This October 30, 2022, here she is at the center of the stage, brown hair, large glasses and scarlet dress. To her left, her husband, whom she broods with a distraught look: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, elected president of Brazil against Jair Bolsonaro, addresses his supporters gathered in a hotel in Sao Paulo. “Janja”, now first lady, measures the historical significance of the moment. She knows everything about the harsh trials that allowed this return to the top. Isn’t this day of jubilation also its own triumph?
Months passed, almost a year, and Rosangela da Silva – her full name in civil status – did not come off the stage, quite the contrary. At 57, she has even become one of the most influential political figures in the country. “Everything except a decorative “primeira-dama”! », observes political scientist Claudio Couto. Don’t some compare her to Michelle Obama or the Argentinian icon Evita, popular wife of President Juan Domingo Peron? Others describe her as a true “vice-president”, or even as Lula’s successor.
His profile stands out in a Brazil that is still very macho. With rare exceptions – such as Ruth Cardoso, a brilliant anthropologist married to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003) – this country “has experienced a long succession of erased and marginalized first ladies”, continues Claudio Couto. Marcela Tedeschi, young wife of Michel Temer (2016-2018), was even portrayed by the magazine Veja like a woman “beautiful, reserved and at home”. Conversely, “Janja”, which did not respond to requests from World, “has a very active political role”notes the researcher.
Great popularity on the left
From his office, next to Lula’s on the third floor of the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, the first lady has taken the lead in notable initiatives, for example against femicide. She influenced the composition of the government and imposed several of her followers, like the singer Margareth Menezes, inducted into culture. “Janja” does not hesitate to appear at the council of ministers, or even to summon its members for work meetings. She is also on all presidential trips (twenty-one countries visited in nine months) and was the only first lady to attend this year’s G20 sessions in New Delhi, India. At the end of September, it was she, and not the vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, who was asked by her husband to go to the bedside of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, devastated by floods. ““Janja” is the personality closest to Lula, one of the few who can symbolically replace him”analyzes Mr. Couto.
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