Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

""We must overcome hunger, misery and social exclusion. Our war is not to kill anyone - it's to save lives.""

- Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva

Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, formally known by his alias "Lula", was an important Brazilian politician who came from poor cradle. He was the president of Brazil between 2003 and 2011, having already worked as a metallurgist and, also, being considered the largest syndicalist leader in the country.

His figure is controversial, having carried out policies that promised to help the poor of Brazil and, also, dethrone the Brazilian elite of power - which many criticize even today, since little was seen in his term of office regarding it. However, he was arrested in 2016 after being convicted first and subsequently on second instance for crimes involving corruption.

Pre-presidency
Long before becoming the 35º president of Brazil, Lula was notably an impoverished person, having been the son of a couple of peasants - even with some education, Lula has always been known to be an illiterate. At some point, working as a metalworker, Lula, in an accident with a metal press, eventually lost the little finger of his left hand. During the military regime, Lula was elected leader of the Metalworkers' Union of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema, struggling to achieve wage increases and more rights for those who were in the same profession as his own - however, due to the strong repression of the dictatorship military, few objectives have been met.

Of course, it should be noted that Lula's pre-presidential period was not marked by many acts that could, even for some reason, evidence traces of villainy, except acts of treason against some fellow trade unionists by handing them over to the military police - at the time of the regime - after the parties they made in bars.

In 1979, Lula gave an interview to Playboy, where he declared admiring the conduct taken by historical figures such as Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong and Khomeini.

As president of Brazil
In the 2002 presidential elections, Lula won the election and was elected to the office. His inauguration took place on January 1, 2003 and was attended by thousands of people. It is evident that his election was marked by populism, collectivism, and promises of a state that could serve the poor more than the rich. Notably, Lula adhered to a model of government more oriented to socialist ideas.

The Lula government was marked by highly partisan social positions, having adhered to Bolivarian practices by supporting Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales. There is a strong polarization of opinions regarding the economic policies of the Lula government; some say that his government only survived due to the country's exports, others believe that Lula, by investing in the poorest class, has taken the country out of the poverty line - however, this is not true, see the fact that there are still 52 million of poor people in the country, even after the Lula administration.

Corruption cases
Even after the period as the president, Lula had been in the center of numerals cases of corruption.

Between 2003 and 2004, Lula, along with José Dirceu and a few other politicians, staged a corruption scandal in the country called Monthly - "Mensalão", in portuguese -, which consisted in paying the politicians of the congress so Lula had full support from the government to institute its measures. It is estimated that more than 100 million of money have been diverted. But that wasn't the worst.

Between 2004 and 2012, Lula acted as the mastermind in the "Petrobras case", revealed by "Car-wash Operation", a corruption case in which more than 6.2 billion of money were diverted, passed on bribes and even collected through layoffs, all related to the Brazilian state oil company called "Petrobras". This was known as the second biggest corruption case in world history.

Nevertheless, is also known that Lula probably invested most of that money in two proprerties: a tríplex located in Guarujá, and a site, located in Atibaia, both in the State of São Paulo. In 2017, Lula was condemnd to nine years of prision in first instance by the judge Sergio Moro. One year later, his sentence has increased to 12 ears by the STF and, finally, in february of 2019, Lula was sentenced for more 12 years by the judge Gabriela Hardt.

Since April 7th, 2017, Lula still remains imprisioned.

Polemics
In all his career years, Lula had diverse opinions and attitudes that led to some controversies - some well known, others not. As already quoted, Lula, in an interview with Playboy, has said to admire Hitler, Mao Zedong and other extremist leaders. He has already admitted to having socialist idealisms, besides having a model of government that adheres to a single marxist point of view, where there is the poor, and there is the rich, and it is the poor's duty to rise to overthrow the rich.

Although he is a left-wing politician who has socially libertarian ideas, he has already demonstrated homophobic, sexist behavior in addition to being publicly known as an alcoholic. Some sentences below are examples of that behavior:
 * "I'm going to keep taking my bullshit in front of photographers, I did nothing wrong"
 * "It is a crisis caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes that before the crisis seemed to know everything and now shows that they do not know anything"
 * "The police only beat in who has to beat"
 * "A woman can not be submissive to a man because of a plate of food. She has to be submissive because she likes him"
 * "News is what we want to hide, the rest is propaganda"
 * "I'm not a saint, I've never been a candidate for a saint, I'm smoking, I already take a glass of beer."
 * "It has never been so easy to be a thief in this country. You steal, then you make the accusation and get a third of the theft or two-thirds of theft."
 * "Make a woman move against that son of a bitch. Because he beat the woman, took her to church, let her fuck herself, flogged her. Where are the hard-pussy women of our party?"
 * "Pelotas is a polo city, right? Exporter of fagot."