Brazil’s Lula launches presidential candidacy from prison

France24: Even behind bars, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will secure his leftist party’s nomination Saturday and continue to overshadow more likely candidates in the country’s most unpredictable presidential election for decades.

Saturday will see three big party conventions, two months before the first round of voting on October 7 in Latin America’s dominant economy.

Center-left environmental campaigner Marina Silva will get the nomination of her Rede party in Brasilia. Also in the capital, former Sao Paulo governor and establishment heavyweight Geraldo Alckmin will secure the nod from the center-right Brazilian Social Democratic Party, or PSDB.

But while both Silva and Alckmin are serious contenders in a battle against controversial right-winger Jair Bolsonaro, it’s the third convention taking place in Sao Paulo that will suck up much of the attention. more