Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva was President of Brazil for eight years, from January 1, 2003 to January 1, 2011. He left the presidential palace with beautiful ratings from the people, Then it falls hard and deep. But the unruly beard unionist showed himself to be strict before. Lula missed several times – losing presidential elections in 1989, 1994 and 1998 – before putting on a suit at the turn of the century, moving to the center and winning the crowds.

The new president himself embodies the advancement he promised and brought to his country. He was born in 1945 in the poor countryside of the northeastern state of Pernambuco. His mother moved to São Paulo with her eight children when he was seven years old. As a boy he worked as a shoe polisher. At the age of 19, when he was a factory worker, he lost a little finger in a machine at an auto parts factory. In the 70s, during the military regime, he gained fame as a leader of the metalworkers’ union.

As a politician, he had to reinvent himself in order to win. Far from being a staunch socialist as Bolsonaro’s camp was in this campaign, President Lula was above all a useful social democrat. Already in his 2002 campaign, he promised a moderate economic path in a “Message to the People.” He approached work and appointed a liberal as a central banker. He had the wind in his favor economically and dropped the government debt.

Scholarships for poor Brazilians

He showed himself to the left in his social programs. Subsidies with names such as “Family Grant” and “Family Hunger” have helped lift millions out of extreme poverty. He opened schools and universities and provided scholarships to poor, indigenous, and black Brazilians. The minimum wage has been raised several times. Politician Lula unleashed not a revolution against capital, but a revolution through the wallet: a job, an education, a plate of food on the table, a salary to go shopping or for a vacation on a plane.

It worked, the credit crunch that erupted around the world in 2008 reached Brazil a few years late. Only after his presidency did Labor Party Labor is part of a large-scale corruption scandal. A hostile parliament expelled Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s successor, with bitumen and feathers. Lola also got a stamp Ladraw, a thief, when he was convicted in a controversial 2017 trial. He was in prison for nearly two years. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro won the 2018 elections.

Only when the Supreme Court overturned Lula’s ruling in March last year was he able to return from exile. His return is undoubtedly historic, but has no predictive value for the coming years. The country will not go back to 2002.