Brazils President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva

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Brazils President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

• Professor Murray Johannsen
• Course Leadership and Communication strategies

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Lula's Early Life

• born on October 27, 1945 in Garanhuns, Pernanbuco
• Family very poor, illiterate peasant family
• After Lula's birth, his father moved to the
  coastal city of Guarujá. Lula's mother and her
  eight children joined his father in 1952, facing
  a journey of 13 days in a truck's open cargo
  area.

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Lula's Early Life

• Did not learn to read until he was ten years old.
• Quit school after the 4th grade.
• Professional life began at age 12 as a shoeshine
  boy and street vendor.
• By age 14 he got his first formal job in a copper
  processing factory.
• Lula eventually studied for and received a high
  school equivalency diploma.
• In 1956 his family moved to the city of São
  Paulo,
• Lula, his mother and seven siblings lived in a
  small room in the back area of a bar.

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• At age 19, he lost a finger in an acident while
  working as a press operator in an automobile
  parts factory.
• This experience increased his interest in
  participating within Workers' Union. Around that
  time he became involved in union activities and
  held several important union posts.
• Brazil's dictadoryship strongly curbed trade
  union's activities, and as a reaction Lula's
  views moved further to the political left.

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Union career

• In 1978 he was elected president of the Steel
  Workers' Union of São Bernardo do Campo and
  Diadema.
• Prior to that Lula had already filled various
  posts in the same union, and it was in that
  capacity that he traveled to the U.S., during the
  early 1970s in the middle of the Brazilian
  military dictatorship, to attend a course in
  trade unionism.
• In the late 1970s, Lula helped organize major
  union activities including huge strikes. He was
  jailed for a month, but was released following
  protests.

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Political career

• On 10 February 1980 a group of academics, union
  leaders and intellectuals founded the Workers'
  Party (PT), a left-wing party with progressive
  ideas created in the middle of the military
  dictatorship.
• According to the Brazilian 1967 Constitution
  (created during the military period), Presidents
  were then elected by both Congress houses in
  joint-session, plus representatives of all State
  Legislatures.
• In 1984 PT and Lula joined the popular Diretas
  Já campaign, demanding a direct popular vote for
  the next Brazilian presidential election.

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Political career

• Lula first ran for office in 1982, for the
  government of the state of São Paulo. He lost,
  but helped his party to gain enough votes to
  remain in existence.
• In the 1986 elections, Lula won a seat in
  Congress with a medium percentage of the votes.
  The PT helped write the country's
  post-dictatorship constitution, ensuring strong
  constitutional guarantees for workers' rights.
• In 1989, still as a Congressman, Lula ran as the
  PT presidential candidate. Although he was
  popular with a wide spectrum of Brazilian
  society, he was feared as an opponent by business
  owners and financial interests.

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Political career

• Lula refused to run for re-election as a
  congressman in 1990, busying himself with
  expanding the Workers' Party organizations around
  the country. He continued to run for President in
  1994, 1998 and 2002 when he was elected.
• In September 2006 he was reelected with more than
  60 of the votes

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Political orientation

• From the beginning of his political career to the
  current days, Lula has changed some of his
  original ideals and moderated his positions. His
  party moved progressively from more radical views
  to a modern social democratic political position.
  
• Instead of deep social changes, his government
  chose a reformist line, passing new retirement,
  tax, labor and judicial laws, and discussing a
  university reform.
• That lead to some disagreement inside the PT
  which made some members to leave and to form
  other political parties.

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Social projects

• Lula states that one of the main problems in
  Brazil today is hunger. In order to tackle this
  issue, the Lula government devised Fome Zero
  (Zero Hunger).
• This program unifies a series a programs with the
  goal to end hunger in Brazil to fight
  child-labor, to strengthen family agriculture, to
  distribute a minimum amount of money

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References

• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2367851.stm
• http//www.presidencia.gov.br/presidente/
• http//www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/especial/2002/g
  overnolula/presidente-biografia.shtml