A biography of Lula

 

 by Vanessa Macedo

 

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was born in Garanhus, a city in Pernambuco, in1945. His mother, Eurídice Ferreira de Mello, and his father, Aristides Inácio da Silva, have got eight children and he is the seventh. In 1952, he and his parents moved to Vicente de Carvalho, on the coast of São Paulo state.

When he was seven years old, he was a peanut seller. Four years later, he and his family moved to the capital. In 1958, when he was fourteen yeas old, he got his first job,  he was a steel worker.

He worked in the metal workers trade union with his older brother, a monk called Chico. In 1972 he was elected first secretary of the metal workers trade union and three years later he was the president of it.

In February 1980, he established the Workers Party, called "Partido dos Trabalhadores" (PT), with other politicians. In 1982 he ran for election to the São Paulo government and he was fourth. Since then he has called himself Lula to get a lot of votes. In 1983, he was one of the politicians who established the central workers union (CUT), and in 1986 he was the most voted federal deputy in Brazil with 650,134 votes. In the presidential elections of 1989, Lula got 31,076,364 votes and he was in second place, losing to Collor. In 1994 he lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

He has been married to Marisa Leticia since 1974. They have got three children but his daughter and Marisa's son live with them too.

 

A biography of Jose Serra

 

by Isabel Faria

 

          José Serra was born in São Paulo in 1942, and he’s a teacher at the university of Campinas. He’s married and he has two sons.

          He studied in São Paulo from 1960 until 1964, at the Polytechnic. He also did a course in Chile in 1966.

          He was born in Móoca, a district in the the eastern zone where, even now, a lot of Italian people live, and there are a lot of traditional Italian political parties.

          His father sold fruit in the market, and when he was on holiday, he worked with his father. Serra loved playing football and reading magazines when he was a boy.

          He taught some maths classes, and he couldn’t finish university because he had to go into exile.

          In 1966, he met Monica and they got married straight away. They’ve got two children: Veronica and Luciano. As he didn’t have much money, he had a red beetle.

           He did his MBA in Chile, his PHD in the USA and he helped to found the PMDB.

 

Page 1

Back

Home