane since his election 18 months ago, as it deals with hosting 1.4 million refugees from neighboring Venezuela's economic meltdown as well as the complex fallout of a 2016 peace deal with FARC rebels and rampant drug trafficking.
Western Andean Region [contents]

After Morales: Bolivia faces uncertain future as violence ragesAFP. November 2,1 2019

Bolivia's interim leadership has asked Congress to approve the organisation of new elections in the bitterly divided country as deadly violence continues to rage following the resignation of leftist President Evo Morales.

Bowing to pressure from the military – which joined demonstrators’ calls for his resignation after weeks of protests – Morales stepped down on November 10 and later sought asylum in Mexico following a disputed presidential election he was accused of attempting to rig.

Bowing out unceremoniously after 14 years in power, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader was replaced by the deputy head of the Senate, Jeanine Anez, a member of the conservative opposition who became next in line for the presidency after Morales, his vice-president and the leaders of both chambers of Congress all quit.

But since she entered the presidential palace on November 12, bible in hand, the new interim president has faced the wrath of Morales supporters, who want their champion reinstated

Outnumbered in Congress and facing hostile protests, the right-wing provisional government appointed by Anez is heavily dependent on the police and the military to keep it in power.

Controversially, it has issued a decree allowing the armed forces to take part in restoring order and exempting them from criminal liability. This has contributed to an escalation of violence in a country where tensions had been building since the disputed October 20 presidential vote.

According to the Public Defender’s Office, a state-appointed rights watchdog, the unrest has killed at least 27 people and injured more than 700.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has accused the government of encouraging violence and military repression, and demanded the right to investigate the bloodshed.

Adding its voice to the chorus of criticism, the NGO Human Rights Watch has urged Bolivia’s interim president to repeal the decree granting the military broad discretion in the use of force.

Back to the polls?

In order to end the stand-off, Anez has promised to organise new elections quickly and appoint an independent electoral board to replace the one that was tarnished by the October 20 poll.

On Wednesday, her cabinet presented a bill that would annul the results of last month’s election and pave the way for a new vote.

To secure the bill’s passage, the government needs the support of Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, which controls both chambers of Congress and has already submitted its own proposals for a new election.

Should the two sides fail to reach an understanding, Anez would still have the option of calling an election by presidential decree.

That is what prominent conservatives have been calling for, including Carlos Mesa, a former president and Morales’s main challenger in last month’s election, and Luis Fernando Camacho, a vociferous right-winger who emerged as the leader of the anti-Morales protest camp following the botched poll.

Morales party at a crossroads

Analysts say only the prospect of new elections could help pacify the country and bridge the divide between the current ultra-conservative government, which has rushed to fill the political void left by Morales’s abrupt departure, and supporters of the former president, who claim their champion was toppled in a coup.

According to Claudia Benavente, who heads the Bolivian daily La Razon, divisions within Morales’s party have further muddied the waters.

“MAS is in crisis, its strategy is unclear,” she argued. “There’s no doubt negotiations are taking place within the movement.”

In recent days, MAS has been playing several cards at once, agreeing to dialogue in Congress while backing the protests in the streets. Party activists have blockaded major cities and fought running battles with security forces, most notably in the region of Cochabamba and the high-altitude city of El Alto, a working-class bastion of Morales.

“MAS is fighting for its survival,” sociologist Franck Poupeau told French daily Le Monde, though cautioning that the party “can hardly be eliminated as such”. He added: “One mustn’t forget that between 40% and 45% of Bolivians voted for Morales and there can be no political scenario that excludes this constituency.”

The Anez administration at one point contemplated banning MAS, before backtracking.

“The provisional government is living on a knife-edge: a situation of chaos, caused by excessive repression, would only precipitate the return of Evo Morales,” Benavente warned, pointing out that all those killed in the violence “came from poor, indigenous segments of society” loyal to the former president.

Bolivian right seeks unity – and legitimacy

Many in the anti-Morales camp say speedy and transparent elections are necessary to ensure that the former president, who angered many by clinging to power in defiance of term limits, can no longer pose as a “coup victim”.

