Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Early life

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 him 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.

Personal life

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.

Education and work

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.

Union career

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.

Political career

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.

Elections

Lula first ran for office in 1982 for the state government of São Paulo, but lost with 11% of the vote. Cuban president Fidel Castro urged him to continue on as a politician, during a trip by Lula to Cuba. In the 1986 election, Lula won a seat in the National Congress with the most votes nationwide.

In 1989, Lula ran for president as the PT candidate. Lula advocated immediate land reform and that Brazil default on its external debt. A minor candidate, Fernando Collor de Mello, quickly amassed support with a more business-friendly agenda and by taking emphatic anti-corruption positions. He beat Lula in the second round of the 1989 elections. Lula decided not to run for re-election as a Congressman in 1990.

Lula ran again for president, and lost again, in the next two Brazilian elections. Former PSDB Minister of Finance Fernando Henrique Cardoso defeated Lula who received only 27% of the vote in the presidential elections in 1994, and again, by a somewhat smaller margin, as Lula garnered only 32% of the vote in 1998.

An article in The Washington Post said that before 2002, Lula had been a "strident union organizer known for his bushy beard and Che Guevara T-shirts". In the 2002 campaign, Lula abandoned both his informal clothing style and his platform plank that Brazil should not pay its foreign debt unless it links the payment to a prior thorough audit. This last point had worried economists, businessmen, and banks, who feared that even a partial Brazilian default would have a massive ripple effect through the world economy. Lula in the 2002 election, defeated PSDB candidate José Serra in a runoff, to become the country's first leftist president following the fall of the military dictatorship in Brazil. In the 2006 election, Lula won a run-off over the PSDB's Geraldo Alckmin.

In September 2018, Brazil's top electoral court banned Lula from running for president in 2018 due to his corruption conviction, in accordance with Brazil's Lei da Ficha Limpa law. Instead, Fernando Haddad ran for president on the Workers Party ticket, and was defeated by Jair Bolsonaro.

First presidency (2003–2011)

Lula, described as left-wing, served two terms as president from 2003 through 2010. During his farewell speech, he said he felt a burden to prove that he could handle the presidency despite his humble beginnings. "If I failed, it would be the workers' class which would be failing; it would be this country's poor who would be proving they did not have what it takes to rule".

Political orientation

Very few of the reforms that Lula proposed were actually implemented during Lula's terms of office. Some wings of the Worker's Party disagreed with the increasing moderation in focus since the late eighties, and left the party to form other parties, such as during Lula's presidency, the Socialism and Liberty Party. Alliances with old, traditional oligarch politicians, like former presidents José Sarney and Fernando Collor, have been a cause of disappointment for some.

Education

A number of educational initiatives were launched during Lula's first presidency. A free school meals programme was extended to 37 million pupils while a programme was launched which aimed to provide "whole or partial remission of student fees for low-income students". In 2006, primary education was extended from 8 to 9 years. A Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education was set up to improve the quality of education. The PED (an education development plan) conditioned the disbursement of public funds to state schools on the schools' performance.

Still in 2006, many Brazilians and commentators felt that Lula had not done enough to improve the quality of public education. And in 2010, while education was compulsory for all children in Brazil aged 7 to 14, in practice that requirement was only loosely enforced; 90% of children in rural areas attended school for less than four years, and only 25% of children living in favelas attended school.

Social programs

Lula's top social programme sought to eradicate hunger. It was financed by an increase in tax revenues, coupled with a decrease in government expenditures on both wages and on benefits paid to public employees, as well as a decrease in government expenditures on infrastructure. The programme followed the lead of a project that had already been put into practice in 1995 by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, which was named Bolsa Escola (School Stipend). It expanded that initiative with the new Fome Zero ("Zero Hunger") programme, which was part of the Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) plan.

Five months after Lula took office, however, the budget for Fome Zero was cut down a third from its original amount, and one year later, about $800 million was budgeted toward the programme, but only $130 million of that was actually disbursed. Lula's programme was accused of having become more bark than bite, inasmuch as of May 2005, two years after the effort began, the programme had fallen far short of expectations.

During Lula's first term, child malnutrition in Brazil decreased by 46%. In May 2010, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) awarded Lula the title of "World Champion in the Fight against Hunger". A number of other social projects were introduced during Lula's first presidency.

