Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been President of Brazil three times — from 2003 to 2010 and again from 2023 — with a corruption conviction and 580 days in prison between the second term and the third. Born in Pernambuco in 1945, the seventh of eight children in a family of subsistence farmers, he migrated with his mother to São Paulo state on the back of a truck as a child, sold peanuts and shined shoes, and lost a finger in a lathe accident at nineteen. He became a metalworker and rose through the union, leading strikes in 1978-80 against the military dictatorship that made him a national figure and got him briefly jailed. He co-founded the Workers' Party in 1980 and lost three presidential elections before winning in 2002 on a moderated platform that reassured financial markets. His first presidency coincided with a commodities boom and used it deliberately. Bolsa Família, a conditional cash transfer tied to school attendance and vaccination, reached about a quarter of the population; roughly twenty to thirty million people left poverty, the minimum wage rose sharply in real terms, and Brazil repaid its IMF debt. He left office in 2010 with approval near eighty per cent. The Lava Jato investigation into kickbacks at Petrobras then engulfed his party. He was convicted in 2017 of accepting a beachfront apartment, imprisoned in 2019, and released in November 2019; in 2021 the Supreme Federal Court annulled the convictions on the grounds that the Curitiba court lacked jurisdiction, and the lead judge was found to have been partial. He defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022. His third term has prioritised Amazon deforestation, which fell substantially, and social spending.
- Lived: 1945 CE – ?
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Roles: President of Brazil (2003-2010), President of Brazil (2023-present)
