Rosangela da Silva, alias “Janja,” a 56-year-old sociologist and leftist activist who married Lula in May, played a key role in his election as president on Sunday, vowing to “give a new meaning to the role of First Lady.” .
“I am in love and she is the one who will give me the strength to overcome all obstacles,” said Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77, tenderly holding his wife’s hand in front of the cheering crowd in Sao Paulo, shortly after the announcement of the result.
This relationship appears to be a makeover for the president-elect. Lula had been greatly affected by the death in 2017 of Marisa Leticia, his wife of more than 30 years, with whom he had four children. He had also previously lost his first wife, Maria de Lourdes, to hepatitis in 1971.
“When you lose your wife, you think that life no longer has meaning, that everything is over, then another person appears to make sense of it,” Lula said during an interview with the US magazine in May. Weather.
bachelor’s degree in sociology
Born in southern Brazil, in a city bordering the states of Santa Catarina and Paraná, “Janja” graduated in sociology from the University of Curitiba, where she worked for almost 20 years at the public energy company Itaipu Binacional, which manages the Itaipu dam, one of the largest in the world. She joined the Workers’ Party (PT) in 1983, co-founded two years earlier by Lula.
According to Brazilian media, they have known each other for several decades, but Lula’s press service assures that their sentimental relationship only began at the end of 2017, during an event with left-wing artists, including musician Chico Buarque.
However, the romance between this very smiling woman with long brown hair and the old lion of politics was not revealed until May 2019, when Lula had been imprisoned for more than a year for corruption.
“Lula is in love and the first thing he wants to do when he gets out of prison is get married,” announced one of his lawyers who had just visited him.
A passionate kiss in front of the crowd after Lula’s release from prison
The wedding will finally take place just two and a half years after its launch, quietly on May 18, 2022, in Sao Paulo, with 200 carefully selected guests, including celebrities such as singer Gilberto Gil, Lula’s former Minister of Culture.
During Lula’s imprisonment, “Janja” posted many anguished tweets between two visits: “I just want to be able to hold you and hold you all the time,” she wrote, for example, on Lula’s 74th birthday. .
In November 2019, after his release, they exchanged a kiss in front of the crowd gathered around the Curitiba prison where the former president had just spent 18 months.
“Resignifying the role of First Lady”
Although she has been very active in Lula’s campaign on meeting and social media platforms, Rosangela da Silva is discreet about her private life. According to Veja magazine, she has been married for more than ten years and has no children.
“I want to give a new meaning to the role of First Lady, focusing on issues that are a priority for women, such as food insecurity or domestic violence,” she said at the end of August during a meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
In an article about the importance of “Janja” in the campaign, the news site wow called the “talisman” of the future First Lady Lula.
Source: BFM TV
