Lula has defined Brazil’s left for decades. Can his movement survive another Bolsonaro?

When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba, Brazil, on November 8, 2019, hundreds of supporters were waiting for him.

Many had been there, on and off, for much of the 580 days he spent behind bars, keeping vigil outside the building and calling out “good morning,” “good afternoon” and “good night” as they defended his innocence and demanded his freedom.

Lula emerged into the crowd and did what he had done best throughout his political life: he gave a speech. “They didn’t imprison a man,” he declared. “They tried to kill an idea. But you can’t kill an idea.”

Seven years later, Lula is Brazil’s president and is again fighting to prove that the ideas of his movement can break through the country’s deep polarization, a wave of new corruption investigations, clashes with the United States and a resurgent right sweeping through Latin America.

On Sunday, he will make his fourth and likely last run for the presidency in a runoff vote against right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro who is now serving a sentence for plotting to overturn the 2022 election that he lost to Lula.

Lula has a steep hill to climb after an unexpected first-round result in early October where he finished behind Flávio, with 45.16% of votes to the senator’s 47.03%.

Polls now show the two running neck-and-neck in a race marked by sharply different visions for Brazil’s economy, security and place in the world.

The headwinds are a lot for anyone to survive, let alone an almost 81-year-old who recently battled cancer for the second time. But as a figure whose trajectory spanned Brazil’s transition from military rule to democracy, sweeping social and economic change, and repeated political crises –– Lula is no stranger to making a comeback.

A walking metamorphosis

Born in 1945 to a poor family in the rural northeastern state of Pernambuco, Lula was the seventh of eight children . When he was seven, they moved to southeastern Brazil in search of a better life, where Lula worked shining shoes before becoming a metalworker in the industrial belt outside São Paulo – the birthplace of his political career.

It was at those factory halls that Lula lost part of his left little finger in a workplace accident in 1964, reshaping his hand into what would become a proud symbol of his working-class identity. It’s also where he learned to command crowds after becoming a union leader in the 1970s. A natural speaker, he often addressed striking metalworkers during the final years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, when he was arrested for 31 days under the National Security Law after a 1980 strike.

“He is a walking metamorphosis,” said Ricardo Kotscho, invoking the title of a famous song by rock musician Raul Seixas. The veteran Brazilian journalist and longtime friend, who served as Lula’s press secretary during his first term, met Lula in 1978, when he was assigned to cover him as he rose to prominence as a São Paulo union leader. “He made fun of my long beard,” he recalled. “’Here comes another college-educated bearded guy to pester me.’” They instantly became friends.

“He is very funny and very mischievous,” Kotscho said. “He has also always been stubborn.”

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That stubbornness gave him the ability to articulate different sides toward a greater goal. “As a union leader, he had to learn to negotiate with the workers, the bosses, with the government, and it was a fragile situation,” Kotscho told CNN.

Yet, Lula insisted he had no interest in becoming a politician. “He told me around 1978 that union leaders should stay out of politics,” Kotscho said.

Two years later, Lula helped found the Workers’ Party, or PT, born out of Brazil’s labor movement.

By 1989, he was running for president. He ran again in 1994 and 1998 and lost all three times. In 2002, he knew things had to change. He built alliances outside the party and its ideology, and became a more conciliatory candidate, reaching out to business leaders and softening his speech.

“He even agreed to using a teleprompter, which he had always been against,” Kotscho told CNN.

And finally, he won.

A controversial legacy

Rickey Rogers/Reuters

The capacity for unlikely alliances has followed Lula through politics. In 2022, he chose Geraldo Alckmin as his running mate – a former leader of the center-right PSDB, PT’s biggest rival for much of the 2000s, who had run and lost against Lula in 2006. Alckmin is again on the ticket this year.

“What he does is he operates around, creating a space of convergence around him… which all sorts of contradictory forces can operate,” said John French, a historian and professor at Duke University who has studied Lula and Brazil’s labor movement for decades. “He’s very big on maintaining relationships. He’s not like somebody who cuts off ties.”

