Brazilian electoral court decides to ban Lula

The majority of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (TSE) ruled late Friday that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cannot be a presidential candidate.

Lula, who served as Brazil's president for two terms, from 2002 to 2010, is currently serving a controversial 12-year jail sentence for corruption and money laundering in the country although he still has the right to appeal.

Earlier this month, the United Nations' Human Rights Committee said Lula could not be disqualified as a presidential candidate until all his appeals were judged.

However, the majority of the TSE judges said that the UN's stance was not mandatory in this case, barring Lula from running for president because he no longer has a clear record, under the so-called "Clean Record Law", which rules that people with previous convictions for corruption crimes cannot be elected.

Lula's defense argued that the ex-president can still appeal, and therefore, until the end of all possible appeals in his case, his record had to be considered clean, which would allow him to run.

Lula needed a simple majority in the court to run in the presidential election. However, out of the seven TSE judges, five have already voted to ban Lula.

With the court decision, the new candidate of the Workers' Party will be Fernando Haddad, who was Lula's running mate.

Haddad previously served as mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city. His running mate will be Representative Manuela D'Avila, the previous candidate from the Communist Party of Brazil.