Do we like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Strong on hunger, democracy and public backing for LGBTQ+ rights, held back by oil expansion, a contested Gaza remark and a conviction history that ended in annulment.
Lula was born in 1945 in rural Pernambuco, the seventh of eight children. His mother took them to São Paulo in 1952 to escape drought and hunger, and he was working by 12 as a shoeshine boy, office boy and in a dye shop. He trained as a metalworker, became a union president in 1975, and led a strike of about 170,000 metalworkers in 1979. A year later he co-founded the Workers' Party.
The scandal that defines him is the one that put him in a cell. In July 2017 he was convicted of passive corruption and money laundering over a beachfront triplex, and he spent 580 days in a police cell before release while he appealed. In March 2021 a Supreme Court justice annulled the convictions because the cases were heard by the wrong court, which restored his political rights. That's annulled, not acquitted on the merits, so where you land depends on whether you read it as exoneration or a lucky escape.
On the harm test, there's nothing nasty in his own words that turned up. The Washington Blade reported that he publicly supported LGBTQ and intersex rights in the 2022 campaign, and that Jair Bolsonaro, who had criticised LGBTQ Brazilians, skipped his inauguration. That's honestly a thin record: the pieces we opened say what he promised, not what his ministries then delivered, so treat it as a lean-yes rather than a gold star.
On democracy he's been firm. After Supreme Court justices ruled in September 2025 that Bolsonaro attempted a coup, and Trump hit Brazil with a 50% tariff, Lula wrote that Brazil's democracy and sovereignty were not on the table. He also said he would veto a bill that could amnesty Bolsonaro and his allies, which critics nicknamed the Bandit's Bill.
The planet is his messiest area. Amazon deforestation fell 30.6% in the year to July 2024, the lowest level since 2015, and at COP30 he called for a fair, well-planned move off fossil fuels. But critics say his government backs oil drilling at the Amazon's river mouth and aims to make Brazil the world's fourth-largest oil producer by 2029. Talking forest while drilling next door is a bit much.
A pension scandal hit his government in 2025. Investigators say officials colluded with fraudsters to divert up to R$6.3 billion from retirees between 2019 and 2024, in a scheme that started under Bolsonaro, and neither Lula nor his cabinet is alleged to have been involved. The stoush was about timing: critics noted the social security minister was warned in 2023, and Lula backed him for more than a week before he resigned.