That skill, along with his social programs, became a staple of his presidency. During his two terms, from 2002 to 2006, Brazil saw rising employment, a higher minimum wage and a major expansion of consumer power among poorer Brazilians, according to Brazil’s official census. Millions rose out of poverty, while more lower-income and Black Brazilians entered universities and spaces long dominated by the middle and upper classes. Brazil was also removed from the United Nations’ hunger map for the first time in 2014 .

Lula also raised Brazil’s profile abroad, deepening ties with developing nations while maintaining relationships with the US and Europe, and helped found the BRICS group with China, Russia, India and South Africa. During a G20 meeting in 2009, then US President Barack Obama pointed Lula out to other leaders and called him “the most popular politician on Earth.”

But corruption also became a mark of his government — an awkward turn for a party that had spent its opposition years campaigning on clean government. In 2005, a vote-buying scheme known as Mensalão led to the conviction of senior PT figures and stained the party’s image. Even though Lula himself was never charged, the damage to the party’s image was severe. Under his successor, Dilma Rousseff, a much larger corruption probe that started at a gas station and was then named Lava Jato , or Operation Car Wash, uncovered a kickback scheme at state oil company Petrobras so sprawling it helped drive Rousseff’s 2016 impeachment.

“Corruption became a kind of explanation for the economic crisis, and it became associated with PT,” said Luciano Da Ros, a political scientist and co-author of “Brazilian Politics on Trial.”

Lula was eventually convicted of corruption and money laundering in Curitiba in 2017, in a case involving a luxury beachfront apartment prosecutors alleged builder OAS had promised him for favors. He denied wrongdoing and still sought to run that year, but the conviction made him ineligible. Brazil’s Supreme Court eventually annulled the decision in 2021, ruling the Curitiba court lacked jurisdiction, and restored his political rights – just in time for another election.

He then won in 2022 by a razor-thin 1.8 points — about 2.1 million votes, the closest presidential election in Brazilian history . Although Bolsonaro lost, Bolsonarism is still very much alive and winning votes, mobilizing a growing conservative electorate fiercely opposed to Lula and the PT, which many now see as the “party of corruption.”

“The fact is that corruption is cross-partisan, spread across all the major parties,” Da Ros said. “But the anti-corruption rhetoric once associated with the Brazilian left was very successfully taken by the right.”

Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/Getty Images

A new corruption investigation is helping fuel the sentiment as Lula enters the 2026 campaign, leading a divided country amid a wave of institutional turmoil.

The collapse of Brazilian bank Banco Master has reached across the political establishment, including the Supreme Court , just weeks before the vote. Justice Alexandre de Moraes — who battled constantly with Bolsonaro during his government and later oversaw the investigations that convicted him — is now facing questions over alleged ties to the bank’s president. Moraes has denied the allegations. CNN has reached out to him for comment.

Portrayed as a Lula ally for his clashes with Bolsonaro, Moraes’ implication in the scandal gave Bolsonaro’s campaign enough ammunition to play into one of their most-used cards: that the left, and anyone associated with it, is corrupt – although Flávio Bolsonaro himself is also under investigation over alleged ties to the same bank.

That comes as Lula’s own son, known as Lulinha, is separately under investigation for suspected influence-peddling .

Pressure is also coming from outside Brazil, as Lula clashes with the Trump administration over tariffs and trading practices, Brazil’s resources, its view on organized crime and even scrutiny over its technology payment system, PIX.

Trump has imposed new tariffs on Brazilian goods this year, including a 25% levy on some products over what the US described as unfair trade practices. Lula has rejected the allegations while continuing negotiations with Washington, and has increasingly made the defense of Brazilian sovereignty a central point of his campaign. “Brazil doesn’t fit in nobody’s backyard,” he told the UN General Assembly in September.

That comes as Lula tightens ties with China and other BRICS members: Brazil’s exports to China reached $58.3 billion in the first half of 2026, more than triple the $17.4 billion sent to the US, whose share fell 13% as tariffs bit.

Closer to home, Lula has also found himself at odds with a Latin America shifting to the right. In July, Argentina’s President Javier Milei flew to Brazil to campaign alongside Flávio Bolsonaro, calling Lula a “convict” and his government “thieving socialists” — prompting Brazil to recall its ambassador from Argentina.

