RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — A Brazilian appeals court judge yesterday quashed a fellow judge’s bombshell ruling ordering the release of jailed former p resident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in a day of legal tumult that comes just months before the South American country’s presidential vote.

Though he is serving a 12-year sentence for corruption, the wildly popular leftist Lula, 72, continues to lead opinion polls ahead of October’s election and has vowed his name will be on the ballot.

In his Sunday afternoon ruling, Judge Pedro Gebran Neto overturned a shock order to free Lula, which dropped just hours earlier from Judge Rogerio Favreto at an appeals court in Porto Alegre — the same one that had ordered the ex-president’s arrest.

Favreto, the weekend duty judge, had ruled in favour of several deputies of Lula’s Workers’ Party, who on Friday submitted a habeas corpus application on the former president’s behalf, arguing he had been illegally imprisoned.

On the heels of the first ruling, top anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro — who originally sentenced Lula in July 2017 — said Favreto did not have the power to secure the leftist’s release.

Gebran Neto followed suit, instructing federal police at a prison in Curitiba to keep Lula behind bars.

Lula has been imprisoned since April following his conviction for accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe from Brazilian construction company OAS.

He has insisted on his innocence and branded the corruption accusations a political conspiracy aimed at thwarting his electoral aspirations.

After ruling Brazil from 2003 to 2011, Lula left office with sky-high ratings following an economic boom and widely praised social programmes to reduce poverty.

“Lula free now!” read the popular politician’s Twitter account after Favreto’s order, praising the short-lived hope for “the end of the illegal imprisonment of Lula”.