A Brazilian appeals court rejected\u00a0on Monday\u00a0final procedural objections raised by lawyers of former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against his conviction for corruption, raising the possibility that he will soon be jailed.<\/p>\n
However, Lula will not be imprisoned until the country\u2019s Supreme Court decides on\u00a0April 4\u00a0whether to accept his request that he be allowed to exhaust his appeals process before landing in jail.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that defendants should begin serving prison sentences after their conviction was upheld on a first appeal.<\/p>\n
However, several members of the court were pressing to revisit that decision and perhaps reverse it.<\/p>\n
Lula, Brazil\u2019s first working-class leader, remains the most popular politician in Latin America\u2019s biggest nation.<\/p>\n
He oversaw years of robust growth and falling inequality during a commodity boom last decade, and wants to run again for president.<\/p>\n
Whether he is jailed or not, Lula is barred from running due to his conviction for receiving as a bribe a seaside apartment from an entrepreneur awarded government contracts during his presidency.<\/p>\n
In January, the appeals court in Porto Alegre upheld Lula\u2019s conviction and increased his sentence to more than 12 years.<\/p>\n
Despite that conviction and Lula facing six other corruption trials, he continues to enjoy wide popularity and leads all early polls for the\u00a0October 7\u00a0vote.<\/p>\n
His supporters maintained he was being persecuted politically with dubious accusations aimed at keeping him out of the race.<\/p>\n
Lula\u2019s critics said his economic policies ruined Brazil and his situation had polarized the country.<\/p>\n
While touring the southern state of Santa Catarina over the weekend, Lula\u2019s bus was pelted with eggs and stones that broke a window.\/Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Brazilian appeals court rejected\u00a0on Monday\u00a0final procedural objections raised by lawyers of former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against his conviction for corruption, raising the possibility that he will soon be jailed. However, Lula will not be imprisoned until the country\u2019s Supreme Court decides on\u00a0April 4\u00a0whether to accept his request that he be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3076,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions\/3076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}