RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged Thursday evening to renegotiate family money owed of Brazilians if he wins October’s election, making one other promise looking for to lure assist from tens of hundreds of thousands experiencing hardship.

The announcement got here a day after U.S. President Joe Biden introduced that some Individuals will obtain as much as $10,000 in federal scholar mortgage debt forgiveness. Many Brazilians are longing for reduction at a time when inflation is operating at almost 10% and the poor are struggling to make ends meet.

“We now have nearly 70% of Brazilian households in debt and the overwhelming majority are (headed by) girls,” da Silva mentioned in a prime-time interview on the tv community Globo. “You possibly can make certain that we’ll negotiate with the non-public sector and the monetary system.”

The identical program interviewed the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, on Aug 22.

Da Silva has already hinted that if voters return him to the job he held in 2003-2010, he seemingly would preserve in place the sharp increase to social welfare funds accepted lately. These will increase, scheduled to run out at 12 months’s finish, are a part of Bolsonaro’s efforts to bolster his reelection bid. Whoever wins the October vote will assume workplace in January.

The leftist da Silva, who’s main the far-right Bolsonaro in opinion polls, additionally criticized the incumbent for looking for political assist by permitting big chunks of public funds for use by lawmakers at their discretion as half of what’s often called the “secret funds.”

“Bolsonaro doesn’t command something, Congress is holding him hostage. He doesn’t even management the funds,” da Silva mentioned.

“Arthur Lira is in cost. Ministers name him, not Boslonaro,” he added, referring to the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.

Da Silva additionally acknowledged for the primary time that errors had been made and corruption occurred throughout his personal administration and that of his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Each are members of the leftist Employees’ Occasion.

“You possibly can’t say there was no corruption if folks confessed,” da Silva mentioned when requested about huge corruption scandals beneath Employees’ Occasion governments. However he attributed such transgressions to people moderately than an orchestrated scheme of his social gathering.

Da Silva himself was discovered responsible of corruption and cash laundering and spent over a 12 months in jail, although the Supreme Courtroom later annulled the convictions, paving the best way for his presidential run this 12 months. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Within the 2018 presidential race, Bolsonaro positioned the struggle towards corruption, then symbolized by the Employees’ Occasion and an imprisoned da Silva, on the coronary heart of his marketing campaign.