SAO BERNARDO DO CAMPO, SAO PAULO STATE, Brazil (Reuters) – Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva led a rally in defence of embattled President Dilma Rousseff on Monday (April 4) as the current president tries to stave off calls for her impeachment.
Lula called on supporters at the Union of Metal Workers in Sao Bernardo do Campo, just outside the city of Sao Paulo, to defend the government.
“The people are going to the street and we’re going to ensure (President) Dilma’s (Rousseff) mandate legally and according to the constitution. But if I return to the government, which depends on a Supreme Court decision, I want you to know the following; we’re going to go back to speaking with social movements,” Lula told the cheering crowd.
In an effort to rally her leftist base and consolidate support to defeat impeachment, Rousseff last month appointed Lula, her political mentor, as cabinet chief.
The move set off a wave of legal challenges from critics accusing her of shielding Lula from the snowballing corruption investigation that started at state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras.
If Lula takes office as Rousseff’s minister, proceedings against him will remain under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors have charged Lula with concealing a luxury beachfront apartment provided by Petrobras contractors snared in the multi-billion-dollar graft probe.
Lula denied the charges and said the opposition is pushing lies about him in the media.
“They can invent whatever lies they want about me, but one day they will have to prove it. Someday they are going to have to show me the apartment. One day they’re going to have to show me the farm. And they know there will be the day that I don’t want anything. I just want them to think of apologizing to the Brazilian people for the amount of lies they put out there every day in the media,” he said.
Lula is slated to travel to Brasilia on Tuesday (April 5) to meet with Rousseff.
He said he intends to help the government and said some changes are in order in regards to economic policy.
“But we need to know that we need to make certain adjustments to economic policy. It’s needed. We need to be aware that we have to govern, talk with the market, and use policy that can serve, but our market is the working people, consumers, homemakers; this is who we have to make the priority of our policies,” he added.
A vote in the coming weeks could suspend Rousseff from office in the middle of an economic crisis and the fallout from the bribery scandal at Petrobras which has shaken Brazil’s political establishment.
Markets favour Rousseff’s ouster on hopes it could usher in business-friendly policies under her substitute, Vice President Michel Temer.
If the impeachment passes the lower house, Rousseff would be suspended for up to six months while facing trial in the Senate, making Temer acting president.
Temer’s PMDB party, the largest in Congress, formally broke with the government last week.
Rousseff’s opponents need the votes of two-thirds of 513 deputies to take the impeachment case to the Senate.
Many of the president’s supporters say the impeachment plans are politically motivated and amount to a coup d’etat.
At one point, Lula led the rally in chanting, “There won’t be a coup,” a common refrain at pro-government rallies in recent weeks.
