Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was born on 27 October 1945, in the small town of Garanhuns, State of Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil. Married to Marisa Letícia since 1974, they have five children. Lula is the seventh of eight children of Aristides Inácio da Silva and Eurídice Ferreira de Mello. Aristides left his wife and children to work as a stevedore in the port of Santos, State of São Paulo, carrying coffee sacks. Lula first met his father at the age of 5, when Aristides came home to visit his family.

In December 1952 Eurídice travelled on the back of a truck for 13 days with her children, to migrate to the coast of the State of São Paulo. They settled in Vicente de Carvalho, a poor neighbourhood of Guarujá, a well-known beach resort. When he was 7 years old Lula sold peanuts, tapioca (a typical Brazilian sweet made of coconut) and oranges on the streets of Guarujá. He attended "Marcílio Dias", a state owned school.

In 1956, after separating from her husband, Eurídice took her children to live in the city of São Paulo in one single room at the back of a bar in a neighbourhood called Ipiranga. Lula´s first job at the age of 12 was in a dry cleaner´s. He also worked as a shoe shiner and as an office boy.

When he was 14, Lula went to work at Columbia Warehouse where for the first time he was officially registered as a worker. Later on he transferred to Marte Screw Factory and thanks to his metallurgical work, he was able to enroll in a technical school called SENAI - National Industry Service - where he studied for three years to become a mechanic and a lathe operator.

The crisis after the military coup in 1964 obliged Lula to go from factory to factory looking for a job. In January 1966 he started working at Villares Industries, one of the main metallurgical industries in the country, located in São Bernardo do Campo, within the metropolitan area of São Paulo known as ABC.

The first contact that Lula had with the trade union movement was made through his brother José Ferreira da Silva, known as Frei Chico. In 1969 the Metallurgist´s Trade Union in São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema (metropolitan area of São Paulo) elected Lula as a substitute member of the board. In the next election, in 1972, Lula was again nominated for the board of directors and was elected First Secretary and responsible for the Social Security area. Elected president of the trade union in 1975 with 92% of the votes, Lula represented around 100,000 workers.

On 10 March 1980 Lula founded the Worker´s Party together with other trade unionists, intellectuals, politicians and representatives of social movements, such as rural and religious leaders.

In 1982 the Worker´s Party was represented in most of the country by some 400,000 members. Lula led the process of organising the party and ran for the government of the State of São Paulo. Despite losing the election for governor of São Paulo State, the Worker´s Party elected 8 federal congressmen, 12 state congressmen and 78 councillors. Lula also took part in the foundation of CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores), a federation of Trade Unions.

In 1986 Lula was elected Federal Representative for the State of São Paulo with the largest number of votes in the country. In 1988 the Worker´s Party had a brilliant performance in the local elections, managing to elect 1,000 councillors all over the country and 36 mayors.

After 29 years without direct elections for the Presidency, the Worker´s Party launched Lula as their candidate in 1989. In 1994 and 1998 Lula also ran for President but lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

From 1998 onwards Lula has co-ordinated the Citizenship Institute, a non governmental institution which carries out studies, research, debate, important publications and the elaboration of proposals for public policies, as well as national campaigns to mobilise civil society so that Brazilians can attain full citizenship.

On 6 November 2002 Lula and José Alencar were elected President and Vice-President of the Federative Republic of Brazil with 61.27% of the valid votes (52.7 million). They were certified by the Electoral Court on 14 December 2002.