Lula’s political comeback: From prison to the presidency

On October 26, Lula won re-election at the age of 80. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the PT (Workers’ Party) served two terms as president in the 2000s before retiring from the presidency. He returned to public life to challenge Jair Bolsonaro, who was then president. Lula succeeded in defeating Bolsonaro at the polls.

After losing the election, Bolsonaro attempted a coup and was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in it. Lula served a third term from 2022 to 2026 and sought re-election. Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, stood for the PL (Liberal Party) in this year’s election. Lula won 51% of the vote, compared with Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48%.

Lula was born in northern Brazil into a working-class family with ten children. His father abandoned the family, leaving them in penury. Lula left school at the age of 14 for financial reasons. He married young and had three children. He was horrified by the poverty suffered by the majority of Brazilians.

At least he was literate and had some opportunities to find reasonably well-paid work, but many others had no such opportunities. Before entering politics, he worked as a sheet-metal worker. He saw that a handful of oligarchs possessed obscene wealth while a large proportion of the population was malnourished and went barefoot. Many abandoned children lived on the streets, where they were often exploited by abusers. Even adults found themselves trapped in wage slavery.

Brazil is a diverse country. Brazilians may be entirely black or white, partly Indigenous American, Korean, Japanese, Lebanese, or any combination of these backgrounds. So many Brazilians are of mixed ancestry that racial divisions are less pronounced than in some other countries.

Brazil is a country of stark contrasts, with fabulously wealthy people living alongside those experiencing severe deprivation. By Western standards, 10% of Brazilians enjoy a middle-class lifestyle, while 60% lead a working-class life. The remainder live in genuine poverty. They may not be starving to death, but they often have to skip meals.

In the 1970s, Lula became active in the trade union movement. Brazil was governed by a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, and the regime was hostile to trade unions. The junta regarded trade unions as being aligned with communism. Detention without trial or charge was common, and torture was not unknown.

Trade unions helped bring down the junta and restore democracy. Lula became known for his fiery philippics against the United States. He argued that the Americans sanctimoniously preached democracy while undermining democratic governments and imposing dictatorships whenever doing so served the interests of their corporations. He also publicly expressed his sympathy for Fidel Castro.

During his first two terms, Lula achieved considerable success in reducing poverty. He cut the poverty rate from 25% to 12% in just seven years. His government provided direct payments to low-income families, free food and bursaries to help children from poor families remain in education. Lula said that his only regret was that he had not done more to abolish poverty entirely. He also toned down his anti-American rhetoric. He recognised that, since the 1990s, the United States had become less aggressive towards Latin America, at least to some extent.

Right-wing critics point to Lula’s failures. Violent crime remained a scourge. Brazil won the right to host the FIFA World Cup during his presidency, although the tournament itself was not held in the country until after his second term had ended. His critics argue that hosting the tournament was a major waste of money in a country with far more urgent problems to address.

After completing his first two terms, Lula remained active in the PT. Under subsequent governments, he was prosecuted and convicted of corruption. He spent six months in prison before his convictions were overturned on appeal. He maintained that the charges were politically motivated and driven by a desire for revenge. After his release, he ran the Lula Institute and promoted cooperation between governments and left-wing political parties in less economically developed countries.

Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected president in 2018, was dubbed the Trump of the Tropics. He echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric and relaxed gun laws to enable people to defend themselves. Some Brazilian cities have among the highest murder rates in the world. A former army officer, Bolsonaro spoke nostalgically about the years of military rule.

Lula’s third term, from 2022 to 2026, was a major success. He revived some of his earlier policies that Bolsonaro had scrapped. Welfare payments to the poor and increases in the minimum wage were central to his efforts to eliminate deprivation. He also sought to protect the Amazon rainforest.

Flávio Bolsonaro stood in the 2026 election because his father was unable to run. Flávio won the first round but secured less than 50% of the vote.

In Brazil, if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the first round, the two leading candidates proceed to a second round, while all the others are eliminated. This was the first election in which the candidate who came second in the first round went on to win the run-off.

Lula has survived cancer, but he is now a stooped figure. The question is whether he will be able to complete his presidential term.