Lula launched a housing aid programme that was larger in scope to the policies developed until then. More than 15 billion euros were invested in water purification and the urbanization of favelas, and more than 40 billion in housing. The government proposed to relocate the poor populations that occupied the "risk zones", prone to floods or landslides; at the end of the day, however, at least 212 people died and at least 15,000 people were made homeless by the April 2010 Rio de Janeiro floods and mudslides alone. It proposed to then extend the electricity network, to relocate the streets and to improve the precarious housing. The government undertook to democratize access to real estate credit.

Economy

Lula's first two terms coincided with a strong boom in commodities prices. This fueled an economic boom in Brazil, which in turn allowed Lula to spend heavily on social programmes and pay off a $15 billion IMF loan a year early.

In the run-up to the 2002 elections, the fear of Lula taking drastic measures, and comparisons of him with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, increased internal market speculation. This led to a drop in the value of the Brazilian real, and a downgrade of Brazil's credit rating. Lula chose Henrique Meirelles of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), a market-oriented economist, as head of the Brazilian Central Bank. As a former CEO of BankBoston he was well known to the market.

Lula and his cabinet followed, to an extent, the lead of the previous government in economics. It renewed all agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which were signed by the time Argentina defaulted on its own deals in 2001. His government achieved a satisfactory primary budget surplus in the first two years, as required by the IMF agreement, exceeding the target for the third year. In late 2005, the government paid off its debt to the IMF in full, two years ahead of schedule. The Brazilian economy was generally not affected by the 2005 Mensalão scandal, which related to vote buying in the Brazilian Congress.

In June 2005, economist and attorney José Dirceu, Lula's chief-of-staff since 2003, resigned after he was caught up in a massive corruption scheme in the legislature, the Mensalão corruption scandal. In March 2006, Lula's finance minister Antonio Palocci, who had continued the anti-inflation and pro-market policies of the previous centrist government, resigned due to his involvement in a corruption and abuse of power scandal. Lula then appointed Guido Mantega, a PT economist, as finance minister.

Not long after the start of his second term, in 2007 Lula's government announced the Growth Acceleration Programme (Programa de Aceleração de Crescimento, PAC), an investment programme which sought to solve many of the problems that prevented the Brazilian economy from expanding more rapidly. The measures included investment in the creation and repair of roads and railways, simplification and reduction of taxation, and modernization of the country's energy production to avoid further shortages. The money pledged to be spent on this programme was to be around R$ 500 billion (US $260 billion) over four years. However, by 2010 many projects remained mired in bureaucracy, and only 11% of the projects outlined in the plan had been completed, while just over half had not even been launched.

Environment

Initially, Lula's administration pushed for progressive policies that significantly curbed deforestation in the Amazon. Despite this, he did not support legislation that would have required the country to phase out its fossil fuels.

In May 2008, environmental minister Marina Silva resigned, blamed "stagnation" in the government, after she lost disagreements with Lula when she opposed approval of new hydroelectric dams in the Amazon and criticized Lula's biofuels programme. Dr. Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Centre said the growing demand for biofuels may ultimately result in more Amazon deforestation. In particular, environmentalists warn that while biofuels reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, they may well also trigger a significant expansion of the biofuel crops; that, in turn, may push agriculture deeper into forests, destroying habitat and biodiversity.

The creation of conservation areas and indigenous reserves led to a decrease of around 75% in deforestation starting in 2004. In Lula's first year in office, in 2003–04, 25,000 square kilometers of Brazilian forest were destroyed, the second-worst devastation since 1977. In late 2006, the Instituto Soicioambiental environmental group said that deforestation in Lula's first four years had been worse than in any four-year period since 1988. By 2009, Brazil's Amazon destruction—though lower—was still about 7,000 square kilometers a year, larger than the US state of Delaware. Critics said, however, that Brazil's lowest rate of deforestation in 2009 was a function of the 2008 financial crisis. Paulo Adario of Greenpeace said that it was a function not of efforts to protect the climate, but of the fact that the "demand for beef, soya and wood ha[d] dramatically fallen".

In 2009, Lula gave a speech in which he said that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation.

