Lula's Comeback: How a Former Prisoner Returned to Brazil's Presidency for a Fourth Term

Within three weeks, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva turned a first-round deficit into a run-off victory over Flávio Bolsonaro, winning a fourth term as president of Brazil. He is 80 and turns 81 on Tuesday. The win is notable in a region where right-wing leaders with policies close to those of US President Donald Trump have been winning elections.

The road to the presidency was long. Lula lost three runs at the office before he won in 2002, and in 2003 he became Brazil's first leftist leader in nearly half a century. He was born into a poor, illiterate peasant family, worked as a peanut seller and shoe-shine boy, and learned to read only at 10. He trained as a metalworker in an industrial city near São Paulo, where he lost the little finger of his left hand in an accident in the 1960s.

Politics came later, through union activism. In 1975 he was elected leader of the 100,000-strong Metalworkers' Union and turned what had mostly been government-friendly organisations into a powerful independent movement. In 1980 he brought together trade unionists, intellectuals, Trotskyites and Church activists to found the Workers' Party, the PT, the first major socialist party in Brazil's history. Over time it traded its revolutionary aims for a more pragmatic, social democratic platform.

In office from January 2003 to December 2010, Lula promised to eradicate hunger. He raised the minimum wage well above inflation and expanded the Bolsa Familia family grant programme, which helped some 44 million people and cemented his support among the poor. Commentators argue it did not tackle structural causes of poverty such as poor education. He left with an 83% approval rating, after Brazil's longest period of economic growth in three decades. Soon after, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, shaved his beard during treatment, and was declared cured in 2012.

The years after were harder. Under his chosen successor progress stalled, recession followed, and the Operation Car Wash corruption investigation shook the political class. In July 2017 Lula was convicted of accepting a beachside flat as a bribe from the engineering firm OAS, and sentenced to more than nine years, later raised on appeal to 12. He was also sentenced to 12 years and 11 months for corruption and money laundering over bribes from two firms that paid for improvements to a country house his family used. He has always said the charges were politically motivated. He was freed in 2019 after just over 18 months, when the Supreme Court ruled the jailing came before appeals were exhausted. The convictions were annulled in 2021, clearing him to run in 2022, when he beat Jair Bolsonaro.

He said then that his next term would be his last, yet the PT endorsed him again this year. Even allies concede his first two terms achieved more than the most recent four years. On the environment, supporters once called him the "saviour of the Amazon", but some environmentalists criticise his backing of exploratory offshore oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon. Lula says oil revenue will fund Brazil's clean energy transition and that he still intends to phase out fossil fuels. His government points to satellite data showing the area deforested in the first half of 2026 was the lowest in a decade.

His relationship with Trump has swung. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for a coup trial, and Trump cited that trial when he imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods in July of the previous year, despite the US running a trade surplus with Brazil. Lula called it foreign interference and said Trump was "not emperor of the world". After a White House meeting in May, Trump called Lula "dynamic" and Lula said he was "very satisfied". This July, though, the US imposed 25% tariffs on most Brazilian goods. Lula acknowledges the two are far apart on trade and crime, and says "Brazil does not fit into anyone's backyard", a rebuke to Trump's so-called "Donroe doctrine".

Abroad, Lula remains an active member of Brics, which he sees as a counterweight to the West, defends ties to Russia and China, and has defended continued purchases of Russian oil during the war in Ukraine. He also criticises the UN Security Council veto held by five permanent members. How he handles Washington's tariffs and those alliances will shape this term.