President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) spoke publicly for the first time this Thursday (21) after the discovery of an alleged plan to poison him after the second round of the 2022 presidential election.
The plan was revealed last Tuesday (19) after the launch of Operation Countercoup by the Federal Police, which arrested four military personnel and a federal police officer suspected of forming a criminal organization that intended to murder him along with his deputy, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), and by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
“I have to be much more grateful now for being alive. The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn’t work, we’re here”, said the president during an event later in the morning at Palácio do Planalto.
He also added that he contested the 2022 election with the desire to “bring Brazil to normality, to democratic civility”, and that “in a civilized way, you lose or win”.
“I don’t want to poison anyone, nor persecute anyone. The only thing I want is that, when my term ends, we demoralize those who governed this country with numbers”, he said, citing areas in which he intends to prove himself better than the previous government, such as building schools, access to healthcare , highways, among others.
He also stated that, in the next two years of government, Brazil will be an example for the world as an investment destination.
“It has the conditions, it has credibility and it has a government to prove to the world that there is no one better than Brazil. There may be the same, but there is no better, and that is what we are going to prove”, he concluded.
According to the alleged plan discovered by the Federal Police, the four soldiers and the federal police intended to poison Lula as a way of destabilizing the left-wing ticket that won the 2022 presidential election, taking advantage of his several trips to the hospital – with the “use of chemicals to cause an organic collapse”, says an excerpt from the authority’s representation to the STF.
Moraes’ execution could also occur by poisoning or in an operation using heavy weapons on December 15th, at some point when he was traveling from his functional residence in Brasília. The investigation points out that the group came to put together all the necessary scheme for this, but that the action was aborted after the STF ended the day’s session earlier than expected.
The PF states that documents relating to the execution of these authorities were printed at the Palácio do Planalto at the time, and pointed out a connection between former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and the group. He also classified the attempted murders as “clandestine actions” of an operation entitled “Copa 2022” to “neutralize minister Alexandre de Moraes” and “extinguish the winning presidential ticket”. The name of the operation refers to the codenames adopted by the participants, referring to countries participating in the World Cup.
According to the document, the military worked in the Special Forces – the so-called “black kids” – and the federal police officer even worked on the security of the then elected Lula during the transition, leaking information “to people close to the then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) joining directly to the coup attempt”.
