LULA
OF BRAZIL
THE STORY SO FAR
RICHARD BOURNE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
© 2008 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bourne, Richard.
Lula of Brazil : the story so far / Richard Bourne.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-520-24663-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Lula, 1945- 2. Brazil—Politics and government—2003- 3. Brazil—Politics and government—19852002 4. Presidents—Brazil—Biography. I. Title.
F2538.5.L5B68 2007
981.06092—dc22
[B]
2007024079
Manufactured in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 50% postconsumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
For Emily, Daniel, Max, James, and Isabel, my grandchildren, who will know another Brazil
CONTENTS
4. Persistent Candidate for the Presidency
7. International and Economic Policy
10. Lula So Far: An Interim Assessment
ILLUSTRATIONS
(following page 162)
1. Approximate birthplace of Lula, Caetés, 2005
2. Lula with Dona Lindu and family on the beach at Santos
3. Lula as a teenager on a soccer team
4. Lula at his wedding to Marisa, 1974
5. Lula at a metalworkers' strike meeting in São Bernardo, 1979
6. Lula at the negotiating table, 1979
7. Killing time playing cards during the 1980 strike
8. Lula with José Dirceu, 2001
9. Lula after voting in the 2002 presidential election
10. Lula with President George W. Bush, 2002
11. Lula with President Fidel Castro at the Havana airport, 2003
12. Lula with Marisa and Oscar Niemeyer outside the Palácio Alvorada, Brasília, 2005
13. Lula with Marisa at the Taj Mahal, 2005
14. Lula with President Hugo Chávez, 2006
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have to start with a confession: I lost my heart to Brazil at the age of nearly twenty-five, in 1965, when I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to spend six months in Brazil, theoretically linked to the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro but in reality free to work as an independent journalist. The scholarship was awarded by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the Itamaraty, and was handled on behalf of the Brazilian Embassy in London by the British Council. At the time, I was a staff reporter for The Guardian, which generously gave me a leave of absence.
The period was exciting for a young journalist interested in politics. The military government that had overthrown President Goulart had not quite congealed into the brutal regime it became later, and there was still active civilian opposition and a relatively free press. Over the following decade I made further visits, collecting material for three books. Then, in the early 1980s, my own career took a different turn. I left journalism and immersed myself in the affairs of the Commonwealth of Nations, undertaking a series of different activities.
It was only in 2005, when I was due to retire from the last of these, the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit at London University, that I was free to return to a Brazilian topic. The extraordinary and controversial life of Lula, the president of Brazil since the beginning of 2003, beckoned as a subject for a life-and-times biography.
What follows, therefore, is an attempt to provide a readable account of the current Brazilian president, set against the recent history of his country. The questions asked here relate not only to the unprecedented arrival in the presidency of an industrial worker who grew up poor, with many disadvantages, but also to the democratization of Brazil after the military was forced out; a new kind of leftist party built on a renewed union movement; the difficulties of progressive politics in an era of globalization and the free movement of capital; corrupt aspects of the Brazilian political system; and the ambition of Lula and many others that