Lula gives his wife Rosangela Silva a leading role in the transition in Brazil

The first thing that the Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva did the day he left prison, at the end of 2019, was to thank those who for a year and a half kept a vigil outside the police station where he was imprisoned in Curitiba, in the south of Brazil.

Then, the now president-elect took advantage of that moment of intense happiness to introduce the woman who was smiling next to him to the press and announce his wedding plans.

Surprised, Brazil thus met Rosangela Silva, a sociologist with a Workers' Party card since she was a teenager, whom they call Janja.

They moved in together, adopted a dog, got married, and she retired to be by his side.

During the campaign her involvement was enormous.

And now, having won the elections, Lula, 77, has given his wife, 56, an official role in the transition and she has even participated in a political meeting.

She also accompanied him on a recent trip to the climate summit in Egypt, where she met with a Brazilian governor and environmental activists.

For her first and, for now only, interview, Janja chose one of the most watched television programs in Brazil.

She revealed that Evita Perón and Michelle Obama are her models for this new phase of her life.

“I am purposeful, I am not one of those people who stay seated.

I am one of those who goes and does, ”she explained.

A renowned political analyst has written that she will be "a minister without a portfolio."

As soon as the transfer of powers began, Lula appointed her responsible for organizing the inauguration ceremony on January 1, in which a large presence of foreign dignitaries and a massive audience are expected.

But the next first lady also participated this Tuesday in Brasilia in a meeting of one of the multiple thematic groups that work on the transfer of powers with the Government of Jair Bolsonaro, the one dedicated to issues that concern women.

She came in her capacity as future first lady.

She does not hold any elected position and in the Workers' Party she is a grassroots militant — affiliated since 1983 with the movement to request direct elections after the dictatorship.

During a good part of her professional career, she was in charge of the social responsibility area of ​​a public company, the Itaipu hydroelectric plant.

She is now an ordinary feminist with influence over the next president of Brazil.

She is credited with updating Lula's speech on burning issues such as feminism, racism or indigenous rights.

In this week's meeting with the elected parliamentarians, PT representatives and activists, the sociologist stated that "without a doubt" in the next Government there will be a Ministry of Women (there already were in previous PT Executives), she stressed that the Women will have an important participation in the Executive and highlighted how important the female vote was for Lula's victory.

“If we are here today, and I always said it and I repeat it, and I said it in Portugal (where he was on a trip with him), it is 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, she was told that there is a risk that the 180 telephone number for victims of sexist violence will have to close due to lack of funds.

Silva is her maiden name, her husband's and one of the most common in Brazil.

During the electoral campaign, she was a constant presence both at the rallies and in the internal meetings of the candidate's team, which generated some friction with the most veteran comrades of the next president.

A discomfort that she attributes "a little to 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 in the political front line is light years ahead of Chile, Mexico or Argentina.

Here it is still a matter of white men with gray hair, as the last Brazilian election showed.

In the newly elected Congress, women parliamentarians have increased to 17%, at the level of Libya.

It was the sociologist who, after the first round of elections, grabbed the cell phone to call the third-placed candidate, Senator Simone Tebet, and for her husband and the center-right rival to have the first conversation.

"It was important to talk to her because her campaign brought that feminine gaze, it placed the discussion on the importance of female participation," Janja explained in that television interview.

Tebet ended up becoming a valuable ally within the broad coalition that the former president led with the mission of saving democracy.

The senator not only asked for the vote for him in the second round, but she embarked on the carousel of rallies and accompanied him throughout the country.

Everything indicates that she will be a minister.

She was also the intermediary to obtain another radically different but enormously important support to attract votes among the younger electorate, that of the most famous singer in Brazil, the diva Anitta, according to an extensive profile of Janja published by the magazine

and titled

For months, the artist campaigned among her millions of followers on social networks in favor of Lula to oust Bolsonaro from power.

Of course, also making it clear that in no way did the support extend to the Workers' Party (PT), still widely hated because of corruption.

Rosangela Silva is cheerful, spontaneous.

She often wears T-shirts with different versions of Lula's pop portraits.

And it is not unusual for her to take the microphone and sing in electoral acts in front of thousands of people (it is impossible to understand the campaigns in Brazil without their soundtracks).

And she has sometimes given speeches.

She also starred, as Bolsonaro's wife, in some advertisements for the electoral campaign on television.

In the aforementioned interview with the

program two Sundays after the electoral victory, Janja said that she wants to "resignify the content of being a first lady" and pointed out the battles on which she wants to focus.

“My commitment is to shed light on some issues in my career: violence against women, we are going to work hard on that.

Food, not only that it be healthy, but guarantee it, and the question of racism, without a doubt.

That it is an issue that society should no longer admit.

For the moment, he is dedicating the bulk of his energies to organizing the inauguration, which he wants to turn into a gigantic popular party.

The one four years ago with Bolsonaro was massive, but the most prominent foreign leaders were the Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu and the 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 wide cast of Brazilian artists, although she has also had to hear criticism for not including gospel singers in view of the social and political weight that evangelicals have acquired.

The former metalworker and trade unionist will begin his third term exactly on the 20th anniversary of his first inauguration.

So, by 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 for suspicions of corruption that led to his imprisonment.

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 her first speech after regaining her freedom, Lula already warned: “If we do things right, we can win the elections in 2022 ″.

The couple prepares to walk arm in arm up the ramp of the Planalto presidential palace.

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