“Brazil needs peace and unity” – He said Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his first speech after winning the second round of the presidential election, in which he defeated outgoing head of state Jair Bolsonaro.
“I will govern for 215 million Brazilians (…) There are not two Brazils, only one nation (…) It is time to restore peace “-
– assured the left-wing politician during his speech in Sao Paulo.
He stressed that he counts on international cooperation to save the Amazon rainforest.
“Brazil and the whole planet need a living Amazon “-
– underlined Lula da Silva.
The defeated president Jair Bolsonarowho has yet to speak after Sunday’s election, has been criticized for the record cutting of the world’s largest rainforest.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva assured me that he would endeavor to fair world tradeand not to trade agreements which “condemn our country to be an eternal exporter of raw materials”.
Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva won the second round of the presidential election on Sunday. Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced that it had obtained 50.90% of the vote. vote, and his rival, the outgoing head of state, associated with the right, Jair Bolsonaro – 49.10%.
In the first round of elections, held in Brazil on October 2, he won with 48% of the vote. endorsement, Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro came in second with 43.5% support. voters.
Just minutes after the announcement of the results of Sunday’s election victory, “which open a new page in the history of Brazil”, the French president congratulated Lula. “Together, we will join forces to meet many common challenges and renew the bond of friendship between our countries,” wrote Emmanuel Macron on Twitter.
US President Joe Biden also praised Lula for winning the “free, fair and credible elections”, adding that he expects increased cooperation between the United States and Brazil.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 into a farming family in northeast Brazil. At the age of nine, he moved to Sao Paulo with his mother and siblings, where he combined his studies with the work of a street vendor and a shoe store. He began his professional and political career in a steelworks where, in 1975, he took the post of president of the union of metal workers in the Sao Paulo region. He was imprisoned during the reign of the generals for leading the strikes.
In 1980, with other workers and intellectuals, he founded the Labor Party, of which he will run for president on Sunday. In 1986 he became a deputy of the Brazilian Congress for the first time, and in 1989, 1994 and 1998 he ran for president, each time taking second place.
October 27, 2002 – victory in the second round with a majority of 61%. vote – was elected President of Brazil.
One of the president’s first decisions was to cut public spending. During his tenure, Brazil saw its public debt fall from 76% to 61%. GDP, lowering inflation by 12.5 percent. in 2002 to 3.1%. in 2006, i.e. a drop in the unemployment rate and an increase in the minimum wage. Good economic performance earned Lula re-election in 2006.
Internationally, Lula advocated for reform of international institutions which he said favored wealthy nations over developing nations representing the majority of the world’s population.
He was a friend of left-wing regional dictators: Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba, and Hugo Chavez – the socialist president of Venezuela in 1999-2013. Castro supported Lula in all of his presidential campaigns, and Lula himself supported the Venezuelan president in his dispute with US President George W. Bush.
Lula left the presidency with public support reaching 90%. In 2017, he was found guilty of bribery and money laundering as part of a large-scale campaign against corruption at the intersection of politics and business. After more than 19 months in prison, he was released in 2019; In April 2021, Brazil’s Supreme Court upheld the overturning of Lula’s corruption judgments, allowing him to run for president the following year.
During the campaign leading up to the October elections, Lula stressed the need to increase social assistance, introduce a debt relief program, raise taxes for the wealthy and stop poverty. deforestation in the Amazon.
PAP / Skaj
