It is the darkest moment in his 72-year-long life. From the helicopter that lands on the roof, he is taken down two long flights of stairs to the prison entrance. The date is April 7, 2018, and Brazil’s most famous politician, former president Lula da Silva, begins serving his corruption sentence. In front of the gate, his opponents celebrate the imprisonment with fireworks and tactful shouts: “Lula na jáeda – Lula in prison”. Many of them have been shouting this slogan for years, and de Lula is being led into prison in Curitiba – in April 2018. Photo: HEULER ANDREY / AFP experiencing his greatest moment now when his dream finally comes true. Special CV Few leaders on the planet have lived a life with such great fluctuations and as much drama as Lula. A quick look at his CV says it all: Shoeshine, metalworker, union leader, party leader, president, prisoner, and now: Presidential candidate. He was born into the deepest poverty in the barren regions of the interior of Northeast Brazil. The year was 1945, and he was given the name Luiz Inacio. After a few years, the father left the family, and the mother was forced to make a dramatic decision: When Lula was six years old, she took the children on a thirteen-day journey in a truck to seek a new life in the big city of São Paulo in the south. The photo letter “From shoeshine to president” is in news’s archive, and contains extracts from the film “Lula – Brazil’s son”. There they lived from hand to mouth, and Lula contributed to the family economy by working as a shoe shiner. He later took a trade certificate as a metal worker, and became an active trade union leader who soon came into conflict with the ruling military regime. After a widespread strike, he was arrested and spent 31 days behind bars. Elected president But the days of the dictatorship were soon numbered, and Lula bet on a political career as leader of the PT workers’ party. He was elected to Congress in 1986, and three years later he ran for president. But he did not succeed – neither in this nor in the elections in 1994 and 1998. He was not elected president until 2002, and he ruled the country for eight years. It was a period of great progress for Brazil, when more than 30 million people took the leap out of poverty. Lula da Silva was installed as president on 1 January 2003. Photo: ORLANDO KISSNER / AFP And when he left the presidency, more than 80 percent of voters thought he had done a good job. But one of his most important election promises – to rid the country of its great scourge, corruption – was not fulfilled. It would eventually overtake him with full force. – The next victim was me In 2016, President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s successor and party colleague, was deposed in a controversial impeachment case. At the time, the authorities were investigating the major corruption scandal “Lava Jato” – Operation Car Wash. And it was clear that Lula was the main target of the investigation. – I knew long in advance that they wanted me imprisoned, he told me during an interview earlier this year. – When Dilma was deposed in a coup in 2016, I was absolutely sure that the next victim was me. The aim was to prevent me from coming back and governing this country and creating a socially just society, said Lula in the interview with news. Lula da Silva gave a half-hour interview to news earlier this year. Photo: Studio PT – Managed to avoid hating Lula da Silva was indicted for having received bribes in connection with the Lava Jato case. But the evidence was thin, and the main charges were based on the statements of other defendants who received a discount for telling. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison, and in 2018 the sentence began – an unimaginable fall for Brazil’s most famous politician. How did he deal with this? I asked when I interviewed him: – I managed to avoid hating, he replied. – If you sit in prison and cultivate hatred, you get heart trouble. You start banging your head against the wall. So I realized I had to keep calm, and I did. – I spent the time preparing myself for what is happening now. I am very grateful for the international solidarity. President Jair Bolsonaro amuses himself with a doll representing Lula da Silva in prison garb. Photo: ADRIANO MACHADO / Reuters – And I thank those who every day of the 580 days I was in prison lined up outside the walls to give encouraging shouts, said Lula da Silva in the news interview. The mood turns In November 2019, Lula was released from prison in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil. In the first instance, it was due to a change in the prison rules. But the mood in the matter was about to turn. More and more people believed that this was a political process, especially after it was revealed that the sentence against Lula was an agreed game between the judge and the prosecution. In 2021, the Supreme Court decided to overturn the corruption verdict and give the former president his political rights back. One of the judges made a crushing criticism of Lava Jato, the trial in which Lula was convicted: – You cannot fight crime by committing crimes, said the judge. And he claimed that the sentence was a political process, where the goal was to prevent the popular politician from participating in the presidential election in 2018. D-day 30 October And many believe that Lula would have won the election, after he had a clear lead in the opinion polls before he was denied standing for election. Lula won the first round of voting – just over 5 percentage points ahead of Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Andre Penner / AP Instead, his bitterest political enemy, the right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, was elected president. Now Brazil is in the middle of a new dramatic election campaign, where the two will meet in a showdown in the decisive round of elections on 30 October. Lula won the first round, but not nearly as clearly as the most famous pollsters had predicted. You can say a lot wrong about the politics here in Brazil, but not that it is boring!
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Shoe shine, president and prisoner – Lula da Silva’s dramatic life – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