Marina Uezima/Shutterstock

In Brazil, Lula also faces fading support even among parts of his base as the economic backdrop looks different from the one that accompanied his first presidency. His first two terms saw a global commodities boom that helped fuel growth, wages and employment in Brazil. Today, despite low unemployment and easing inflation, frustration over everyday expenses is weighing on voter’s perception of the economy — and weakening Lula’s support.

Another Lula term would come at a moment of heightened rivalry between the US and China, Brazil’s largest trading partner, as well as wars and instability in Europe and the Middle East and growing tensions over global trade.

But even a PT victory won’t delay a problem the left has faced for some time: there is no clear successor to Lula.

For younger Brazilians, French says, Lula has simply always been there. “He’s part of nature,” John French said.

His raspy voice, his beard, his missing finger and the cadence of his speech have been fixtures of Brazilian public life since Brazil’s first direct presidential election after the dictatorship ended in 1985.

He also created an emotional connection with voters who climbed the social ladder during the Lula years – a legacy that may be difficult to replicate.

“His greatest achievement is social inclusion,” French said. “For people who were completely outside the labor market, outside the financial system, who didn’t even have bank accounts.”

“A guy like Lula, you don’t create, he’s unique,” Kotscho said. “These types only appear every 100 years.”

Whether that’s enough to survive one more election — against a Bolsonaro, a banking scandal, and a region turning against him — is what Brazil might answer on Sunday.

2019 年 11 月 8 日，当路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦走出巴西库里蒂巴联邦警察总部时，数百名支持者正在那里等候他。

在他被监禁的 580 天里，许多人断断续续地守候在监狱外，高喊着“早上好”、“下午好”和“晚上好”，捍卫他的清白，要求释放他。

卢拉走进人群，做了他整个政治生涯中最擅长的事：发表演讲。“他们监禁的不是一个人，”他宣称，“他们试图扼杀一种理念。但理念是无法扼杀的。”

七年后，卢拉当选巴西总统，再次努力证明他的运动理念能够突破该国严重的社会分裂、新一轮的腐败调查、与美国的冲突以及席卷拉丁美洲的右翼势力的复兴。

周日，他将第四次，也可能是最后一次竞选总统，与右翼参议员弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗进行决选。弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗是前总统雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗的长子，目前因密谋推翻 2022 年败给卢拉的总统选举而被判刑。

卢拉在 10 月初的第一轮投票中意外落败，得票率为 45.16%，落后于弗拉维奥的 47.03%，因此他面临着一场艰苦的选举。

民调显示，两人目前势均力敌，这场竞选的特点是他们对巴西的经济、安全以及在世界上的地位有着截然不同的愿景。

对于任何人来说，克服这些逆境都是巨大的挑战，更何况是一位年近81岁、近期第二次战胜癌症的老人。但卢拉的政治生涯横跨巴西从军政府统治向民主政体过渡的时期，经历了翻天覆地的社会经济变革和接连不断的政治危机——他并非不谙世事，总能东山再起。

行走的变态

卢拉于1945年出生于巴西东北部伯南布哥州的一个贫困农村家庭，在家中八个孩子中排行第七。七岁时，为了寻求更好的生活，全家搬到了巴西东南部。在那里，卢拉先是擦鞋，后来在圣保罗郊外的工业区当了一名金属工人——圣保罗也是他政治生涯的起点。

1964年，卢拉正是在这些工厂车间里因工伤事故失去了左手小指的一部分，这使他的手形变，最终成为他引以为傲的工人阶级身份的象征。也是在这里，他在20世纪70年代成为工会领袖后，学会了如何号召群众。他天生具有演讲天赋，在巴西军事独裁统治的最后几年里，他经常向罢工的金属工人发表演讲。1980年，在一次罢工后，他因违反《国家安全法》而被捕，并被拘留了31天。

“他简直就是个行走的蜕变者，”里卡多·科乔说道，并引用了摇滚音乐家劳尔·塞沙斯的一首著名歌曲的歌名。这位资深的巴西记者兼老朋友曾在卢拉的第一任期内担任他的新闻秘书，两人于1978年相识。当时，科乔被派去报道卢拉在圣保罗工会领袖地位的崛起。“他取笑我的长胡子，”科乔回忆道，“‘又来一个受过大学教育、留着胡子的家伙来烦我。’”他们一见如故，很快成了朋友。