The former coca farmer has been tweeting furiously from his Mexican exile, blasting the brutal repression that is targeting his supporters. On Wednesday, he accused the security forces of engaging in “genocide” against indigenous Bolivians and called on the international community to intervene.

Also at stake in looming elections is the leadership of the conservative camp, whose figurehead Mesa has been sidelined in the space of just a few weeks.

“Carlos Mesa got a lot of votes on October 20, but he is no longer the head of the opposition,” said Benavente. “He now has a formidable rival in Fernando Camacho and will find it very difficult to unite the opposition behind him.”

Mesa, who plays no part in the Anez administration, personifies an old order that has been largely eclipsed by the government, added Benavente. Instead, she noted that the cabinet featured “a number of members from the province of Santa Cruz who are hostile to the Collas [mainly indigenous highlanders] and advocate a very hard line” on the protests.

According to the Bolivian feminist campaigner Maria Galindo, the current government – which she labels “fascist” – urgently needs an election “to apply a veneer of democratic legitimacy on a regime that rests on the occupation of cities by the police and army”.

And in order to achieve this, “the participation of MAS is essential”, she added.

But she was equally scathing in her assessment of the strategy pursued by Morales and his deputy, Alvaro Garcia Linera, whom she blamed for “causing a power vacuum and spreading panic” in a desperate bid to save “a crony regime that collapsed under the weight of its own decadence”.

Clashes in Colombia as hundreds of thousands protest against government

Joe Parkin Daniels. The Guardian. November 21, 2019

Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have taken to the streets in a show of support for the country’s embattled peace process with leftist rebels – and to protest against its deeply unpopular government.

Pensioners, students, teachers and union members joined marches across the country in one of biggest mass demonstrations in recent years.

In the capital, Bogotá, police helicopters whirred overhead, while riot police fired teargas at protesters who had blocked bus routes before dawn. Despite torrential rain, thousands of people thronged the city’s historic Plaza de Simón Bolívar, singing the national anthem.

The marches began in Bogotá largely without incident, although a few clashes broke out near Bogotá airport between protesters and riot police around midday. As the rain cleared, more confrontations broke out across the city in the early evening. Explosions could be heard across the city. Teargas was fired in the Plaza de Simón Bolívar and at the campus of the National University, where protesters battled with security forces.

The national strike was prompted by proposed cuts to pensions weeks ago. Though the reform was never formally announced, it became a lightning rod for widespread dissatisfaction with the government of President Iván Duque, whose approval rating has dropped to just 26% since he took office in August last year.

Protesters also expressed anger at the perceived slow-walking of the rollout of the country’s historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc) rebel group. That accord formally ended five decades of civil war that killed 260,000 and forced more than 7 million to flee their homes.

Others say Duque has done little to protect social leaders and indigenous people, who are being murdered at alarming rates. Public fury has also been stoked by a recent airstrike against a camp of dissident rebel drug traffickers, which left eight minors dead.

“We live in a country that kills children, that kills social leaders, with a government that is against peace,” said Alexandra Guzmán, a businesswoman who hires ex-Farc members to work at her furniture workshop. “That is why we have to change something. We cannot continue to live like this.”

And as in Chile, which has been mired in more than a month of unrest, many in the expanding middle classes feel left behind as the economy continues to grow.

“It is not the economy that is growing like Duque and his friends say. It is the profits of the bankers that are growing, which means that they are draining the economy,” tweeted Gustavo Petro, an opposition senator who ran against Duque for the presidency last year, ahead of the march.

“I’m marching today because my generation need a pension when we grow old,” said María Rodríguez, a student who was marching with her colleagues. “We have to stand up for our rights.”

The marches were mostly peaceful, although clashes broke out near Bogotá airport between protesters and riot police.

In the past, such protests have failed to attract large turnouts, which activists attribute to a fear of being demonized as hardline leftists or rebel sympathizers.

