FORMER Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has announced in a letter written from prison that he will formally register as a presidential candidate before today’s deadline.

“They will not shut me up,” began his letter sent from Curitiba prison, where he has been held since early April.

“I want to send you a message. Yes, I am a candidate for president of the republic,” declared Lula, as he is universally known, pledging that he and his running mate Fernando Haddad would be presented as the Workers Party (PT) presidential team to the Superior Electoral Tribunal by last night.

Mr Haddad denounced the coup led by current President Michel Temer, who, the PT vice-presidential candidate said, ”can’t imprison Lula’s ideas, which will continue to travel through Brazil.”

Members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and religious groups protested in front of the Federal Supreme Court in Brasilia on Sunday, demanding that Lula be freed.

MST leader Joao Pedro Stedile told Telesur that a hunger strike by MST members was to highlight the injustice committed against Lula.

The former president had an opinion piece published in the New York Times yesterday, describing his imprisonment as “the latest phase in a slow-motion coup designed to permanently marginalise progressive forces in Brazil.”

He said his government and that of his successor Dilma Rousseff had proved that fighting poverty was a good economic policy before she “was impeached and removed from office for an action that even her opponents admitted was not an impeachable offence.”

This was followed by his own imprisonment “after a dubious trial.”