In February 2010, Lula's government approved the construction of a controversial hydroelectric mega Belo Monte Dam in the middle of the Amazon rain forest in the Brazilian state of Pará. It was to be the third-largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Environmental activists protested the building of the dam. It was expected to cause a significant decline in the water table, resulting in significant losses of aquatic and terrestrial fauna, and adversely impact aquatic mammals. Approximately 20,000-40,000 indigenous people were to be resettled with little or no compensation, and 516 square kilometers (199 square miles) of rain forest were to be flooded for the dam's construction.

Foreign policy

In 1979, Lula was asked in an interview which historical figures he admired most. He answered: Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong. Upon being asked to give additional examples, he added Fidel Castro, Ruhollah Khomeini and Adolf Hitler and saying about the latter: "I admire in a man the fire to want to do something, and then his going out to try to do it."

Leading a large agricultural state, Lula generally opposed and criticized farm subsidies, and this position has been seen as one of the reasons for the walkout of developing nations and subsequent collapse of the Cancún World Trade Organization talks in 2003 over G8 agricultural subsidies. Brazil played a role in negotiations regarding internal conflicts in Venezuela and Colombia, and made efforts to strengthen Mercosur. During the Lula administration, Brazilian foreign trade increased dramatically, changing from deficits to several surpluses after 2003. In 2004, the surplus was US$29 billion, due to a substantial increase in global demand for commodities. Brazil also provided UN peacekeeping troops and led a peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

According to The Economist of 2 March 2006, Lula had a pragmatic foreign policy, seeing himself as a negotiator, not an ideologue, a leader adept at reconciling opposites. As a result, he befriended both Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and U.S. President George W. Bush. Former Finance Minister, and current advisor, Delfim Netto, said: "Lula is the ultimate pragmatist".

He travelled to more than 80 countries during his presidency. A goal of Lula's foreign policy was for the country to gain a seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. In this he was unsuccessful.

From 2003 to 2010, Lula embraced China as central to reforming what he considered an unjust global order. He intertwined the Chinese and Brazilian economies. Lula stated Brazil's commitment to the One China principle that is the position held by the People's Republic of China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party, saying that the government of the People's Republic of China was the sole legal government representing the whole of China, including Taiwan—as part of China.

Lula and Cuban president Fidel Castro were longtime friends. Under Lula, Brazil provided money and corporate support to Cuba. The state-controlled Brazilian oil company Petrobras studied the possibility of drilling for oil off of Cuba, while the Odebrecht construction firm headed a revamp of the Cuban port of Mariel into the island's main commercial port. Brazil's state-run Brazilian Development Bank gave $300 million to Odebrecht to build new roads, rail lines, wharves, and warehouses at Mariel. Brazil also offered Cuba up to $1 billion in credit lines to pay for Brazilian goods and services.

Freedom of the press

After Lula was infuriated by a 9 May 2004, New York Times article that claimed he had a drinking problem, Brazil ordered the New York Times reporter, Larry Rohter, to leave the country and revoked his visa because he had written a story "offensive to the honour of the president." Lula said: "Certainly its author ... must be more worried than I am ... it deserves action." Brazil's presidential palace threatened to take legal action against the New York Times, which stood by the story and said that the expulsion raised serious questions about freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Brazil. No journalist had been expelled from Brazil since its military dictatorship ended in the mid-1980s. Brazilian opposition senator Tasso Jereissati said: "This is ridiculous. It's more like the immature act of a dictator of a third-rate republic..." Brazil's second largest union, Força Sindical, issued a statement expressing concern that: "it is a reaction typical of authoritarian governments that don't like contrary voices." Despite criticism, on 13 May 2004, Lula said "he would not consider revoking the action." The government subsequently changed its position, and allowed the reporter to remain.

Three months later, Lula introduced legislation to create a Brazil National Journalists' Council that would have the power to "orient, discipline and monitor" journalists and their work. Critics called the draft law the worst affront to press freedom since censorship under the military dictatorship. The government also proposed the establishment of a National Cinema and Audiovisual Agency that would have the power to conduct prior reviews of programming and to veto certain programmes if they believed that they did not to meet standards of "editorial responsibility."

Corruption scandals and controversy

Lula's administration was plagued by numerous corruption scandals, notably the Mensalão $50 million vote-buying scandal and Escândalo dos sanguessugas during Lula's first term.

