BRAZIL:President Luiz Inacio Lula marks his first year of his third term in office to day.
Lula as he is popularly called, is a fairly interesting man. He is the 35th and the 39th President of Brazil, making his presidency very colourful read.
He served as the 35th President from 2003 to 2010, took a mandatory break that was extended by a jail term, then came back for another four-year term that started on January 1, 2023. You can only imagine that happening in Kenya.
In Brazil, a President serves for one term of four years and eligible for reelection for another one term. Thereafter, he is ineligible for the next term but after that break, he is again eligible for another two consecutive terms. Something Kenya can try.
Born on October 27, 1945 Lula is a career trade unionist, turned politician. Or are they one and the same? He started as a metalworker as a teenager and led Brazilian workers in a series of strikes.
In 1980 he formed the Workers Party which he leads to date and which has taken him the top office in the land.
Lost lost the first presidential bid in 1989, the second one in 1994 and the third one in 1998., all to one man Fernados Henrique Cardoso.
He won the seat in 2002 during a runoff and was reelected for the second term in 2006, still in a runoff. During the 2010 election Lula was ineligible as he had already served two terms. He was succeeded by his former Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff who won in round two.
After leaving power in 2010, Lula remained politically active in preparation for a third term. He was still the most popular politician in Brazil. Like a pay back, President Rousseff appointed him Chief of Staff in 2016. However the appointment was halted by the Supreme Court. Rousseff was impeached by the Senate that year.
In 2017 Lula was charged for money laundering and corruption and convicted. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in Jail. An appeal failed and he was arrested in April 2018. He spent 580 days in prison. During that October 2018 elections, he was in prison hence disqualified from running.
In November 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that imprisonment was unlawful. In June 2021 the court overturned the conviction.
Lula made another shot at the presidency in the October 2, 2022 elections and beat the incumbent President Bolsonaro in a run off. He was sworn in on January 1, 2023 aged 77 years. He is the oldest President of Brazil. He is the first to serve three terms and the first to have defeated a sitting president.
Bolsonaro attempted a maandamano (protests), actually a real coup attempt with his supporters. An election court has since banned him from running for the seat until 2030 over electoral fraud.
Lula is also a father of five. His first wife died in 1971 after two years in marriage. He remarried in 1974 and the second wife died in 2017. He remarried in 2022.
Lula says in one year his government has launched 75 programmes in health, education, culture, public safety, sports,
agriculture and employment.
