Luiz Inácio da Silva was born in Garanhuns, state of Pernambuco, on October 27, 1945, the seventh of eight children of the illiterate peasant couple formed by Arístides Inácio da Silva and Eurídice Ferreira de Melo (Dona Lindu). The mother and children, fleeing from misery, moved to Guarujá in 1952 and later to Santos, the port agglomeration of São Paulo. The couple separated in 1956.

From trade unionism to politics

Luiz Inácio, nicknamed Lula by his relatives, combined elementary school with work as a shoeshine boy, street vendor and errand boy. He followed a course at the National Industry Service, for professional training, and specialized as a mechanical lathe operator in 1963. He worked in several metallurgical companies and lost the little finger of his left hand in a work accident in 1964, the year in which the military dictatorship was installed.

In 1966 he was hired by Industrias Villares, in São Bernardo do Campo, where he was initiated into trade unionism by his brother José (Frei Chico), a communist militant, arrested and tortured by the military. In 1972 he was elected secretary of the local metallurgical union, which he went on to preside three years later, and became the leader of 90,000 workers in the country’s most important industrial zone.

Lula was the main promoter of the large strikes and demonstrations that weakened the power of the dictatorship and hastened its fall. On February 10, 1980, under the protection of the amnesty and the timid opening, he founded in São Paulo the Workers’ Party (PT), of socialist orientation, with the support of trade unions and several intellectuals, clergymen and professors.

In April of the same year, he led a forty-one-day strike, harshly repressed, in which almost 300,000 São Paulo workers participated and which earned him a month’s arrest. Charged with public disorder, a court martial sentenced him to three years and six months in prison, but the sentence was overturned on appeal. On August 26, 1983, several São Paulo unions merged into the Central Única de Trabalhadores (CUT), linked to the PT.

Once democracy was restored, in the constituent elections of November 15, 1986, the PT was the leading force of the left, with 6.9% of the votes and 16 deputies, Lula among them, who strongly defended some of the demands of the CUT: the right to strike, reduction of the working day, partially paid vacations and wage revisions according to the cost of living.

New leader of the left

In the second round of the first direct presidential elections, on December 17, 1989, the populist Fernando Collor de Mello, defeated Lula, but the latter obtained 47% of the votes. For the first time in Brazil, a workers’ leader presented an alternative program of rupture with the system.

At the initiative of Fidel Castro, for whom he maintains an unwavering admiration, Lula convened in 1990 the First Meeting of Left Parties and Organizations of Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the São Paulo Forum, pacifist and anti-globalization, which brought together more than sixty parties and guerrilla organizations from twenty-two countries.

During the course of the first national congress of the PT (December 1, 1991), re-elected president, he advocated an ideological revision in the name of moderation, which implied the renunciation of armed struggle. The PT was defined as a “socialist party” which rejects both liberal capitalism and Soviet socialism, but also social democracy. Lula compared it to a tree with a socialist trunk whose branches were flexible enough to include diverse currents, from Trotskyists to ecologists and liberation theologians.

Consecrated as the leader of the new left, having overcome the inconveniences of the splits of the more radical groups, the PT led the popular campaign and mobilizations against corruption that precipitated the trial and infamous resignation of President Collor de Mello in December 1992.

He returned to compete for the third time in the presidential elections of October 1998, in which he reached the second round and was defeated with 31.7% of the votes, although he was the most voted candidate in ten capitals -São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia among them-, and the PT maintained its ascendancy with the conquest of three states.

Ideological shift

The strategic shift occurred at the beginning of the electoral campaign at the end of 2001, when Lula’s advisors adopted a less radical vision of political combat and turned the labor leader into a professional politician. Under the direction of Duda Mendonça, a political marketing guru in charge of the electoral campaign, the PT president underwent a true metamorphosis in his appearance, eliminated from his program any reference to socialism and allied himself with the textile magnate José Alencar, of the Liberal Party, designated candidate for the vice-presidency. The advisors imposed an unprecedented image of the candidate, less sullen, with suit and tie, affectionate father and husband, who did not disdain populist manifestations.

Lula pledged to respect the agreement between the Cardoso government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a “transition pact” that obliged him to maintain budgetary austerity in exchange for international loans that guaranteed financial stability.

With this decision culminated the ideological evolution of a genuinely working class leader beset by the contingencies of political pragmatism, who went from preaching “the rupture with the capitalist system” to bowing to the demands of the financial markets, despite the protests of the most radical PT militants.

President of Brazil

Lula da Silva was elected President of the Republic in the second round of elections on October 27, with more than 50 million votes (61.27%), becoming the most voted candidate in the history of Brazil. The victory of the candidate of the poor, who in the first round, on October 6, had obtained 46.44% of the votes, was a milestone in Latin America, since it was the first time that the radical left came to power through the ballot box. Lula took office on January 1, 2003.

Although Lula’s electoral momentum made the PT the leading party in both Houses of Congress, the new president could only count on the support of 180 of the 513 deputies and 30 of the 81 senators, which forced him to a permanent negotiation to push through his projects, as required by a presidential coalition regime.

During his administration, Lula opposed maintaining an economic model similar to that of his predecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In practice, however, the country has continued on a path based on very similar fundamental principles. Policy on interest rates, tax burdens, fiscal responsibility, the government’s relationship with the Central Bank and its relationship with the International Monetary Fund followed essentially the same course.

After his second presidency, on March 4, 2016, Lula was arrested and his house was raided in the case that has been investigating Petrobras for corruption for several months. According to his detractors, Lula allegedly received US$ 8 million in payments for lectures, trips and gifts. eventually, on July 3, 2019, the Brazilian courts unanimously declared Lula innocent in one of the ten cases brought against him (the "purchase of silence of the former Petrobras director).

This month Lula launched his candidacy for the next brazilian presidential election.

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