Mensalão vote-buying scandal

In the 2005 Mensalão $50 million vote-buying scandal, Brazilian attorney general Álvaro Augusto Ribeiro Costa presented charges against 40 politicians and officials involved in the Mensalão affair, including several charges against Lula himself. Lula said that he knew nothing about the scandals.

Among those convicted were Jose Dirceu (who was Lula's chief of staff and right-hand man from 2003 to 2005; he was sentenced to over 10 years in jail), and both the former head of Lula's Workers Party, Jose Genoino, and its treasurer, Delubio Soares. Dirceu and officials Luiz Gushiken and Humberto Costa said that Lula was not involved. Roberto Jefferson said that if Lula didn't "commit a crime by action, he committed it by omission." But one of Lula's own party members, Arlindo Chinaglia, alleged that Lula had been warned about the matter, and businessman Marcos Valério, who was sentenced to more than 40 years in prison for his involvement in the scandal, alleged in testimony after he was convicted that Lula had authorized loans for the scheme and used some of the money to pay for his personal expenses.

Politicking

His administration was criticized for relying on local, right-of-centre political barons, like José Sarney, Jader Barbalho, Renan Calheiros and Fernando Collor to ensure a majority in Congress. Another frequent reproach was his ambiguous treatment of the left wing of the PT. Analysts felt that he would occasionally give in to left-wing calls for tighter government control on media and increased state intervention: in 2004, he pushed for the creation of a "Federal Council of Journalists" (CFJ) and a "National Cinema Agency" (Ancinav), the latter designed to overhaul funding for electronic communications. Both proposals ultimately failed amid concerns over the effect of state control on free speech.

Great Recession caused by white people with blue eyes

Before a G-20 summit in London in March 2009, Lula caused an uproar by declaring that the economic crisis was caused by "the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before seemed to know everything, and now have shown they don't know anything". He added: "I don't know any black or indigenous bankers." He repeated the accusation the following month.

Terrorist Cesare Battisti

When Italian far-left terrorist Cesare Battisti of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, wanted for four murders, was arrested in Rio de Janeiro in March 2007 by Brazilian and French police officers, Brazilian Minister of Justice Tarso Genro granted him status as a political refugee. It was a controversial decision, which divided Italy and the Brazilian and international press. In February 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in support of Italy, and held a minute's silence in memory of Battisti's victims. In November 2009, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared the grant of refugee status illegal and allowed Battisti's extradition, but also stated that the Brazilian constitution gave the president the personal power to deny the extradition if he chose to, effectively putting the final decision in the hands of Lula.

Lula barred Battisti's extradition. On 31 December 2010, Lula's last day in office, his decision not to allow Battisti's extradition was officially announced. Battisti was released on 9 June 2011 from prison, after the Brazilian Constitutional Court denied Italy's request to extradite him. Italy planned to appeal to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, saying Brazil had breached an extradition treaty. President Michel Temer revoked his status as a permanent resident in December, 2018 and an arrest warrant was issued; Battisti then entered Bolivia illegally, and was arrested and extradited from Bolivia in January 2019.

Operation Zelotes

In 2015, Lula, along with his former chief of staff Gilberto Carvalho and five others, was indicted in a corruption probe as part of Operation Zelotes, regarding payment of R$6 million in bribes (US $1.5 million). Prosecutors alleged they helped pass Provisional Measure 471 (which was later converted into Law 12,218/2010) in 2009 in order to benefit the automotive companies Grupo Caoa and MMC. On 21 June 2021, Judge Frederico Botelho de Barros Viana of the 10th Federal Court of Brasilia acquitted all the accused, saying that the prosecution did not convincingly demonstrate that the defendants were involved in a criminal conspiracy.

Operation Car Wash: corruption investigation and prosecution

In 2014, Brazil began Operação Lava Jato (English: Operation Car Wash), resulting in multiple arrests and convictions, including nine suits against Lula.

In April 2015, the Public Ministry of Brazil opened an investigation into allegations of influence peddling by Lula, which alleged that between 2011 and 2014 he had lobbied for government contracts in foreign countries for the Odebrecht company and had also persuaded the Brazilian Development Bank to finance the projects in Ghana, Angola, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. In June 2015, Marcelo Odebrecht, president of Odebrecht, was arrested on charges that he had paid politicians $230 million in bribes. Three other company executives were also arrested, as well as the chief executive of Andrade Gutierrez, another construction conglomerate.