科乔说：“他非常幽默，也很调皮。而且他一直都很固执。”

贝特曼档案馆/盖蒂图片社

Antonio Riberio/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

这种固执使他能够协调各方力量，朝着更大的目标努力。“作为一名工会领导人，他必须学会与工人、老板和政府谈判，而当时的局势非常微妙，”科乔告诉CNN。

然而，卢拉坚称自己对从政毫无兴趣。“大约在1978年，他告诉我工会领导人应该远离政治，”科乔说道。

两年后，卢拉帮助创立了巴西劳工党（PT），该党诞生于巴西的劳工运动。

1989年，他开始竞选总统。1994年和1998年，他又两次参选，但三次都落败。2002年，他意识到必须做出改变。他开始在党外及其意识形态之外建立联盟，并转型为一位更加温和的候选人，积极与商界领袖接触，同时调整了自己的言辞。

科乔告诉 CNN：“他甚至同意使用提词器，而他一直反对使用提词器。”

最后，他赢了。

一段充满争议的遗产

Rickey Rogers/路透社

卢拉在政坛上一直擅长促成意想不到的联盟。2022年，他选择杰拉尔多·阿尔克明作为竞选搭档——阿尔克明曾是中右翼社会民主党（PSDB）的领导人，该党在2000年代的大部分时间里都是劳工党（PT）最大的竞争对手，他曾在2006年与卢拉竞选总统但落败。今年，阿尔克明再次出现在卢拉的竞选名单上。

“他所做的，就是围绕着他营造一个汇聚空间……让各种相互矛盾的力量得以运作，”杜克大学历史学家兼教授约翰·弗伦奇说道，他数十年来一直研究卢拉和巴西劳工运动。“他非常重视维系人际关系。他不像那种会切断所有联系的人。”

这项技能，连同他的社会福利项目，成为他总统任期的标志性特征。根据巴西官方人口普查数据，在他2002年至2006年的两届任期内，巴西就业率上升，最低工资提高，贫困巴西人的消费能力大幅增强。数百万人摆脱了贫困，更多低收入群体和黑人进入了大学以及长期以来由中产阶级和上层阶级主导的领域。2014年，巴西首次从联合国饥饿地图上移除。

卢拉还提升了巴西的国际形象，深化了与发展中国家的联系，同时维持了与美国和欧洲的关系，并协助创立了金砖国家（包括中国、俄罗斯、印度和南非）。在2009年的一次二十国集团峰会上，时任美国总统奥巴马向其他领导人特别提到了卢拉，称他为“地球上最受欢迎的政治家”。

但腐败也成了他执政的一大污点——对于一个在野时期一直标榜廉洁政府的政党来说，这无疑是一个尴尬的转变。2005年，一项名为“月度津贴”（Mensalão）的贿选计划导致劳工党（PT）多名高层人士被定罪，并损害了该党的形象。尽管卢拉本人从未受到指控，但对党的形象造成的损害却十分严重。在他的继任者迪尔玛·罗塞夫执政期间，一项规模更大的反腐调查——最初始于一家加油站，后被命名为“洗车行动”（Lava Jato）——揭露了巴西国家石油公司（Petrobras）庞大的回扣计划，其规模之大甚至最终导致了罗塞夫在2016年的弹劾。

“腐败成为经济危机的一种解释，并且与劳工党联系在一起，”政治学家、《巴西政治受审》的合著者卢西亚诺·达·罗斯说道。

2017年，卢拉在库里蒂巴被判犯有腐败和洗钱罪。此案涉及一套豪华海滨公寓，检方指控开发商OAS曾向他承诺以该公寓换取好处。卢拉否认有任何不当行为，并试图参加当年的总统选举，但定罪使他失去了参选资格。2021年，巴西最高法院最终推翻了库里蒂巴法院的判决，裁定其无管辖权，并恢复了他的政治权利——正好赶上另一次选举。

随后，他在2022年以微弱的1.8个百分点（约210万张选票）优势获胜，这是巴西历史上最接近的总统选举。尽管博索纳罗败选，但博索纳罗主义依然活跃，并持续赢得选票，动员着日益壮大的保守派选民，他们强烈反对卢拉和劳工党，许多人现在将劳工党视为“腐败党”。

