Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Fast Facts: A Few Notable Observations
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been a political activist for the majority of his adult life, but never quite found the right political party. He has been a presidential candidate in several elections but has found no electoral success. That was until he took part in the 2002 congressional elections, winning all but two of the 17 districts represented in his constituency. He then entered the 2006 presidential elections, once again receiving the plurality vote in his constituency.
His presidential bid was not a total success, but he did well enough to remain in the running. However, on the first round of the elections, he lost in the first round to Fernando Collor de Mello, who was supported by the party of Eduardo Campos. Lula later challenged Collor in the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and was once again defeated.
Fast-forward 10 years. At the time of the first round of elections, the presidential campaign was between Fernando Collor de Mello and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who were supported by the same parties. It was at this time that Lula decided to change the name of his party to Change, and joined a new party called PT. This attempt at a new entry into the political arena failed when he lost the first election at a large margin because he was unable to raise the funds necessary for his campaign.
From there, Lula ran once again in the 2007 elections, this time as a candidate for the People’s Movement Party (PMP). His campaign was not successful at all and he was only able to gain votes in the most populated districts, but he failed to gain support from significant minorities of the electorate.
He was subsequently unable to secure the support of the party to begin with and this proved to be an obstacle to his presidential bid. His candidacy was the cause of a split in the PT party, which split off into the Workers’ Party (PT-W) in March 2007. The party was unable to find a coalition to support another candidate, so the candidate became the candidate in its own right. From this point forward, he would be referred to as a presidential candidate, however he would be ineligible to be considered for a presidential position due to corruption.
Lula’s campaign was still not a total failure. He managed to win the first round of the elections, but again was defeated by Fernando Henrique Cardoso.