On 4 March 2016, as part of "Operation Car Wash", Brazilian authorities raided Lula's home. After the raid, the police detained Lula for questioning. A police statement alleged that Lula had collaborated in illegal bribes from the oil company Petrobras to benefit his political party and presidential campaign. Prosecutor Carlos Fernando said, "The favours to Lula from big construction companies involved in the fraud at Petrobras were many and hard to quantify". Lula said that he and his party were being politically persecuted.

On 16 March 2016, Rousseff appointed Lula as her chief of staff, a position comparable to that of prime minister. This would have shielded him from arrest due to the immunity that went with the position. Cabinet ministers in Brazil are among close to seven hundred senior government officials enjoying special judicial standing, which means they can only be tried by Brazil's Supreme Federal Court. Supreme Court Judge Gilmar Mendes suspended Lula's appointment on the grounds that Rousseff was trying to help Lula circumvent prosecution.

On 28 July 2016, Lula filed a petition with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, a panel of experts, requesting that it provide a view on his accusation that Moro had violated his rights. The Committee ultimately accepted the case. The Brazilian ambassador to the UK wrote: "The (Brazilian) judiciary is fully independent and due process of law is faithfully observed. All defendants facing criminal prosecution fully enjoy the guarantee of a fair trial and the right to appeal."

Between terms (2011–2023)

Health

On 29 October 2011, it was announced that Lula, a former smoker, had a malignant tumor in his larynx, which was detected after his voice became unusually hoarse. He had chemotherapy to treat the tumor, and was later treated with radiation therapy; his laryngeal cancer went into remission. Lula announced his recovery in March 2012.

On 21 January 2021, Lula tested positive for COVID-19 while participating in the filming of an Oliver Stone documentary in Cuba, five days after arriving on the island. He recovered without needing to be admitted to hospital. On 13 March 2021, Lula received his first dose of the CoronaVac vaccine.

In October 2023, Lula had hip joint replacement surgery for a hip prosthesis, replacing the top of his right femur with an implant to treat his arthrosis.

He also had a blepharoplasty, a cosmetic plastic surgery to remove excess skin from both of his eyelids.

2018 presidential campaign

In 2017, Lula announced he would stand as the Workers' Party candidate for president again in the 2018 election. In September, he led a caravan of supporters which travelled through the states of Brazil, starting with Minas Gerais, whose governor was Lula's political ally Fernando Pimentel. While traveling through the South of Brazil, the caravan became the target of protests. In Paraná, a campaign bus was shot at, and in Rio Grande do Sul, rocks were thrown at pro-Lula militants.

Despite Lula's imprisonment in April 2018, the Workers' Party kept Lula as the party's presidential candidate. In a poll conducted by Ibope in June 2018, Lula led with 33% of vote intentions, with the PSL candidate Jair Bolsonaro polling second with 15%. Lula negotiated a national coalition with the PCdoB and regional alliances with the Socialist Party.

The Workers' Party officially nominated Lula as its candidate on 5 August 2018, in São Paulo. Actor Sérgio Mamberti read a letter written by Lula, who was unable to attend because of his prison sentence. Former São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad was named as Lula's running mate and intended to represent Lula in events and debates. If Lula was declared ineligible, Haddad would replace Lula as candidate, with Manuela d'Ávila replacing Haddad as the vice-presidential candidate.

In response to a petition from Lula, the UN Human Rights Committee on 17 August 2018 suggested to the Brazilian government that it allow Lula to exercise his political rights.

In a 26 August poll, Lula had 39 percent of vote intentions within one month of the first round. The same opinion polling put Lula ahead of all his challengers in a second round run-off, including the nearest one, PSL candidate Jair Bolsonaro, by 52 to 32.

Lula's candidacy was denied by the Superior Electoral Court on 31 August 2018 by a majority vote of the seven-judge panel. On 11 September 2018, Lula officially withdrew and was replaced by Fernando Haddad, whom Lula endorsed.

Second presidency (2023–present)

2022 election

In May 2021, Lula said that he would run for a third term in the October 2022 general election, against the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. He was 17% ahead of Bolsonaro in a poll in January 2022. In April 2022, Lula announced that his running mate would be Geraldo Alckmin, a three-term governor of São Paulo state who had run against Lula in the 2006 presidential elections.

