Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, was born on October 27, 1945, in Caetés, Pernambuco, Brazil, then part of the municipality of Garanhuns. He grew up in poverty after his family migrated to São Paulo in search of work. As a teenager, he became a metalworker and later a skilled lathe operator in the industrial suburbs of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema.

Lula rose to national prominence through the labor movement during Brazil’s military dictatorship. He became president of the Metalworkers’ Union of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema in 1975, leading major strikes in 1978, 1979, and 1980 that challenged restrictions on collective bargaining and helped revive organized political opposition. In 1980, he was arrested under the National Security Law during a strike.

In 1980, Lula helped found the Workers’ Party, known by its Portuguese initials, PT. He served as a federal deputy for São Paulo in the 1986 constituent assembly and ran unsuccessfully for president in 1989, 1994, and 1998. He won the presidency in 2002 and took office on January 1, 2003, becoming Brazil’s first working-class president.

During his first two terms, from 2003 to 2010, Lula’s administrations combined economic growth, expanded social programs, and increases in the minimum wage. Bolsa Família, created in 2003 by consolidating earlier cash-transfer initiatives, provided payments to low-income families conditional on requirements such as school attendance and vaccination. The program became an internationally studied model for reducing extreme poverty. Brazil also reduced its foreign debt exposure and accumulated substantial international reserves during this period.

Lula left office in 2010 with high approval ratings, but his political legacy became entangled with the corruption investigation known as Operation Car Wash. He was convicted in 2017 and imprisoned in 2018 after a controversial trial. In 2021, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court annulled the convictions because the judge who handled the cases lacked jurisdiction, restoring Lula’s political rights. The court did not declare him factually innocent in that ruling.

Lula narrowly defeated Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election, winning a third, nonconsecutive term. He was inaugurated on January 1, 2023. His administration has emphasized hunger reduction, environmental protection in the Amazon, democratic institutions, and renewed international diplomacy. In 2023, the government reported a sharp decline in Amazon deforestation compared with the previous year, although illegal mining, fires, and broader environmental pressures remained serious challenges.