62 TIME May 23/May 30, 2022
Even Brazil’s young democracy feels
less than secure. Bolsonaro, a defender
of the nation’s 20th century military
dictatorship, has called mass rallies
against judges who displease him and
attacked critical journalists. He has also
spent months warning of electoral fraud
in Brazil, in an echo of President Donald
Trump’s behavior before the 2020 U.S.
election. In April, he suggested elec-
tions could be “suspended” if “some-
thing abnormal happens.” If he loses,
analysts warn, a Brazilian version of a
Jan. 6 riot is likely. If he wins, Brazil’s
institutions may not withstand another
four years of his rule.
Riding out of his political exile like
a white knight, Lula claims that he can
save Brazil from that nightmare. But
it may no longer be the same country
he once ruled. Its economy is reeling
from the pandemic, with double-digit
inflation and no commodities boom
on the horizon. A six-year political cri-
sis has bitterly divided society. Geo-
political rifts that Brazil once strad-
dled have widened, and the West is in
a new hot-and-cold war with Russia.
Lula, though, believes lightning
will strike twice. “In American foot-
ball, there is a player—as it happens
he’s ended up with a Brazilian model,”
he says, referring to Tom Brady and his
wife Gisele Bündchen. “He’s been the
best player in the world for a long time,
but in each game, his fans demand that
he plays better than he did in the last
one. For me, with the presidency, it’s
the same thing. I am only running be-
cause I can do better than I did before.”THE CROWD HAS BEEN WAITING for
hours. Children sit restlessly on white
plastic chairs, crammed together with
their parents under a marquee to keep
out the searing midday sun. Many wear
red T-shirts with the logo of the Home-
less Workers’ Movement (MTST), which
fights for public housing and has orga-
nized this rally in a parking lot in the
working- class outskirts of São Paulo.
“It’s been a long time,” Lula finally be-
gins over chants of his name, “that I’ve
been missing the microphone.”
Neighborhoods like this are Lula’s
home turf. When he was 7 years old,
in 1952, his mother brought him and
his seven siblings from Brazil’s desert-
like northeast, traveling two weeks in
an open truck bed, to São Paulo. They
lived in the back room of a bar, and Lula
left school at 12 to help support them.
By 17, he was making door handles at a
factory, and on one night shift, he lost
his left pinkie in a machine. At 23, Lula
married a neighbor, Maria de Lourdes.
But she died two years later from a
hepatitis infection while eight months
pregnant with their first son, who also
died— victims, Lula would later say, of
the low- quality health care offered to
Brazil’s poor. A few years later, in 1975,
he was elected leader of the Steel Work-
ers’ Union of São Bernardo do Campo,a São Paulo district a few miles from
the site of this rally.
Many in Brazil know that story, which
was immortalized in a syrupy 2009 film,
Lula, Son of Brazil. “Lula’s trajectory has
a very strong mythic quality for everyone
who fights for social justice in Brazil,”
says Guilherme Boulos, 39, coordina-
tor of the MTST, who is often consid-
ered Lula’s political heir. “But he himself
isn’t a distant, ceremonial person. He
still speaks the language of the people.”
Lula says the secret to his success lies
in his ability to relate to working-class
Brazilians—an unusual feat in a country
where politicians are prone to price-of-
milk gaffes. “I feel proud to have proven
that a metal worker without a university
diploma is more competent to govern
this country than the elite of Brazil,” he
says. “Because the art of government is
to use your heart, not only your head.”
Bolsonaro, a former army captain de-
voted to the “says what he really thinks”
political style, would probably agree
on the importance of connecting emo-
tionally with voters. But Lula’s popu-
lism conceals a shrewd pragmatism
that has allowed him to navigate Bra-
zil’s choppy political waters. As Presi-
dent, Lula maintained the fiscal conser-
vatism of his center- right predecessor,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, sticking
to Brazil’s agreements with the Inter-
national Monetary Fund and satisfying
investors. At the same time, his flag-
ship Bolsa Família program boosted theWORLD