Brazil's incumbent president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as president Monday before the congress for a second four year term after winning re-election on Oct. 29.

The incumbent president, widely known as "Lula" by his Brazilian fellows, was born in 1945 in an impoverished region of Pernambuco state, in northeast Brazil, and moved southward with his family to Sao Paulo state shortly after his birth. At the age of 12, he started his career as a shoeshine boy.

After he began to work in an automobile parts factory, he became involved in trade union activities and led several major strikes, for which he was put into jail during the country's military regimen from 1964 to 1984.

Along with intellectuals and union leaders, Lula founded the left-wing PT in 1980, helped found the Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), a national union association in 1983, and was elected to Brazils House of Representatives in 1986.

Lula ran for presidency three times before being elected. In October 2002, Lula was elected Brazil's president with 61 percent of votes and assumed office in January 2003.

Since mid-2005, Lula has been blamed for a series of political scandals involving the PT. However, the latest polls indicated that the scandals did not affect the intention of most of voters to re-elect Lula.

In October 2006, Lula won president election with 60.8 of votes for his second term, which spans from 2007 to 2010.

Source: Xinhua