“We have fought for generations to make sure we are no longer persecuted to speak,” said Mafe Carrascal, a prominent activist who attended the marches in Bogotá. “The peace process gave us a big tailwind in showing that to support peace is not to be a defender of the guerrillas.”

Also in attendance was Jacqueline Castillo, a mother whose brother was murdered by the army before being falsely declared an enemy Farc combatant – one of thousands of so-called “false positive” killings that plagued the country from 2002 to 2008. Some reports say the practice may have returned.

“We aren’t scared to fight for justice and peace, and we’ll take to the streets until we get it,” Castillo said. “The people do not surrender, dammit!”

'Referendum on Duque': Thousands march against Colombia president

Megan Janetsky. Al Jazeera. November 22, 2019

Bogota, Colombia - Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the dense city streets of Bogota and other cities across Colombia on Thursday as the country joined a wave of others in South America experiencing anti-government demonstrations.

Protesters sent out a unified cry against the right-wing administration of President Ivan Duque, whose approval ratings have plummeted amid an uptick in violence, a flailing peace process and general unrest country-wide.

What began as a peaceful demonstration, and one of the biggest in recent years, had descended into chaos by the end of the day. Police clashed with protesters throwing rocks and bottles and a cloud of tear gas hovered over the city centre.

"They're throwing tear gas and dispersing, abusing the people," protester Milena Riano shouted over loud crashes and the roar of the crowd running from police in riot gear. "I'm so scared because I have kids."

Civil society groups opposing economic reforms by Duque's right-wing government announced the strike last month. But after weeks of protests in Chile prompted by continuing economic inequality, unrest in Bolivia and riots in Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela and Brazil, the day morphed into something more potent; an accumulation of growing woes against the Colombian government.

"In my community, in my department of Cauca, they're killing our social leaders in our indigenous lands ... they're killing us selectively," said Almayari Barano Yanakuna, a 48-year-old indigenous woman who stood among crowds of thousands.

Hoisting a rainbow indigenous flag over her shoulder, she said her home in western Colombia was once defined by bloodshed, and while there was a brief respite in 2016 when the government signed landmark peace accords, violence against her community was once again ticking up, and along with it, their fears.

She travelled to the capital, she said, to send a message to the Duque and the country.

"Today, I want to send the message that they respect our ancestral territories, that they respect life," she said. "We don't want any more killings."

Duque's slightly-more-than-a-year in office has been marred by deep political divides, tethered especially to the government's failure to comply with the country's peace process, corruption and the killings of social leaders.

Those tensions have only deepened in recent weeks with the killing of indigenous people by criminal groups in the Cauca and the resignation of Duque's defence minister after a bombing aimed at dissidents of the demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group killed at least eight children.

'Referendum on Duque'
While student and indigenous groups in the country have rallied in past months, the demonstrations brought with them violence, but little change. Thursday's protests, dubbed #ParoNacional, or #NationalStrike, appeared to strike a different chord.

Collective support by student, indigenous, labour, political and social groups - each bringing with them their own tribulations - turned the day into what Andes Director of Washington Office on Latin America Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli called a "referendum on Duque". While social leaders, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities denounced growing assassinations and threats against them, university students railed against corruption and the chronic underfunding of education.

"It's not just a protest about 'Can we change whoever is in the government'," Sanchez said, "But it's the fact that the whole political and economic system is failing the needs of the broader Latin Americans."

Camila Romero, an 18-year-old university student had taken part in student demonstrations three times before that were marked by a violent crackdown by the Colombian security forces. She said Thursday's protest was not just about the students any more, and because of that, she hoped it would have a larger ripple effect.

"This is different than the others," Romero said. "It's a national event. It's not just a small part of the population, of the citizens that have come to protest. No, it's everyone."

In the lead up to the protests, Duque's administration called for extra security forces and permitted local government extra powers to avoid violence.

In a video, the president called for peace, but said the government would "guarantee order and defend you with all the tools the constitution grants us".

