Almost six months before the presidential elections in Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced his candidacy.

"Everything we have done and what the Brazilian people have achieved will be destroyed by the current government," the 76-year-old politician said on Saturday during a rally in São Paulo.

"We will not give up - not me and not our people.

The cause we fight for keeps us alive.”

Lula is running for his Labor Party's (PT) nomination in the October 2nd election.

The former governor of the state of São Paulo and former Lula rival, Gerardo Alckmin, wants to become vice president at his side.

Lula ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010. He lifted millions of people out of poverty with social programs.

Brazil also boomed economically during his tenure.

His government benefited from the then high commodity prices.

Corruption also flourished under his presidency in the region's largest economy.

In 2018, he himself was sentenced to 12 years and a month in prison for corruption and money laundering.

That is why the left-wing politician was unable to take part in the 2018 presidential election, which the right-wing populist ex-military Jair Bolsonaro finally won.

Proximity to Putin like Boslonaro

In March last year, a Supreme Court judge overturned Lula's convictions, which then restored his political rights.

Soon after, he returned to the political stage.

In recent polls, Lula is well ahead of Bolsonaro, who wants to secure another term.

Lula wrote on Twitter, "The most important lesson I've learned in 50 years of public life, eight of which have been President of this country, is that governing must be an act of love."

In a “Time” interview a few days ago, Lula explained that she would continue to rely on extractivism and that oil would continue to play an important role in the future.

In the conversation, he blamed not only Vladimir Putin for the Ukraine war, but also the United States and the EU.

It should have been made clear that Ukraine would not become part of NATO, "that would have solved the problem".

He said of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj: "This guy is just as responsible for the war as Putin." Selenskyj wanted the war, otherwise he would have sat down at the negotiating table , only shortly before the attack on Ukraine he was in Moscow to meet with Putin.