MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula promises favela dwellers they will eat 3 meals a day if he is elected

Once again a metalworker is going to “fix” Brazil, Lula announced. Photo: Sebastião Moreira / EFE

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) Wednesday promised potential supporters that if he is elected in the Oct. 30 runoff with the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, “people will eat 3 times a day.”

During a campaign rally in a Rio de Janeiro favela Lula also accused Bolsonaro of being a “liar”.

“The communities need more presence of the State” to give impetus to social programs, said the 76-year-old leftwing candidate as he capped a two-day visit to Rio de Janeiro, a state where he lost 51%/40% to the current head of state in the Oct. 2 first round elections.

Lula insisted that when he ruled Brazil between 2003 and 2010 “more popular houses” were built than under in any other administration and assured Bolsonaro, whom he dubbed a “liar” who spends his days speaking “falsehoods” and surrounded by paramilitary troopers, was not “interested” in the poor communities.

Lula made his remarks at the Complexo do Alemao, a depressed favela conglomerate in northern Rio city, where food is scarce and violence is commonplace. “We have to put an end to this story that the State only appears in the community with the Police,” Lula stressed. “Before the police arrive, health, culture, education must come,” he added.

“The people will once again eat three times a day, they will once again have a formal job,” said the first round winner with around 48% of the votes against Bolsonaro's 43.7%.

Lula also pledged he would prove Brazil's elites “that once again a metalworker is going to fix” the country.