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Rousseff Made Mistakes and Betrayed Her Electorate, Says Ex-President Lula to Spanish Paper

10/23/2017 - 13h05

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CATIA SEABRA
FROM SÃO PAULO

Ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) told Spanish newspaper "El Mundo" that former president Dilma Rousseff "betrayed her electorate" when she decided to make budget cuts after promising not to during the 2014 campaign.

According to Lula, that was one of her mistakes. Her main mistake, he said, was offering tax breaks to companies.

"We started losing credibility. The year of 2015 was very similar to 1999 when [then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's] approval ratings were at 8% and Brazil went broke on three occasions. But the president of the lower house was Michel Temer and he offered help. We had Eduardo Cunha."

In his interview, which was published on Sunday (the 22nd), Lula said he was certain that Rousseff also thinks it would have been better if he had run instead of her in 2014.

When asked if he regretted the fact that he hadn't run, Lula said that he was loyal toward Rousseff. "It was her right to run for re-election. But I thought about it a lot and I know that Dilma did too. The thing is, I'm not the kind of person who feels regret".

When asked about the possibility of being barred from next year's presidential campaign, Lula said that he hopes he manages to run, but that "no one is indispensable". "There are thousands of Lulas."

The former president also spoke of former minister Antonio Palocci, who is not only trying to reach a plea-bargain agreement with Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) investigators, but also claimed in his testimony to judge Sergio Moro, that Lula nodded to a "blood pact" with construction firm Odebrecht that involved giving bribe money to the Workers' Party.

He said that Mr. Palocci is being coerced into a plea-bargain agreement and that the only truth in his testimony was the fact that he acknowledged that he was trying to gain legal benefits.

When it came to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, he said that his support was not unconditional. "I defend Venezuela just as I defend Brazil, meaning both should handle their own affairs without external interference."

Lula said of Donald Trump that one should not govern through Twitter.

Translated by THOMAS MATHEWSON

Read the article in the original language

Bruno Santos/Folhapress
Former president Lula da Silva
Former president Lula da Silva

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