On 2 October, in the first round vote, Lula was in first place with 48% of the electorate, qualifying for the second round with Bolsonaro, who received 43% of the votes. Lula was elected in the second round on 30 October with 50.89% of the vote, the smallest margin in the history of Brazil's presidential elections, three days after his 77th birthday. He became the first president of Brazil elected to three terms, the first since Getúlio Vargas to serve in non-consecutive terms, and the first to unseat an incumbent president. He was sworn in on 1 January 2023. At age 77, he was the oldest Brazilian president at the time of inauguration.

Tenure

Lula said that his main commitments were: the reconstruction of the country in the face of the economic crisis; democracy, sovereignty and peace; economic development and stability; fighting poverty; education; implementation of a National System of Culture and the expansion of housing programmes. He held the presidency of the G20 from 2023 (succeeding India) until the 2024 Brazilian G20 Summit, where after this the presidency was handed over to South Africa.

Lula's popularity declined; in September 2023, 38% of those polled considered him to be good or excellent, while 30% considered him to be average, and 31% viewed him as bad or terrible.

On 23 October 2025, Lula announced that he would run for reelection as president in the 2026 Brazilian general election.

In March 2023, Lula met in China with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and signed 15 memoranda of understanding and 20 agreements on a wide range of issues. Lula gave a speech in which he said that no one would keep Brazil from improving its relationship with China—which was taken as a reference to the United States. In January 2024, Lula reaffirmed to Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi his recognition of China's policy of "one China", under which China claims Taiwan. Human Rights Watch, in the meantime, cautioned Lula against cozying up to China, while remaining silent about China's human rights abuses.

In September 2023, Lula called Cuba a "victim" of an "illegal" United States embargo against Cuba. He also denounced the inclusion of Cuba on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In March 2023, Lula's administration allowed two Iranian Navy warships, forward base ship IRIS Makran and frigate IRIS Dena, to dock in Rio de Janeiro. U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Elizabeth Bagley said that in the past the warships had facilitated terrorist activities, and US Senator Ted Cruz said that "the docking of Iranian warships in Brazil is a dangerous development and a direct threat to the safety and security of Americans."

Lula endorsed admitting Iran into the BRICS organization, and in August 2023 met with Iranian president Ebrahim Raeisi. Lula stopped short of condemning Iran's rights abuses.

Political positions and philosophy

Lula has advocated "socialism of the 21st century", but Lulism is considered to be substantially similar to social liberalism. Although he showed a moderate centre-left liberal tendency economically, he highlighted his closeness with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and negatively evaluated Juan Guaidó during the Venezuelan crisis. He is "personally against" abortion, but maintains that it should be treated as a public health issue.

Palestine

Lula criticized the decisions by Western countries to cut funding to UNRWA and in response pledged to the Palestinian government that Brazil would increase its funding to UNRWA. Lula has called for a two-state solution with Palestine "definitively recognised as a full and sovereign state".

On 18 February 2024, Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while attending the African Union Summit, "What's happening in the Gaza Strip isn't a war, it's a genocide. ... It's not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It's a war between a highly prepared army and women and children. ... What's happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn't happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews".

Honours and awards

The list of Lula's awards since 2003:

In 2008 he was awarded the UNESCO Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize.

In 2012 he received the Four Freedoms Award.

In 2025, the Brazilian frog species Brachycephalus lulai was named in his honor.

In popular culture

Academy Award-nominated Brazilian director Fábio Barreto directed the 2009 Brazilian biographical film Lula, Son of Brazil that depicts the life of Lula up to 35 years of age. Upon its release, it was the most expensive Brazilian film ever. The film was a commercial and critical failure. Critics charged that it was election propaganda, fostering a cult of personality.

The Netflix Brazilian series The Mechanism deals with Operation Car Wash, and has a character inspired by Lula, who is referred to as João Higino in the series.

The 2019 Brazilian documentary, The Edge of Democracy, written and directed by Petra Costa, chronicled the rise and fall of Lula and Dilma Rousseff, and the socio-political upheaval in Brazil during the period. Lula is also featured in the director's 2024 documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics.