At age 77, after moments of glory and reversals of fortune during a prison stint, Lula, the unsinkable icon of the Latin American left, would find the presidential palace in Brasilia.
“This is the most important day of my life,” he said as he voted Sunday morning, months after leading the election against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
AFP
Two-term (2003-2010) incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 6th presidential campaign returned him to the top job, a first in Brazil’s recent history.
But Lula, who had an unusual destiny, has come a long way.
He was jailed for 580 days from April 2018 to November 2019 for the largest scandal in Brazil’s history, the “Lavage Express” scandal.
The leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) has always said he was the victim of a political coup that saw Bolsonaro elected president in 2018.
In March 2021, he can once again dream of a fantastic revenge. The Supreme Court overturned or recommended his convictions, not acquitting him, but allowing him to restore his political rights.
AFP
According to the UN Human Rights Committee, the investigation and prosecution of Lula violated his right to be tried by an impartial tribunal.
Today, 12 years after leaving power in a stratosphere of favorable opinions (87%), the uncorrupted Lula wants to make “Brazil happy again.”
The gruff-voiced charismatic tribune traveled the vast country in a bulletproof vest and gave his long-time nemesis Bolsonaro a tough fight.
Lula is considered “close to the people” and is still much loved, especially in the poorer parts of the northeast, his historic stronghold.
But he is hated by some Brazilians, for whom he always exposes corruption. Jair Bolsonaro, who played a lot on the PT’s hatred for being elected in 2018, regularly called him a “thief” and “ex-prisoner” during their debates.
[1945ஆம்ஆண்டுஅக்டோபர்27ஆம்தேதிபெர்னாம்புகோவில்(வடகிழக்கு)ஏழைவிவசாயிகளின்குடும்பத்தில்பிறந்தஎட்டுகுழந்தைகளைக்கொண்டகுடும்பத்தில்இளையவர்லூலாவைஅத்தகையவிதிக்குஎதுவும்முன்னிறுத்தவில்லை
சிறுவயதில், லூலா ஷூ ஷைனராக இருந்தார். வறுமையிலிருந்து தப்பிக்க அவரது குடும்பம் சாவ் பாலோவுக்கு குடிபெயர்ந்தபோது அவருக்கு ஏழு வயது.
AFP
A traveling salesman later a metalworker, he lost his left little finger in a work accident at age 14.
At the age of 21, he joined the Metalworkers’ Union and led major strikes in the late 1970s amid the military dictatorship (1964-1985).
A co-founder of the PT in the early 1980s, he ran for president for the first time in 1989 and narrowly lost. After two more failures, in 1994 and 1998, the fourth attempt was successful, in October 2002. He was re-elected in 2006.
Brazil’s first head of state from the working class, he implemented ambitious social programs.
Under his two terms in office, nearly 30 million Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty.
Lula also included a country that opened up to the world, and gave Brazil international status, notably, the Football World Cup (2014) and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016).
Lula is a past master in the art of creating idealistic, yet pragmatic, sometimes unnatural alliances.
For this presidential election, his running mate is a centrist technocrat who can reassure economic circles: his opponent in previous elections, Geraldo Alcmin.
In March 2016, his bid to return to business as a minister to his runner-up, Dilma Rousseff, met with bitter defeat, as did his dismissal in August.
In October 2011, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer.
AFP
In February 2017, the former president suffered a close ordeal with the death of his wife, Marisa Letizia Rocco.
But Lula found a new love, Rosangela da Silva, nicknamed “Zanja,” a PT militant sociologist, 21 years his junior, whom he married in May. “I fell in love with her when I was 20,” he said of the woman who actively participated in his campaign.
