Lula was born in 1945 in Pernambuco, a state in the rural Northeast of Brazil. He grew up working class, becoming a metalworker and union activist as a young man in the state of São Paulo. Following his contributions to the labour movement in the 1970s where he organised several major strikes during Brazil’s military dictatorship, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) was among the founders of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) in 1980. Growing in membership and prominence as the dictatorship fell in 1985, PT incorporated itself into the Brazilian establishment, flirting with the bourgeois and diluting its more radical policies in an appeal to the middle class. This was accompanied by the PT leadership’s active suppression of internal socialist organising, although the party’s land reform apparently remained too radical for the electorate, who favoured the liberal opposition in the 1989 elections.
Whilst PT had begun its shift to the centre in the 1980s, it was following their 1989 defeat that Lula drew a new party line. As Reagan, Thatcher, and the Chicago Boys redefined global capitalism, Lula aligned himself with this new neoliberal paradigm, further compromising on his party’s founding tenets in a world increasingly unaccommodating to socialism. Lula continued to suppress his party’s radical wing, moderating its rhetoric and increasingly collaborating with conservative peers and business groups, even going so far as to select José Alencar as his running mate in the 2002 elections. A billionaire and deregulation activist, Alencar’s selection foreshadowed Lula’s pro-business policies and economic focus that cemented his two terms as president (2003-2011).
Lula failed to confront the country’s economic elite, implement a land reform, or strengthen unions and labour rights, instead prioritising the profits of big businesses with only limited social welfare achieved through his aforementioned income redistribution.
Whilst his policy of Bolsa Familia is often lauded with lifting millions out of poverty, increasing the minimum wage and income redistribution were the only left-wing policies he successfully implemented. Lula failed to confront the country’s economic elite, implement a land reform, or strengthen unions and labour rights, instead prioritising the profits of big businesses with only limited social welfare achieved through his aforementioned income redistribution. This was not sustainable. Brazil’s economy continued to rely on the export of primary goods and raw materials, experiencing a financial crisis under Lula’s successor Dilma Rousseff in 2014. As PT’s centrist collaborators fled the party, Rousseff was impeached and much of Lula’s poverty alleviation was undone as the country’s GDP shrunk by 3.5% in 2015-16.
This political and economic crisis sunk the Brazilian left, paving the way for Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency (2018-22) and a Trump-influenced conservatism that capitalised on reactionary sentiment. Bolsonaro reverted the progressive platforming that Lula championed, targeting marginalised groups like women, queer, indigenous, and black Brazilians. Furthermore, he increased tariffs, exacerbating Brazil’s protectionist reputation and reducing its appeal for trade. For growth, Bolsonaro turned to the Amazon, selling out the country’s greatest environmental asset through the acceleration and deregulation of logging and ranching. Bolsonaro’s embrace of the authoritarian and the far right even threatened a return to the military dictatorship, although his incitement of violence following Lula’s re-election in 2022 was met with opposition from military leaders, allowing for the transfer of power back to the country’s former leader.
In Lula’s third term, his focus has been primarily on growing the economy through economic liberalisation. He has reduced unemployment to 6.4% (September 2024), the second lowest on record in Brazil’s history, and he has unveiled a global alliance at the G20 in November aimed at expansive poverty reduction and climate change, having reversed Bolsonaro’s destructive policies in his first year back in office. He has reinstated the Bolsa Familia, this time targeting 60 million Brazilians suffering from poverty. He has also strengthened and expanded Brazil’s foreign diplomacy, particularly with BRICS and western-critical countries like Cuba, expressing solidarity against the United States’ embargo.
In Lula’s third term, his focus has been primarily on growing the economy through economic liberalisation.
It remains to be seen whether Lula’s foreign policy will transform Brazil as his economics have variably proven to, although his moves to protect the Amazon and introduce wider environmental regulation is definitely a step in the right direction for the country. Sustainable growth and development however will not come about without a reorientation of Brazil’s protectionist policies away from its businessmen and billionaires and towards that of the worker, where something akin to China’s industrial policy could secure Brazil’s manufacturing, exports and expanding service sector by ensuring that its local workers are skilled, trained and protected by improved labour rights.
For as promising as Lula’s current platform is, his social-liberal policies remain a world away from the revolutionary sentiment of his party’s founding tenets and his neo-liberal approach to poverty reduction will not challenge the rife inequalities in the world’s 10th largest economy. His broad left-wing alliance remains committed to liberalism, whilst challenges from the far-right are far greater than they were in Lula’s previous terms. Additionally, at 79 years old, his party should begin looking for a competent and compelling successor, and preferably someone who can commit to more sustainable and labour-oriented socio-economic change in the country in time for the 2026 general election.