Thursday's protest remained peaceful for the vast majority of the day, but when protesters began throwing rocks and bottles and chanting: "Get out Duque", police in swat gear who had lined the streets in Bogota's city centre, Plaza Bolivar, pushed back.

With intense clashes with police stretching into the night how Duque chooses to respond could be a turning point for the South American country, Sanchez said.

"It can be an opportunity for positive constructive change," she added. "It depends a lot on how the government takes this. Do they take this as a warning sign that they need to shift their approach … or do they buckle down and make this about something else?"

Video shows car driving into crowd of protesters in Chile after weeks of violence

Michael Brice-Saddler and Rachelle Krygier. Washington Post. November 21, 2019

Graphic videos and images showed a vehicle drive into crowds of Chilean protesters Thursday, an incident that could intensify already violent clashes in the country over income inequality and other economic disparities.

The attack appeared to take place Thursday evening in Chile’s northern province of Antofagasta. In videos, protesters dive out of the way as a car speeds down the street into demonstrators. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were injured as a result.

The incident comes amid protests that began in mid-October when students jumped subway turnstiles to protest a rise in ticket prices. It has since swelled into a sustained movement that includes middle-class Chileans, and some from sectors that include union workers and professionals. The demonstrators are demanding political and economic transformation that they call “a new social pact.”

In response to the protests, which have already resulted in as many as 20 deaths as well as thousands of injuries and arrests, President Sebastián Piñera declared the country was at war — which only served to intensify the protesters’ furor.

As videos of Thursday’s attack circulated on social media, people attempted to identify the car and its driver. Some pointed out that after the car drove off, a similar-looking vehicle was seen entering a local police station in Antofagasta.

By Thursday night, the Chilean national police force confirmed the attack took place, tweeting that the person responsible had been delivered to their headquarters in Antofagasta. A photo of the suspect’s car showed numerous dents and cracks on the windshield.

Police said the suspect, who was not named, would move to detention control Friday for security.
In hundreds of replies on social media, people expressed doubts about the police account, suggesting the driver may have actually been an officer. But police moved quickly to shut down those theories, saying reports that suggested otherwise were fake, using the English-language hashtag “#fakenews.”

An Amnesty International report released Thursday concluded that Piñera has exerted a “policy of punishment” against the people of Chile. The report says five people have died at the hands of security forces, but other independent and local sources have figures up to 20. More than 2,300 people have been injured, and the public prosecutor’s office has registered more than 1,100 complaints of “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” according to Amnesty International — including 70 sex crimes committed by public officials.

The armed forces responded to the Amnesty International report in a written statement, saying the report contained “no evidence, direct or indirect” and that their intention had always been to “protect the people, the rights of our people, and the critical infrastructure of our country given grave violent crimes that were being committed.”

In recent days, however, Piñera admitted that the police and military had used excessive force in some instances. Police have suspended the use of rubber bullets after reports of terrible eye injuries.

“There was excessive use of force, abuse and crimes, and human rights were not respected,” he said in a televised speech at the presidential palace.

Exclusive: Bolsonaro is turning back the clock on Brazil, says Lula

Sam Cowie. The Guardian. November 21, 2019

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has vowed to spearhead opposition to the country’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, warning that his country is backsliding on years of hard fought progress.

“Bolsonaro has already made clear what he wants for Brazil: he wants to destroy all of the democratic and social conquests from the last decades,” he told the Guardian.

In his first interview for a foreign newspaper since he was released from prison two weeks ago, the two-term president said his mission now was to “battle for democracy”.

“The Worker’s party is preparing to come back and govern this country!” he said, slapping the table. But Lula made no clear indication he would run for president in the country’s next general elections.

“In 2022, I’ll be 77. The Catholic church – with 2,000 years of experience – retires its bishops at 75,” he said.

The former union leader, who was born into barefoot poverty in Brazil’s semi-arid back lands, strolled into his Worker’s party’s headquarters in São Paulo’s gritty downtown, greeting a dozen people with handshakes or kisses.

