Read Books Online Free | Alphabetical Index

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva


Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil
Became President:January 1, 2003
Predecessor:Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Date of Birth:October 27, 1945
Place of Birth:Garanhuns (today Caetés),
Pernambuco State
Party:Workers' Party

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (born October 27, 1945 as "Luiz Inácio da Silva"), is a leftist Brazilian politician who was elected President of Brazil in 2002 and took office on January 1, 2003.

Lula was born in a small village in the impoverished Brazilian state of Pernambuco, but he grew up in the city of Santos, São Paulo state, where jobs were more readily available. He had little formal education, instead working in various entry-level jobs since childhood.

At the age of 21, he lost a finger in a work accident while working in an auto parts factory. Around the same time, he became involved in union activities and held several important union posts. Union activities were strongly suppressed by the right-wing dictatorship of Brazil in this era, and his views moved further to the political left in reaction.

In the 1970s, Lula helped organize major union activities including several huge strikes. He was arrested and jailed for a month, but was released following protests. The strikes ended with both pro-union and pro-government forces dissatisfied with the outcome, and in 1980 the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), or Workers' Party, was formed to address workers' concerns. In 1982 he added the nickname "Lula" to his legal name.

In 1986, he was elected to a seat in Brazil's Congress with a record percentage of the votes. The PT helped to write the country's post-dictatorship constitution, ensuring strong constitutional guarantees of workers' rights, but failing to gain redistribution of rural agricultural land.

In 1989, Lula was the PT presidential candidate. He proved popular with a wide spectrum of Brazilian society, but, feared as an opponent by business owners and financial interests, was not elected.

Lula continued to run for the office of President in subsequent elections. In his 2002 campaign he abandoned his style of informal clothing, as well as his platform plank of refusing to pay the Brazilian foreign debt. This last point was extremely worrisome to US economists, businessmen, and banks, who feared that a Brazilian default along with the already ongoing Argentine default would have a massive ripple effect through the world economy.

In the second round of the election, October 27, 2002, da Silva defeated José Serra of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social Democracy Party or PSDB) to become the president-elect of Brazil.

His policies and those of the PT are widely reported to have become more centrist. Nevertheless, in Western news reports following his 2002 election, he was still consistently described as "leftist", and his election has been billed as a victory for the left. Following eight years of relatively free-market policies, there is now some doubt about the future of those policies. In his first address after his election, he pledged to maintain Brazil's financial commitments while working to alleviate the serious poverty of the country.

Lula also has a foreign policy of aggressively seeking to reform the international economic system. This involves unifying opposition to the "Washington Consensus" among developing nations to push for better terms of trade for the global South. This was seen in the collapse of the Cancun World Trade Organization talks in 2003 over G-8 agricultural subsidies with the walkout of developing nations. Another key proposal of Lula's is a small Tobin tax on international financial transactions that will go to fund developing nations. Brazil has also sent many peacekeeping troops to Haiti to show it is serious about being a world player.

Articles about Lula's election and foreign policy

External Links