lula

The first time Lula and I came across one another he was campaigning for the presidency (again) and I was in Asuncion. Staying in a hotel with a view of nothing, with a group of Yankee tourists who were casting aspersions about what might be happening in that hotel room, as I was rooming with Matt, the only gay American in the Southern Cone, or so it seemed. We’d been to see the bottle dancing trick, and I’d broken a flip flop on the paving stones, hobbling barefoot, and now Lula was on the telly getting beaten in the 94 election.

The next morning we walked down past a smart government building to the river. Just around the corner was a slum. We walked through it to get to the riverfront. I’d seen slums in Latin America before, but out of reach, on the tops of hills, on the edge of cities you passed through in a bus. This one was right in the centre. Smoke windowed government Mercedes drove through it dragging jetskis behind them. As we left we saw a pair of sisters leaving the slum to go to school. Not a hair was out of place. Their uniforms were impeccable. They looked like they could have come out of the government building only they didn’t.

Lula wore blue denim in that election. He looked like the antithesis of corruption. He had a messy beard and seemed to have no grasp of the idea of media. He’s been a political prisoner and a Union leader and a radical. It was a surprise he was even in the race. It was less of a surprise Color won, and Lula lost. It was about the fifteenth time Lula had run for president. He always lost.

In 2002, Lula won. I can’t remember where I was. It was the first of many remarkable left-wing victories on the continent. Two years later, I went with Steve and Moises to the place where Lula was born. It doesn’t exist anymore. There’s some palm trees in a field in the middle of nowhere. His cousin took us. I don’t know if it’s his real cousin or if Lula’s the kind of guy who has a thousand cousins. He seemed real enough. He got us up at dawn and we drove from Garanhuans into the bush for hours. We saw the crossroads where Lula caught a bus to Sao Paulo, we met people tending the fields nearby who’d never heard of England. Why should they. We met an old man who said he knew Lula as a kid. Lula’s cousin had flinty eyes and a wide brimmed hat. Places don’t say much, but they can reveal the determination it might take to get out of them. Lula had a lot of that.

So Lula had made it. He’d changed he style. He now wears dapper suits and brazen ties. He looks comfortable. He plays the part. Was this some kind of pact? If so, it’s probably what you have to do to get elected these days. Save the jeans for the photo-op. A reminder of roots you’ve left behind. This weekend gone Lula went for re-election. He’s tainted by corruption slurs. Maybe they’re true, maybe it’s dirty tricks. He anticipated winning at a canter, first past the post with more than fifty percent. He didn’t. He’s got to go to the second round. Lula’s sweating again. Politics is a slippery business. He’s still fighting. We’ll see if he makes it. Or if it’s time to put the suits away.