Lula: A People’s President and the Fight for Brazil’s Future

In 2022, left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won an unprecedented third term in Brazil, defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. While the return of the only working-class president in Brazilian history was celebrated by many, Bolsonaro supporters reacted by attacking the legislature, judiciary, and presidential palace. What explains this violent assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions? Why did Lula, who first left office with an approval rating of almost 90 percent, provoke such vehement resistance from a supposedly patriotic mob?

Through the intertwined stories of Lula and modern Brazil, historian Andre Pagliarini illuminates the country’s journey over the last eighty years. He examines the processes that forged Lula, his Workers’ Party and the contours of the country’s current predicament to show that the fight for Brazil’s future is far from an historical anomaly. It is rooted in a history of democratic advance and backlash familiar to many pluralistic, multiracial democracies worldwide. Given the intense feelings Lula arouses across the political spectrum, his undeniable historical importance, and his re-election at a critical juncture for Brazil and the world, Lula’s life and legacy offers a provocative prism through which to analyze the recent past, present, and contested future of Latin America’s largest nation.

Andre Pagliarini is Assistant Professor of History and International Studies at Louisiana State University, Fellow at the Washington Brazil Office, and a non-resident expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.