Lula's party weighs Brazil northeast vote in search for stand-in: sources
JULY 17, 2018 / 5:38 PM / UPDATED 7 HOURS AGO
Lisandra Paraguassu
4 MIN READ
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Steadfast support for jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s poor northeast may give a former governor from the region an edge in the search for the leftist icon’s substitute, three Workers Party officials told Reuters this week.
Jaques Wagner, a former governor of Bahia state and a minister under Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff, is gaining ground and could displace former São Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad as the party’s likely presidential candidate in the October election, the sources said. They requested anonymity to speak freely about internal deliberations.
The evolving debate in the Workers Party suggests that Lula, the most influential Brazilian politician of the past two decades, and allies may be coming around to the idea of transferring his support rather than having him mount his own campaign from jail.
Lula, whose eight years in office saw millions of Brazilians lifted from poverty, is still Brazil’s most popular politician despite several corruption indictments and a conviction that will most likely bar him from running.
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