Nearly 40 years after leading metalworker strikes in São Paulo’s industrial suburbs during Brazil’s military dictatorship, Lula’s energy and passion for politics remain astonishing.

But he pulled few punches when talking about Bolsonaro – an outspoken supporter of Brazil’s military dictatorship and an admirer of Chile’s Pinochet as well as modern-day authoritarian leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

“Let’s hope that Bolsonaro doesn’t destroy Brazil. Let’s hope he does something good for the country … but I doubt that,” he said.

The former president expressed dismay at alleged links between Bolsonaro and organized crime.

Sine the murder last year of Marielle Franco, a popular Rio de Janeiro councilwoman, several photos have emerged of the president posing with suspects in the killing, who are allegedly linked to shadowy paramilitary gangs.

“Once, talking about paramilitaries was a rare thing … today, we see the president surrounded by paramilitaries,” he said.

And it’s not only national politics where Bolsonaro is going wrong, Lula said.

“His submission to Trump and the US … is really embarrassing” he said.

Lula’s opinion is shared by a generation of diplomats disgusted by the damage being inflicted on Brazil’s soft power status under Bolsonaro’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, who believes climate change is Marxist plot.

“Brazil’s image is negative right now. We have a president who doesn’t govern, who sits discussing fake news 24 hours a day,” he said. “Brazil has to have a role on the international stage.”

Lula said he was “excited” to see left-leaning leaders back in office Argentina and in Mexico but was deeply saddened by the current crisis in Bolivia, where Evo Morales resigned under pressure amid allegations of voting fraud.

“My friend Evo made a mistake by trying for a fourth term as president,” he said. “But what they did with him was a crime. It was a coup – this is terrible for Latin America.”

Lula spent 580 days in prison on controversial corruption charges he always claimed were politically motivated to stop him from running in 2018’s elections.

Recent leaked conversations appeared to show Sérgio Moro – the judge who convicted him – colluding with Lula’s prosecutors. Moro went on to join Bolsonaro’s government as justice minister.

“I hope one day that Moro is tried for the lies he told,” Lula said.

Lula said that he was able to survive detention thanks to dozens of supporters who camped outside the police headquarters in the city of Curitiba where he was held.

“I left prison with a bigger heart … Because of the activists I didn’t get bitter inside,” he said.

After his release, Lula addressed tens of thousands of supporters in Recife in the Workers’ party stronghold region of north-eastern Brazil. Another event this Friday in São Paulo was cancelled at the last minute due to bad weather but many more rallies are planned next year.

Lula left office in 2011 with a near 90% approval rating, having overseen a remarkable eight-year period of growth and social inclusion in one of the world’s most violent and unequal countries.

But his time in office was also tainted by a string of major corruption scandals which ensnared figures from across the political spectrum – and cleared the way for the rise of the far right.

Bolsonaro, formerly a fringe figure, swept to power amid a perfect storm of economic downturn and political crisis, after Lula was imprisoned.

“No one predicted Bolsonaro’s election – not even him,” said Lula.

The years leading up to 2018’s bitterly fought election – during which Bolsonaro was stabbed on the campaign trail by a mentally ill man – were marked by increasing polarization.

“I regret that Brazil is becoming a country where spreading hate is becoming part of people’s daily lives,” Lula said.

“I’m a Corinthians supporter. But I can’t fight with a Palmeiras fan – I have to learn to live with him,” he added, using the rivalry of two of Sao Paulo’s biggest football teams to illustrate how “people have to accept and respect each other’s differences”.

He dismissed claims that by returning to the political battleground he could further polarize the situation.

“People voted for Bolsonaro, in the main, because Lula wasn’t a candidate,” he said. “The best way to regain these people’s vote is to talk to them a lot.”

His Worker’s party, while embattled and tarnished by scandal, remains the most popular party in Brazil by quite a margin.

But it’s also the most rejected – after Bolsonaro’s former PSL party – with as many as 40% of people polled saying they would never vote for Lula’s party.

“Of course,” Lula chuckles. “But people talk more about Pelé than the other players.”