Brazilian MPs adopt Lula's name in support of jailed president

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Members of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s party found an original way on Wednesday to show their support for the jailed former Brazilian president and infuriate his opponents: by adopting his name.

The head of Lula’s Workers' Party, Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, wrote in a letter to the Senate speaker published Wednesday that from now on, she will be referred to in the legislature as Gleisi Lula Hoffmann.

That includes every time the speaker wishes to call upon her during debates and the way her name will appear on the electronic voting board.

The party’s 60 deputies in the lower house followed suit.

Supporters of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attend a protest against sentencing him to serve a 12-year prison for corruption in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 11, 2018. /VCG Photo

“We are paying tribute to President Lula," the Workers' Party head in lower house, who will now go by the name Paulo Lula Pimenta, said.

The disgraced Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2011, was jailed over the weekend after being convicted of bribery.

The stunt doesn't go as far as legally changing the politicians' names.

The backlash, however, has already started. Sostenes Cavalcante, from the small right-wing DEM party, announced that he would now make Moro his middle name, paying tribute to Judge Sergio Moro, who convicted Lula.

Capitao Augusto, from the right-wing Partido da Republica, meanwhile decided to become Capitao Augusto Bolsonaro – a reference to Jair Bolsonaro, a hard-right former army captain, presidential candidate and scourge of Lula.

Lula was convicted of taking a seaside apartment as a bribe and imprisoned Saturday to start serving a 12-year sentence.

He says the trial was a plot to prevent him from running in October presidential elections in which he is currently in the lead.

His conviction and imprisonment have prompted a numbers of demonstrations in Brazil, and as far as Argentina.

(Top picture: Brazilian former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waves from a window of the Metallurgical Union in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, April 07, 2018. /VCG Photo)

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Source(s): AFP