Luis Inacio Lula da Silva

da Silva, Luiz Inácio (lūēsh' ēnäs'yū dä sēl'və), 1945-, Brazilian labor leader and politician, known as Lula, b. Vargem Grande (now Caetés), Pernambuco. Born into a poor family, da Silva worked as a child to help support the household. After becoming a metalworker in 1966, he became active in the metalworkers union, rising to its presidency in 1975. An opponent of military rule and a skilled negotiator, he helped to found the Workers' party (PT) in 1980 and the Central Única dos Trabalhadores, a national trade union confederation, in 1983. In 1986 he was elected to the Brazilian congress and three years later he was the PT candidate for president, coming in second. His presidential runs in 1994 and 1998 ended similarly. Lula and the PT had moved from socialist to social democratic positions by the 2002 race, when he was elected president in runoff with more than 60% of the vote, a result that was partly a repudiation of President Cardoso's free-market policies. Nonetheless, Brazil's first working-class president did not deviate greatly from his predecessor's economic program, steering a largely centrist course, and his program of social reforms was sidetracked by a scandal involving payments from the PT to its congressional allies. Da Silva was reelected in 2006, again after a runoff.