The first thing Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva did on the day he was released from prison at the end of 2019 was to thank those who stood outside the police station where he was imprisoned in Curitiba for a year and a half was vigil held the south of Brazil. Then the now President-elect took this moment of intense happiness to introduce the woman smiling at his side to the press and announce his wedding plans. So Brazil was surprised to meet Rosangela Silva, a sociologist with a Workers’ Party card since she was young, whom they call Janja.
They moved in together, adopted a dog, got married, and she retired to be by his side. During the campaign, his commitment was enormous. And now, after winning the election, Lula, 77, has given his 56-year-old wife an official role in the transition and she’s even attended some political meetings. He also recently accompanied him on a trip to the climate summit in Egypt, where he met with a Brazilian governor and environmental activist.
For her first and only interview for the time being, Janja chose one of the most watched television programs in Brazil. He revealed that Evita Perón and Michelle Obama are his role models for this new phase of life. “I’m determined, I’m not one of those people who sit still. I’m one of those guys who goes and does,” he explained. A renowned political scientist has written that she will become “a minister without a portfolio”.
Immediately after the transfer of power began, she was tasked by Lula with organizing the inauguration ceremony on January 1, at which a large presence of foreign dignitaries and a large audience are expected. But the next First Lady also attended a meeting this Tuesday in Brasilia of one of the many thematic groups working on devolving powers with Jair Bolsonaro’s government dedicated to women’s issues.
She came in her capacity as future First Lady. She holds no elected office and is a grassroots activist in the Workers’ Party – a member since 1983 in the heat of the movement to demand direct elections after the dictatorship. During much of his career he was responsible for the social responsibility area of a public company, Itaipu Hydroelectric Power Station. Now she’s a run-of-the-mill feminist with influence on Brazil’s next president. She is credited with updating Lula’s speech on burning issues like feminism, racism, or indigenous rights.
At this week’s meeting with the elected parliamentarians, PT officials and activists, the sociologist declared that there will “without a doubt” be a women’s ministry in the next government (there have been in previous PT leaders), stressing that women should have an important stake in the executive branch and emphasized the importance of the female vote in Lula’s victory. “If we’re here today, and I’ve always said it and I repeat it, and I said it in Portugal (where he was on a trip with him), it’s because of what we owe to women. To black women from the periphery,” she said, according to the statement released by the party. At the meeting, they told him that there was a risk that the 180 number for victims of sexist violence would have to be closed due to lack of funds, that the Bolsonaro government had left the budget for women’s politics at 10% of the last PT cabinet, etc.
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Silva is her maiden name, her husband’s and one of the most common in Brazil. During the election campaign, he was a constant presence at both rallies and internal meetings of the candidate team, causing some friction with the next president’s most experienced comrades. An unease she attributes to “a bit of machismo.”
Although Brazil already had a female president, Dilma Rousseff, and the PT is led by a woman, Gleissi Hoffman, the truth is that the female presence on the political front is light years ahead of Chile, Mexico or Argentina. These are still white men with gray hair, as the last election in Brazil showed. In the newly elected Congress, the proportion of women parliamentarians at the Libyan level has risen to 17%.
It was the sociologist who picked up her cell phone after the first ballot to call the third-placed candidate, Senator Simone Tebet, and have the first conversation with her husband and the centre-right competitor. “It was important to speak to her because her campaign brought that feminine look, she brought the discussion to the importance of women’s participation,” Janja explained in this television interview. Tebet eventually became a valuable ally within the broad coalition led by the former president on a mission to save democracy. The senator not only asked for his vote in the second ballot, but also got on the rally carousel and accompanied him across the country. Everything points to her becoming a minister.
She was also the go-between to obtain another radically different but hugely important support to win votes among the younger constituency, that of Brazil’s most famous singer, the diva Anitta, as revealed in a detailed profile of Janja, published by the Piauí magazine was published with the title With you, the lioness. For months, the artist has been promoting Lula among her millions of followers on social media to oust Bolsonaro from power. Also, of course, to make it clear that the support in no way extended to the Labor Party (PT), which is still widely hated due to corruption.
Rosangela Silva is cheerful, spontaneous. He often wears T-shirts with different versions of Lula’s pop portraits. And it’s not uncommon for him to grab the mic and sing to thousands of people at election rallies (impossible to understand the campaigns in Brazil without their soundtracks). And sometimes he gave speeches. She also starred as Bolsonaro’s wife in some TV campaign commercials.
In the aforementioned interview with the Fantastico show two Sundays after the election victory, Janja said she wanted to “re-define the content of being a first lady” and pointed to the struggles she wanted to focus on. “My commitment is to shed light on some issues in my career: Violence against women, we will work hard on that. Food that is not only healthy, but guarantees it, and the issue of racism, without a doubt. That it is an issue that society should no longer admit.
At the moment he is devoting most of his energy to organizing the inauguration, which he hopes to turn into a gigantic folk party. The one four years ago with Bolsonaro was tremendous, but the most prominent foreign leaders were Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungarian Viktor Orbán.
The progressive militancy is already organizing caravans to celebrate the end of the Bolsonaro era and the end of the year in Brasilia. Janja has announced a broad lineup of Brazilian artists, but has also faced criticism for not including gospel singers given the social and political weight that evangelicals have gained.
The former metalworker and trade unionist begins his third term on the exact 20th anniversary of his first inauguration. Then at his side was Mrs. Marisa, the mother of four of his five children, his wife for more than four decades. He died in 2017, when Lula was already being investigated on suspicion of corruption, which led to him being imprisoned.
He began quietly dating Janja in 2018 before going to jail. During those 580 days, the politician’s lawyers delivered the letters that the couple exchanged daily. In his first speech after regaining his freedom, Lula warned, “If we get things right, we can win the 2022 election.” The couple prepare to walk arm in arm up the ramp of Planalto’s presidential palace.
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