Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Posted by: berr08** - 9/10/2010
Position: Former President of Brazil
Country: Brazil
Affiliation: Other
Website: http://www.presidencia.gov.br/ingles/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_In%C3%A1cio_Lula_da_Silva
Bio
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ( born 6 October 1945, but registered with a date of birth of 27 October 1945), known popularly as Lula is the thirty-fifth and current President of Brazil.
A founding member of the Workers' Party (PT – Partido dos Trabalhadores), he ran for President three times unsuccessfully, first in the 1989 election. Lula achieved victory in 2002, and was inaugurated as President on 1 January 2003. In the 2006 election he was re-elected for a second term as President ending on 1 January 2011.
His government, as well as his re-election, are one of the most controversial and popular of all politics of Brazil. Social programs like Bolsa Família and Fome Zero are hallmarks of his administration. However, Lula has designed internationally and interfered on important and recent policy decisions such as the Nuclear program of Iran and global warming and has been described as "a man with audacious ambitions to alter the balance of power among nations". He is featured in Time's The 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2010.
Inspired by his brother Frei Chico, Lula joined the labour movement when he worked at Indústrias Villares. He rose steadily in the ranks, and was elected in 1975, and reelected in 1978, president of the Steel Workers' Union of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema. Both cities are located in the ABCD Region, home to most of Brazil's automobile manufacturing facilities (such as Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and others) and are among the most industrialized in the country. In the late 1970s, when Brazil was under military rule, Lula helped organize union activities, including major strikes. Labour courts found the strikes to be illegal, and Lula was jailed for a month. Due to this, and like other people imprisoned for political activities under the military government, Lula was awarded a lifetime pension after the regime fell.
Since the beginning of his political career to the present, Lula has changed some of his original ideas and moderated his positions. Instead of the drastic social changes he proposed in the past, his government chose a reformist line, passing new retirement, tax, labor and judicial legislation, and discussing university reform. Very few actual reforms have been implemented so far. Some wings of the Worker's Party have disagreed with this moderation in focus and have left the party to form dissident wings such as the Workers' Cause Party, the United Socialist Workers' Party and the Socialism and Freedom Party. Alliances with conservative, right wing politicians, like former Presidents José Sarney and Fernando Collor, have been a cause of disappointment for some.. On 1 October 2006, Lula narrowly missed winning another term in the first round of elections. He faced a run-off on 29 October which he won by a substantial margin. In an interview published 26 August 2007, he said that he had no intention to seek a constitutional change so that he could run for a third consecutive term; he also said that he wanted "to reach the end of [his] term in a strong position in order to influence the succession".
Key Beliefs
- Agriculture
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Economy
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Social Development
Key Accomplishments
- A founding member of the Workers' Party
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Time Magazine's one of the most influential leaders of the world
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Created the Growth Acceleration Program