Lula tribute at Rio Carnival stirs political controversy forward of elections – Worldwide Dispatch

The face of the Brazilian president is omnipresent as a samba college rehearses its Carnival parade in entrance of hundreds of spectators chanting the chorus of its theme track: “Ole, ole, ole, ola; Lula, Lula!”

The choice by samba college Academicos de Niteroi to pay homage to veteran leftist President Inacio Lula da Silva at this yr’s Carnival extravaganza has raised eyebrows simply eight months earlier than elections.

Academicos de Niteroi would be the first to parade down Rio de Janeiro’s Sambodrome on February 15, in the beginning of the three-day competitors that’s the peak of town’s annual Carnival festivities.

Twelve samba faculties will compete in parades that includes hundreds of contributors, with colossal, usually animated floats, booming drum sections, and dancers draped in little greater than beads and glitter.

Annually the faculties select a theme linked to Brazilian tradition, historical past, or fashionable figures.

Whereas Academicos argues it needs to honour Lula to thank him for his social welfare insurance policies, the opposition has denounced the parade as equal to a marketing campaign occasion months earlier than official campaigning begins in August.

Lula, 80, who is predicted to attend the parade as a spectator, is looking for a fourth time period within the October elections.

“This isn’t propaganda, it’s a tribute. Many individuals in our faculty had been in a position to get an schooling due to the president’s public insurance policies,” Hamilton Junior, one of many college’s administrators, informed AFP.

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‘One in all Brazil’s biggest presidents’

Junior stated it was the story of a person from Brazil’s poor north-east who “confronted many hardships and have become one among Brazil’s biggest presidents”.

Throughout technical rehearsals on the Sambodrome – which draw giant crowds – dancers dressed as steelworkers in reference to Lula’s previous occupation.

The lyrics of the track recount Lula’s poor childhood in rural Pernambuco, his transfer to Sao Paulo, his union activism, and social insurance policies carried out underneath his totally different administrations.

There isn’t any point out of the October election, however the track doesn’t shrink back from Brazil’s present political scene.

It refers to “tariffs and sanctions” imposed by US President Donald Trump to punish Brazil for placing his ally, former far-right chief Jair Bolsonaro, on trial for plotting a coup.

Trump has since lifted many of those measures.

The track additionally contains the phrase “no amnesty”, a nod to efforts by Bolsonaro’s supporters to cut back a 27-year jail sentence he started serving in November.

A big display screen mounted on the again of a truck displayed photographs mocking Bolsonaro – displaying him in a jail uniform or with blood-stained fingers, a reference to his Covid scepticism.

Bolsonaro has anointed his eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as his political inheritor and presidential candidate.

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Opposition complains

One of many composers of the samba informed native media that Lula had cried when Academicos leaders travelled to Brasilia final yr to play the track for him.

Centre-right lawmaker Kim Kataguiri filed a lawsuit demanding Academicos return the a million reais ($180,000) every of the 12 faculties receives in federal funding for the parade.

“It’s unacceptable that the president sends a million reais, and even worse in an election yr, to a samba college to have a good time a competition whose fundamental theme is the president himself,” Kataguiri informed AFP on Tuesday.

Lawmakers from the right-wing Partido Novo requested Brazil’s Federal Court docket of Auditors to dam the funding.

A senator allied with Bolsonaro demanded that the courts prohibit the tv broadcast of the parade.

The Brazilian company for the promotion of worldwide tourism, Embratur, which offers the funds, stated in a press release that it “respects the creative autonomy and freedom of expression of the samba faculties”.

Watching the rehearsal, Adriano Santos, a 43-year-old social employee from the Rocinha favela, stated the samba college was “being courageous, progressive”.

“There can be those that prefer it and those that don’t, however I consider this parade will characterize Brazil.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)