Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (born October 27, 1945) is a Brazilian politician and former trade union leader who is the President-elect of Brazil since winning the 2022 general election. He was the 35th president from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2010. He is a co-founder and member of the Workers' Party. He was a Federal Deputy for São Paulo from 1987 to 1991. He had ran three times for president, until winning the presidency during his fourth campaign in 2002, when he was elected to replace Fernando Henrique Cardoso. He was re-elected in 2006 in a landslide victory.
In his first tenure as president, Lula created social programs including Bolsa Família and Fome Zero, which helped fight against poverty and the lower class citizens of Brazil. He also had an important role in international politics such as the nuclear program of Iran and climate change. He helped lower deforestation in the Amazons. His second term became controversial because of many scandals, such as the Mensalão scandal. However, after leaving office, he was seen as one of the most popular presidents in Brazil's history and most popular leader of the world. Lula is a popular figure in Brazilian politics and his ideas have been called Lulism.
In early 2016, Lula was appointed Chief of Staff under his successor Dilma Rousseff, but his appointment was blocked because of federal investigations against him at the time. In July 2017, Lula was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption in a controversial trial, and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. After an unsuccessful appeal, Lula was arrested in April 2018 and spent 580 days in jail. In 2021, his sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court of Brazil because his jail sentence was seen as politically motivated.
Lula ran for president again in 2018, however dropped out after being charged for bribery. In May 2021, Lula said he would run for a third term in the 2022 general election, against the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. In October 2022 in the run-off election, Lula would beat Bolsonaro, winning 50.9% of the vote.