- Leticia Mori @leticiamori_
- BBC News Brazil in Sao Paulo
image source, Archyde.com
On Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva re-assumed the Brazilian presidency and his wife, the sociologist Rosângela da Silva, popularly known as ‘Janja’, coordinated the team that organized the inauguration ceremony.
Janja was personally in charge of summoning artists such as Pabllo Vittar, Valesca Popozuda, Paulinho da Viola, Margareth Menezes, Martinho da Vila and Gaby Amarantos for the party of 300,000 people in Brasilia.
Janja, who is also part of the transition team, influenced the president’s decisions regarding the Ministry of Culture.
It was she who suggested the name of Margareth Menezes to head the portfolio, following rapper Emicida and actress Marieta Severo declined the invitation.
Since Lula’s relationship with the sociologist was made public in 2019, the level of closeness of the couple has become evident and to what extent Janja’s presence has become a central factor in the life of the Workers’ Party ( PT).
Lula began to frequently mention his girlfriend — and later wife — whose youth helped convey an idea of health and joviality to the campaign of the now-president, who assumed his third term at 77.
President Lula has described himself several times as “a passionate man” and during the pandemic he said more than once that, despite his age, he had “the energy of 30 (years) and the sexual potency of twenty”.
This phrase, however, was removed in last year’s campaign.
In addition, influenced by his new wife, Lula began to show more commitment and familiarity. with topics such as feminism and LGBT issues.
But who is Janja? And how did she and Lula meet?
image source, Archyde.com
Historical militant of the PT and feminist
The wedding dress that Janja wore to marry Lula, in May 2022, was decorated by embroiderers from Timbaúba dos Batistas, in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte.
The countryside was the theme of the dress, with cacti under a moonlit sky. Throughout the garment were geometric stars identical to the PT star, but all white. In red, only the roses in the bouquet and on Lula’s lapel, who was wearing a royal blue suit.
Historical activist of the PTJanja had been a party member long before meeting Lula: he joined at the age of seventeen, in 1983, and years later he served as party leader in the Legislative Assembly of Paraná.
Lula met her in person in the mid-1990s, when she was a recent graduate in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Paraná, and he had already run for president and was traveling around Brazil to learn regarding the reality of the country.
Their courtship, however, only began decades later, when Lula was already a widower of his second wife, the former first lady Marisa Letícia, who died in 2017.
A key moment in the relationship was a meeting at the end of that year in which They were left-wing artists and activists present.
image source, Ricardo Stuckert
The relationship was publicly confirmed in November 2019, when the former president left the Federal Police Superintendence, where he was imprisoned in Curitiba.
The release came following the Federal Supreme Court (STF) ruled that it is illegal to serve a sentence before the resources are exhausted. Subsequently, the sentences once morest Lula would be annulled by the Court.
The two were not yet married, but Janja was listed as “family” on the list of people authorized to visit Lula in prison. And she went every day, Lula said later.
“She lived in Curitiba and she always brought me a little food every night. She wouldn’t let me send my clothes to wash, she wanted to wash them at home,” Lula said in an interview with a podcast in 2021.
“When I came out, I thought, ‘There’s no way, I think I’m really going to have to marry the girl.'”
Janja is 21 years younger than Lula, 56.
He first appeared publicly next to Lula when he left the PF headquarters in 2019.
The two moved to the PT apartment in São Bernardo do Campo, in Greater São Paulo, and the sociologist not only began to appear next to him in the photos, but also began to go to rallies, travel, attend meetings strategies of the PT and to participate in the presidential pre-campaign.
image source, Archyde.com
The relationship was publicly confirmed in November 2019.
580 cards
Janja did not wait for permission to resurrect the 1989 campaign song Lula Lá, irritating some campaigners who believed she should not have made the decision.
The sociologist is also seen like jealous and very protective. The way he is always interrupting the meetings when Lula is tired and arranging the environment so that he is comfortable is something that those who follow the rallies notice.
A friend of the couple, however, says that Janja is not invasive in the campaign, but “naturally she has a concern for the president”, and that she does not do anything that Lula “does not know and does not agree with”.
He affirms that “there is a certain envy” towards Janja and “perhaps even machismo” among the members of the PT themselves.
At the couple’s wedding party this year, the clip with the song Lula Lá was shown, which is described on Lula’s YouTube page as “a surprise prepared by Janja for Lula.”
The clip, organized by the sociologist, features several artists —and Janja herself— singing a version of the song, whose official name is Sem Medo de Ser Feliz (Not afraid to be happy).
“Did you see this girl who sang? She is my wife. This girl… I fell in love with her when she was in jail,” Lula said at the event. “She and I wrote 580 letters to each other. She Every day she sent him a letter and every day she sent me a letter.”
The letters were exchanged through friends visiting Lula in jail; sometimes through them he sent her flowers with her letters.
Several times the sociologist made passionate posts with photos of the flowers on Instagram, but without mentioning who her admirer was, since the relationship was not yet public at that time.
During the pandemic—more because of her desire than his, says a friend of the couple—the two moved to a rented house in Alto de Pinheiros, an upscale neighborhood in São Paulo.
With high walls and a pool out of sight of the neighbors, the house has two exits, which facilitated the work of the security team of the then former president.
Janja loves dogs and has two, including Resistência, a furry black stray dog rescued in Curitiba, who are now going to live in the Planalto Palace.
image source, Ricardo Stuckert
The wedding was in 2022.
Rethink the role of prhyme dor
Animal welfare, by the way, is one of the first lady’s favorite topics, who not only appreciates the issue of environmental protection but also specializes in social management and sustainable development and has worked in the area.
Janja was a program coordinator for sustainable development of the Itaipu hydroelectric damwhere he made a career and held various positions between 2005 and 2019.
Between 2012 and 2016, he was absent from the company and worked in the Sustainability Commission of the companies linked to Eletrobrás, in Rio de Janeiro.
Another subject close to Janja’s heart is the protection of children and the fight once morest the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
Participate in the Make Beautiful campaign, promoted by the National Committee to Combat Sexual Violence once morest Children and Adolescents and the ECPAT Brazil Network, in partnership with the National Networks for the Defense of Child and Adolescent Human Rights.
The sociologist, however, has already said that she wants to “rethink the role of first lady”, historically linked to the idea of care work.
“Let’s work to become the first lady you’ve been waiting for,” she wrote on Instagram in August. “And we will try to reformulate this concept of first lady”, he said, without elaborating.
The feminist said at an event with Lula that she does not pretend to be her husband’s “helper”, referring to the speech of former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who said at a rally in September that “the woman is a husband’s helper”. .
“I’m not going to help him, I’m not going to be a helper. I’m going to be by his side, together, fighting, so that we can give Brazil the hope that these people deserve,” Janja said.
image source, Ricardo Stuckert
Lula is frequently asked regarding his wife and, although he does not shy away from saying how in love he is, he avoids talking regarding what she is like or her personality. “I don’t really like to talk regarding Janja because she can talk regarding herself,” the president said this year, showing the influence of his wife’s feminism.
The president has already admitted that in his second marriage, to Marisa Letícia, he still there was a “macho culture, factory worker, who thought that the woman had to cook the food when I arrived”, and that this has changed over the years.
“Now I’m with Janja, who is very politicized, has a good political mentality and is very feminist,” Lula said in a conversation with singer Mano Brown on his “Mano a Mano” podcast.
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