Downfall of Brazil’s Lula marks end of Brics fantasy
Telegraph - Mar 07, 2016
The dream of a Brics ascendancy has ended in sadness and squalor after the iconic figure of the era was seized by police at his home here, to the rapturous applause of Brazil’s stock exchange.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or “Lula†to the world, is sacrosanct no more. The once beloved president – and former Fiat car worker – who came to personify Brazil’s seeming rise to prosperity and global stature is under criminal investigation for his role in the ever-spreading Lava Jato (car wash) scandal.
So are his three sons, and his wife. “Nobody is above the law in this country,†said the lead prosecutor, Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima.
The shock comes as Lula’s economic legacy turns to ruin. Output has been falling for most of the past nine quarters. It contracted 3.8pc last year. The OECD expects another 4pc fall this year, the deepest slump since national records began in 1901.
