Lula

▪ 2003

      On Oct. 27, 2002—Lula's 57th birthday—voters in Brazil handed him a landslide victory in his fourth attempt at the presidency. The election capped the remarkable rise of a former lathe operator and union leader to the nation's top political post and put a left-wing leader in power in Brazil for the first time in four decades.

      Born in 1945 to sharecropping parents in Garanhuns, Pernambuco state, Braz., Luiz Inácio da Silva (“Lula” was a nickname that he added to his legal name for campaign purposes) worked as a shoeshine boy and street vendor to help supplement the family income. After his mother separated from his father and moved the family to the city of São Paulo in 1956, Lula found work at a screw-manufacturing plant and trained to operate a lathe. He lost the little finger of his left hand in an accident at age 18. During the recession that followed the military coup of 1964, Lula was laid off but eventually found employment with the Villares Metalworks in São Bernardo do Campo, an industrial suburb of São Paulo. At Villares, his brother Chico encouraged him to join the Metalworkers' Union. In 1972 Lula left the factory to work for the union full-time, heading its legal section until 1975, when he was elected union president.

      Lula soon gained national fame. He launched a movement for wage increases in opposition to the military regime's economic policy. The campaign was highlighted by a series of strikes from 1978 to 1980 and culminated in Lula's arrest and indictment for violations of the National Security Law. Although he was convicted and sentenced to a prison term of three and a half years, the Military Supreme Court absolved him of the charges.

      A founding member of the Workers' Party (PT), Lula first ran for political office as the PT candidate for governor of the state of São Paulo in 1982, finishing fourth. He later led national efforts in favour of direct elections for president, organizing mass demonstrations in state capitals in 1983 and 1984. Buoyed by popularity and charisma, Lula was elected to the national Chamber of Deputies in 1986 as a federal deputy from São Paulo. The PT ran Lula as its candidate for president in 1989, but he lost to Fernando Collor de Mello. Lula continued as his party's presidential candidate in the elections of 1994 and 1998, both times finishing second to Fernando Henrique Cardoso. While he never attained more than 40% of the valid votes during his first three presidential campaigns, Lula won the presidency in 2002 with 61.5% of the ballots to government-backed candidate José Serra's 38.5%.

      Lula owed his victory in part to his adoption of a more pragmatic platform than he had previously offered. While he remained committed to encouraging grassroots participation in the political process, he also took pains to court business leaders and promised to work with the International Monetary Fund to meet fiscal targets. Lula's inauguration was set for Jan. 1, 2003.

John Charles Cuttino

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