ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the role of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) (Workers’ Party) in Brazilian politics from 1982 to 2022. The PT, founded in 1980, advanced steadily in Congressional, state, and municipal elections from 1982 to 2000, to become Brazil's largest and most successful political party. But the presidency remained elusive until the victory of Lula, the PT's leader and presidential candidate, at the fourth attempt, in 2002. The chapter examines the achievements (and failures) of the two Lula/PT administrations (2003–6 and 2007–10) and the two PT administrations of Lula's chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff (2011–4 and 2015–6); the impeachment of Dilma in 2016 which brought the 13-year political hegemony of the PT to an end; the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of Lula for corruption; the defeat of the PT's candidate Fernando Haddad by Jair Bolsonaro in 2018; Lula's release from jail, the annulment of his convictions, his narrow victory over Bolsonaro in October 2022, and his return to power, for the third time, after an absence of 12 years, on 1 January 2023. The chapter ends with a brief review of the challenges facing Lula and the PT, the dominant party in a Frente Ampla (Broad Front) coalition government, in 2023 and beyond.
