BRAZIL’S Workers Party held a meeting today to plan former president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva’s election campaign, despite losing a court appeal against a corruption conviction that disqualifies him.

Mr Da Silva, universally known as Lula, told a rally of supporters in Sao Paulo last night: “I am not worried about whether I will be a candidate for president or not.

“I want [the judges and prosecutors] to ask for forgiveness for the quantity of lies they told about me,” he said.

Earlier, a tribunal in Porto Alegre upheld last year’s verdict that Lula had received a grace and favour penthouse seaside flat in return for favours to construction firm OAS.

He insists he merely stayed at the flat on a handful of occasions and did not own it or benefit financially from it.

Lula’s defence team branded the tribunal’s ruling politically motivated and a “farce.” Under Brazilian law, a person with a criminal conviction cannot run for office.

They vowed to take the case to Brazil’s Supreme Court and even the United Nations before October’s presidential election.

Workers Party chairwoman Gleisi Hoffmann said: “We will fight in defence of democracy in all forums, in the judiciary and mainly on the streets.

“If some think the story ends with today’s decision, they are very wrong because we do not surrender before injustice.”

Party leaders met today to consider what to do next.

Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica, a Lula ally, told Spain’s Efe news agency that he had lost faith in the “objectivity” of the Brazilian judicial system, adding: “It seems to me that this was quite rigged already.”

Mr Mujica referred to Lula  as his “friend” and pointed out that he was still “going up in the presidential polls.

“It’s going up because the measures that the Brazilian government is taking are against the social base of workers, of people who live on a salary, of all that … of the retirees, which is giving Lula support.”

The former president has vowed to reverse austerity measures imposed by incumbent Michel Temer, who came to power in a 2016 “legislative coup” against Lula’s successor Dilma Rousseff.

Mr Temer’s approval ratings are languishing in single figures after a series of corruption scandals hit his unelected government, despite his apparent immunity to impeachment bids.