Background and career
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (born Luiz Inácio da Silva; 27 October 1945), known mononymously as Lula, is a Brazilian politician, trade unionist, and former metalworker who has served as the 39th president of Brazil since 2023. A member of the Workers' Party, he served as the 35th president from 2003 to 2011. Born in Pernambuco, Lula quit school after second grade to work, and did not learn to read until he was 10 years old. As a teenager, he worked as a metalworker and became a trade unionist. Between 1978 and 1980, he led the ABC workers' strikes during Brazil's military dictatorship, and in 1980, he helped start the Workers' Party during Brazil's redemocratization. Described as left-wing, Lula was one of the leaders of the 1984 Diretas Já movement, which demanded direct elections. In 1986, he was elected a federal deputy in the state of São Paulo. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1989, in 1994, and 1998. He became president in 2002, in a runoff. In 2006, he was reelected in the second round. During his first presidency, that coincided with South America's first pink tide, he continued fiscal policies and promoted social welfare programs such as Bolsa Família that led to GDP growth, reduction in external debt and inflation, and helped millions of Brazilians escape poverty. He also played a role in foreign policy, both on a regional level and as part of global trade and environment negotiations. During those terms, Lula was considered one of the most popular politicians in Brazil's history and left office with an 80% approval rating. His first term was also marked by notable corruption scandals, including the Mensalão vote-buying scandal. After the 2010 election, he was succeeded by his former chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, and remained active in politics and gave lectures in Brazil and abroad. He attempted to run for president in the 2018 election, but his candidacy was rejected because he was sentenced to prison in connection with Operation Car Wash, in a controversial trial. In 2019, he was released based on a decision by the Supreme Federal Court, which gradually annulled his convictions. With his political rights restored, he ran for president for the sixth time in the 2022 election and defeated the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the second round, becoming the first person to defeat a Brazilian president seeking reelection and the first to be elected for a third time. At the age of 77, he became the oldest Brazilian president at time of inauguration. Early in his term, he faced an attempted coup d'état led by Bolsonaro, which failed, and the 8 January 2023 attacks on federal institutions. During his second presidency, Lula pursued several major institutional and economic reforms, including a landmark tax reform and a new fiscal framework. His government also cut income taxes for the middle class and secured a constitutional amendment reducing the maximum workweek from 44 to 40 hours. The period saw the highest GDP growth in over a decade, along with lower inflation, record-low unemployment and a decline in income inequality. His administration has also prioritized environmental policy, with Amazon deforestation falling to its lowest level in over a decade. It has also renewed international engagement, and led the negotiations that paved the way for the preliminary approval of the Mercosur–European Union trade agreement. In the 2026 election, he defeated Jair’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, becoming the first candidate ever to upset the first-round winner in a presidential election, and winning a record-breaking fourth term as president.
Luiz Inácio da Silva was born on 27 October 1945 (registered with a date of birth of 6 October 1945) in Caetés (then a district of Garanhuns), 250 km (160 mi) from Recife, capital of Pernambuco, a state in the Northeast of Brazil. He was the seventh of eight children of Aristides Inácio da Silva and Eurídice Ferreira de Melo, farmers who had experienced famine in one of the poorest parts of the agreste. He was raised Catholic. Lula's mother was of Portuguese and partial Italian descent. Two weeks after Lula's birth, his father moved to Santos, São Paulo, with – though Eurídice was not aware of it – her younger cousin Valdomira Ferreira de Góis. In December 1952, when Lula was seven years old, his mother moved the family to São Paulo to rejoin her husband. After a journey of 13 days in a pau-de-arara (open truck bed), they arrived in Guarujá and discovered that Aristides had formed a second family with Valdomira, with whom he had 10 more children. Aristides's two families lived in the same house for some time, but they did not get along very well, and, four years later, his mother moved with Lula and his siblings to a small room behind a bar in São Paulo. After that, Lula rarely saw his father, who died illiterate and an alcoholic in 1978. In 1982, he added the nickname Lula to his legal name.
Twice a widower, Lula has been married three times, and has a daughter from a fourth relationship. In 1969, he married Maria de Lourdes Ribeiro. She died of hepatitis in 1971 while pregnant with a child, who also died. In March 1974, Lula had a daughter, Lurian, with his then-girlfriend, Miriam Cordeiro. The two never married. Lula only began participating in his daughter's life when she was already a young adult. Two months later, in May 1974, Lula married Marisa Letícia Rocco Casa, a 24-year-old widow whom he had met the prior year. He had three sons with her, and adopted her son from her first marriage. The two remained married for 43 years, until her death on 2 February 2017, after a stroke. Later that same year, he met and started a relationship with Rosângela da Silva, known as Janja. The relationship only became public in 2019 while he was serving time in jail in Curitiba, Paraná, on corruption charges. Lula and Janja married on 18 May 2022. Lula is Catholic and supporter of the football club SC Corinthians Paulista.
Lula had little formal education. He did not learn to read until he was ten years old. He quit school after the second grade to work. His first job at age eight was as a street vendor. When he was 12, he also worked as a shoeshiner. In 1960, when he was 14, he got his first formal job, in a warehouse. In 1961, he started working as an apprentice of a press operator in a metallurgical company that produced screws, while studying in a vocational course. There, Lula had his first contact with strike movements. After the movement failed in its negotiations, Lula left the company for another metallurgical company. From 1966 to 1980, he worked at Villares Metals S.A, a new metalworking firm. There, in 1964, at the age of 19, he lost his left pinky finger in a machinery accident, while working as a press operator in the factory. After the accident, he had to run to several hospitals before he received medical attention. This experience increased his interest in participating in the Workers' Union. Around that time, he became involved in union activities and held several union posts.
Inspired by his brother Frei Chico, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, Lula joined the labour movement when he worked at Villares Metals, rising through the ranks. He was elected in 1975, and re-elected in 1978, as president of the ABC Metalworkers' Union of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema. Both cities are located in the ABCD Region, home to most of Brazil's automobile manufacturing facilities, including Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Mercedes-Benz. In the late 1970s, when Brazil was under military rule, Lula helped organize union activities, including major strikes. Labour courts found the strikes illegal, and in 1980, Lula was jailed for a month. Due to this, and like other people imprisoned for political activities under the military government, Lula was awarded a lifetime pension after the fall of the military regime.
On 10 February 1980, a group of academics and union leaders, including Lula, founded the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) or Workers' Party, a left-wing party with progressive ideas. In 1983, he helped found the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) trade union association.
