Lula Da Silva, the phoenix of Brazilian politics

Lula Da Silva, the phoenix of Brazilian politics

And the polls show him as the winner, some even in the first round on Sunday.

“I want to prove that a metallurgist is going to fix this country, and the town is going to eat three times a day again“, promised these days the ex-trade unionist raised from poverty at a rally in Sao Paul. “We will do what we already did.”

Twice president between 2003 and 2010, Lula da Silva left power with a popularity of almost 90% after a management in which 30 million of the more than 200 million Brazilians came out of poverty.

And he earned enormous international prestige as a pilot of the Brazilian economic “miracle”pushed by the high prices of raw materials.

Although if you win, you will not be able to count on the same bonanza: although the economy shows signs of improvement, with growth, less inflation and more jobis far from the prosperity of the 2000s.

Lula campaign.jpg

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva at a campaign rally.

PHOTO: @ricardostuckert

Lula before politics

A tiny mud hut, a replica of his family’s when he was born on October 27, 1945, recalls his humble origins in Brazil’s impoverished northeast.

seventh son of a marriage illiterateLula da Silva was abandoned by his father before the family emigrated, like millions of countrymen, to the industrialized metropolis of Sao Paulo.

It was seller walking Y shoeshine boy. At the age of 14 he began his training in turnerlost a little finger manipulating a machine and at the end of the 1970s, as leader of the metalworkers’ union, he led a historic strike that defied the dictatorship military (1964-1985).

He contested the 1989 presidential elections, the first after democratization, and then in 1994, 1998 and 2002, when he was the winner and became the first Brazilian head of state from the working class.

“I would have liked to be a doctor, but I was lucky that you gave me the first diploma of my life, that of President of the Republic,” he launched at a rally.

Lula’s governments

Lula crowned his double term by winning the seat of the world of football of 2014 and the Games of River-2016. But his political career was marred by corruption scandals.

He was re-elected despite the “Mensalao“, a millionaire illegal accounting set up by the Workers’ Party (PT) -which he co-founded in 1980- to buy the support of congressmen.

He ended up equally involved in the “Wash Jato“, the largest anti-corruption operation in the country’s history, focused on a gigantic network of bribes around the parastatal oil company Petrobras.

He was sentenced in 2017 to nine and a half years in prison for obtaining an apartment from a construction company in exchange for public contracts, although he always defended his innocence.

He spent 19 months in prison. In March 2021 he regained his political rights with the annulment of his sentence for procedural irregularities. He lost a brother and a seven-year-old grandson while behind bars.

“I stayed calm, preparing myself as Mandela prepared for 27 years, as gandhi He prepared his whole life get out of prison without rage“, said the former president, defining himself as a “Lulinha peace and love” in Sao Paulo.

Lula da Silva has monopolized the leadership of the left in Brazil. Of nine democratic elections, including Sunday’s, he will only have been absent from three.

Source: Ambito

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