Lustros when he was still a child and his family was hungry, a miner in his adolescence, a trade union leader at 21, a political prisoner in the junta’s prisons … At the age of 76, Lula has another challenge in front of him: he made it official yesterday Saturday will run for a third term in the Brazilian presidency in the October elections.
There was no doubt that Luis Inassiou Lula da Silva, the favorite of the polls, would be thrown into this battle. Yesterday he promised to “rebuild Brazil”, after the “irresponsible and criminal” management of power by the far-right president Zaich Bolsonaro.
The figure of the Brazilian left returns to the center of the political arena after much suffering. He was convicted of corruption, imprisoned for a year and a half, banned from running in the 2018 presidential election. But the horizon cleared in March 2021, when convictions against him were overturned by the Brazilian Supreme Court.
After regaining his political rights, the historical leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), whom some adore and others hate in Brazil, was able to run for the top job in October, 12 years after leaving power with positive views on his work soared (87%).
His name, however, was later implicated in the biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history, the “express car wash”, as it became known.
Lula, who was imprisoned from April 2018 to November 2019, declared from the beginning a victim of a conspiracy for political purposes, to prevent him from running in the 2018 presidential elections – he was then, as today, a big favorite.
Last week, the UN Human Rights Council ruled that the investigation and prosecution of Lula violated his right to a fair trial.
After regaining his political rights, he chose to move rather discreetly, however, taking care of his image abroad. In November, he toured Europe, where he was received by French President Emmanuel Macron in the Elysee.
He spoke in support of the US Alliance, but said that maintaining some independence was not the answer in the TIME.
Ambitious social programs
Lula has always been considered a “close to the people” politician and much of the population, especially in the impoverished northeastern parts of Latin America’s largest country, adores him. But at the same time, many Brazilians hate him, as he embodies corruption for them. This is exactly the disgust for the former president and the PT was exploited by the leader of the Brazilian extreme right, Zaich Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018.
Absolutely nothing predestined the fate of Lula, a descendant of a poor peasant family with eight children, born on October 6, 1945 in Pernabuco.
As a child, he wandered the streets making the glaze. At the age of seven, his family moved to Sao Paulo to escape misery. A street vendor, a miner at the age of 14, lost a finger in his left hand in a work accident.
At the age of 21, he joined a miners’ union and became the protagonist of the militant strikes in the 1970s, the stone years of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985).
Founder of PT in the 1980s, Lula ran for president for the first time in 1989; he lost the thread. After two more failures (1994, 1998), the fourth time would prove to be good for him, in October 2002. He was re-elected in 2006.
The first head of state in Brazil, who came from the working class, implemented ambitious social programs, taking advantage of rapid economic growth thanks to the boom in raw material prices.
During his two terms in the presidency (2003-2010), almost 30 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty.
Lula also embodies a Brazil open to the world and has given his country international prestige.
Painful blows
An idealist but a pragmatist, Lula has proven to be a master at the art of forming alliances that sometimes seem unnatural. His running mate in October will be Geraldo Alcmin – the center-right technocrat he has faced in previous election campaigns.
The situation in Brazil today “forces us to overcome our differences and build an alternative way to overcome the incompetence and authoritarianism that govern us,” he explained yesterday, without naming President Bolsonaro. “We want the Democrats of all political persuasions, all classes, all races, all religious beliefs (…) to unite to defeat the threat of totalitarianism, hatred, violence and discrimination that hovers over the country. us”.
Lula overcame painful blows. His attempt to return to politics by taking a ministerial post in the government of his successor in March 2016 failed, before Jilma Houssef was ousted by parliament in August of that year.
In October 2011, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer before stepping down.
In February 2017, he lost his wife, Mariza Letitsia Hoku.
However, he rebuilt his life and on May 18, he married his current partner, sociologist and PT executive Hozangela da Silva, also known as “Zanza”.
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