Sawt Falasteen - Brazil's Lula says will seek a fourth term in 2026 elections

"I'm about to turn 80 years old, but you can be sure I have the same energy I had when I was 30. And I will run for a fourth term in Brazil," Lula said at a joint press conference with his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta.

Lula is on a state visit to Indonesia as he seeks to expand ties in a country Brazil sees as a fellow rising economic power with similar perspectives on global issues.

"I'm telling you this because we're still going to see each other many times," Lula told Subianto.

Lula had hinted in recent months at a fourth-term run, without confirming he would be a candidate.

In December, he underwent emergency surgery to stop a brain bleed linked to a bad fall two months prior.

Lula served as president for two terms between 2003 and 2010, but the man who rose from poverty to become an icon of the Latin American left had a dramatic fall from grace when he was imprisoned for corruption in 2018.

However, the controversial case was overturned and he made a spectacular comeback in a bitter 2022 election that deeply divided Brazil, with a narrow victory over right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

That election sparked a political crisis that still resonates today: Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a botched coup attempt in the wake of his election loss.

Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday published his sentence, a step which gives Bolsonaro's lawyers a five-day deadline to appeal the sentence.

With Bolsonaro under house arrest and out of the running, Brazil's sizable conservative electorate is currently without a champion for next year's election.

U.AlSharif--SF-PST