Presidential Candidate Of Brazilian Workers' Party Vows Not To Pardon Ex-President Lula

Presidential Candidate of Brazilian Workers' Party Vows Not to Pardon Ex-President Lula

Fernando Haddad, who replaced former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, currently serving a jail term for corruption, as Brazil's leftist Workers' Party's presidential candidate, said on Wednesday that he would not grant a pardon to Lula in case of winning the election.

MEXICO CITY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th September, 2018) Fernando Haddad, who replaced former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, currently serving a jail term for corruption, as Brazil's leftist Workers' Party's presidential candidate, said on Wednesday that he would not grant a pardon to Lula in case of winning the election.

On September 11, the Workers' Party announced that Haddad, who was previously their vice presidential candidate, would run for the presidential election instead of Lula, who had been banned from running for the position by the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court. This followed Lula's move to voice his support for Haddad.

"No, there is no question of amnesty. Lula was the first to say that he did not want any indulgence, he wants the mistake of the justice system to be recognized," Haddad said, as quoted on the website of the Aristegui Noticias news media outlet.

A total of 19 percent of voters are ready to support Haddad at the upcoming election, a poll by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics revealed. Jair Bolsonaro, the candidate of the right-wing Social Liberal Party, comes first with 28 percent, while 11 percent of the 2,506 people who were interviewed feel like supporting Ciro Gomes from the Democratic Labour Party.

If none of the candidates secures over 50 percent of ballots in the first tour of the election, scheduled for October 7, then the second round will be held on October 28, in which only the two candidates who received most of the votes will participate.