Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has criticized the Lava Jato operation, which led to his imprisonment for 580 days.

"Corruption only appears when one allows it to be investigated and governs in a republican manner. Before any hypothesis of crime, no matter how minor, that person will be investigated, punished or acquitted," Lula said in an interview to the Brazilian outlet Jornal Nacional, of Globo.

In 2018, the country's justice system did not allow him to participate in the elections, after being sentenced for a second time for corruption to 580 days of imprisonment. However, Brazil's Supreme Court annulled the proceedings, pointing out a procedural error.

"I could have chosen a prosecutor to file the proceedings or a police chief controlled by me and I did not do it, or make a 100-year secrecy decree for me and my children," Lula said, in a veiled reference to President Jair Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election and whom he accused of "looking like the court's fool."

"I don't want friends in the Public Prosecutor's Office or the Federal Police. I see it as wonderful to denounce corruption," he added.

Currently, Lula has a lead of between 10% and 15% over far-right current president Bolsonaro. 

In addition, during the approximately 40-minute interview with the Brazilian media, Lula defended the alternation in power and avoided criticizing dictatorships in countries friendly to the leftists in Latin America.

"For a democrat it is necessary to respect the self-determination of the peoples. Each country takes care of its own nose, but no one is indispensable or irreplaceable," he added.

"I am in favor of rotation, alternation of power, it doesn't matter if you have a leftist, then a rightist or a centrist," added the former president, who also promised that in his eventual triumph, "Brazil will be a friend of everybody."

In closing, he offered the three guiding principles of his government: "credibility, predictability and stability."