达罗斯说：“事实上，腐败是跨党派的，存在于所有主要政党之中。但曾经与巴西左翼联系在一起的反腐败言论，却被右翼非常成功地利用了。”

Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/Getty Images

随着卢拉进入 2026 年的竞选活动，一项新的腐败调查加剧了这种情绪。卢拉领导着一个分裂的国家，正处于一波体制动荡之中。

巴西银行Banco Master的倒闭事件波及整个政治体系，甚至包括最高法院，而此时距离大选仅剩几周时间。曾与博索纳罗在其执政期间不断交锋，并在之后主持调查最终定罪博索纳罗的法官亚历山大·德·莫赖斯，如今正因涉嫌与该银行行长存在关联而面临质疑。莫赖斯否认了这些指控。CNN已联系他寻求置评。

莫赖斯因与卢拉发生冲突而被描绘成卢拉的盟友，他卷入丑闻一事给了博索纳罗的竞选团队足够的弹药，让他们打出最常用的牌之一：左翼及其相关人员都是腐败的——尽管弗拉维奥·博索纳罗本人也因涉嫌与同一家银行有联系而受到调查。

与此同时，卢拉的儿子卢林哈（Lulinha）也因涉嫌权钱交易而接受调查。

压力也来自巴西以外，卢拉与特朗普政府在关税和贸易惯例、巴西资源、对有组织犯罪的看法，甚至对其技术支付系统 PIX 的审查等问题上存在冲突。

今年，特朗普对巴西商品加征了新的关税，其中包括对部分产品征收25%的关税，美国称这些关税是出于不公平贸易行为。卢拉否认了这些指控，同时继续与华盛顿进行谈判，并将捍卫巴西主权日益作为其竞选的核心议题。“巴西不适合待在任何人的后院，”他9月份在联合国大会上表示。

与此同时，卢拉加强了与中国和其他金砖国家成员的关系：2026 年上半年，巴西对中国的出口额达到 583 亿美元，是出口到美国的 174 亿美元的三倍多，而由于关税的影响，美国在巴西的份额下降了 13%。

在阿根廷国内，卢拉也发现自己与拉丁美洲的右倾趋势格格不入。7月，阿根廷总统哈维尔·米莱飞往巴西，与弗拉维奥·博索纳罗一同竞选，称卢拉是“罪犯”，称其政府是“窃取财富的社会主义者”——此举导致巴西召回了驻阿根廷大使。

Marina Uezima/Shutterstock

在巴西，卢拉的支持率也正在下滑，即便在他部分支持者中也是如此，因为当前的经济形势与他第一任总统任期时截然不同。在他前两个任期内，全球大宗商品价格飙升，这极大地促进了巴西的经济增长、工资上涨和就业增加。如今，尽管失业率低、通胀放缓，但选民对日常开支的不满情绪正在影响他们对经济的看法，并削弱卢拉的支持率。

如果卢拉再次当选，那么巴西将面临美国与中国（巴西最大的贸易伙伴）之间日益激烈的竞争，以及欧洲和中东的战争和动荡，以及全球贸易紧张局势的加剧。

但即便劳工党获胜，也无法阻止左翼长期以来面临的一个问题：卢拉没有明确的继任者。

弗伦奇说，对于年轻的巴西人来说，卢拉一直都在那里。“他就像大自然的一部分，”约翰·弗伦奇说道。

自 1985 年巴西结束独裁统治后举行首次总统直接选举以来，他沙哑的嗓音、胡须、缺失的手指以及说话的节奏就一直是巴西公共生活中的标志性特征。

他还与在卢拉执政时期攀升社会阶梯的选民建立了情感联系——这一成就可能难以复制。

“他最大的成就是社会包容，”弗伦奇说。“对于那些完全游离于劳动力市场之外、游离于金融体系之外，甚至没有银行账户的人来说，他做出了巨大贡献。”

科乔说：“像卢拉这样的球员，你不可能创造出来，他是独一无二的。这种类型的球员一百年才会出现一次。”

巴西能否挺过下一次选举——面对博索纳罗、银行丑闻以及一个反对他的地区——或许将在周日得到答案。