Lula, Brazil’s political titan, races against time

At 80, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the dominant figure in Brazilian politics for four decades, wants to show he still has the energy to win a fourth term in office in October’s election. The leftist leader has survived electoral defeats, 580 days in prison, and the disgrace of a corruption conviction which, although later annulled, still prompts taunts from the right of “Lula the thief.” He has also survived health scares, notably a fall in his bathroom in 2024 that caused a brain bleed. Since then, he often wears a Panama hat.

His once thick black hair has greyed and thinned, much like his trademark beard. But he insists he feels fitter than ever and he dreams of “living to 120.” Lula grew up in deep poverty, the seventh of eight children born to a family of illiterate farmers in the arid northeastern state of Pernambuco. He worked as a shoeshine boy and peanut vendor before becoming a metalworker and trade unionist.

In the 1960s, he lost a finger in a workplace accident. After losing three presidential bids, Lula finally entered the presidential palace in Brasilia in 2003 and was re-elected in 2006. He left office in 2010 as a blue-collar hero who presided over a commodity-fueled economic boom that helped lift 30 million people out of poverty.

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But massive corruption scandals haunted Lula and his party, fueling a wave of disgust that propelled far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency in 2018. Lula was jailed later that year until the charges were thrown out on procedural grounds and the lead judge on the case was found to be biased.

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