Lula puts pressure on, and the International Olympic Committee gives his wife sole authority to participate in the Olympic Games.

After intense and persistent pressure from Lula da Silva, who will not be attending the event, diplomats from the ministries of foreign affairs in Brasilia and Paris and the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), the organizers of the Olympic Games that begin next Friday in the French capital, finally, albeit reluctantly, issued the credentials of the Brazilian president’s wife to represent Brazil. Rosangela da Silva, who likes to be called Janja, has made no secret of her love of power and the spotlight, and Lula has gifted her a trip to the Olympics.

For weeks, Brazil, which had just missed the deadline to name the authorities who would represent the country at the Olympics, tried in vain to obtain credentials for Janja, who did not want to go as a mere spectator and insisted on being received and treated with official honors. After numerous refusals by the organizers to accept Lula’s wife as an official representative of Brazil, since she holds no position and has no connection whatsoever with sporting life, Lula’s government instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to use all possible contacts to obtain the much-desired credentials, but the request was again rejected.

Finally, the Brazilian Olympic Committee itself was persuaded to send a message to the International Olympic Committee, backing up the request for such powers, and it succeeded. But the Olympic organizers, showing their displeasure at the request and their shameful persistence, emphasized in the message announcing the handing over of the mandate to Janja that this document was granted as a “special exception” for Brazil.

With the document’s authorization, Lula da Silva’s wife, who has repeated in numerous interviews that she should never accept “no”, even from her husband, the president, is heading to Paris this Thursday, where that same evening she will attend the official reception given by the IOC to the heads of state and government who will be in the French capital for the opening of the event. On Friday, also as an authority entitled to the pomp and circumstance he wanted, Janca will attend the dinner offered by French President Emmanuel Macron to the rulers of countries around the world, who will then head to the banks of the Seine to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris.