A sério?

“Não sou comunista, sou torneiro-mecânico”
Lula da Silva

Excertos da vida deste “torneiro-mecânico” na Wikipedia:

>> At age 19, he lost a finger in an accident while working as a press operator in an automobile parts factory. Around that time he became involved in union activities and held several important union posts. Brazil’s dictatorship strongly curbed trade unions’ acitivities, and in reaction Lula’s views moved further to the political left.

>> Lula had already filled various posts in the same union, and it was in that capacity that he traveled to the U.S., during the early nineteen-seventies, right in the middle of the Brazilian military dictatorship, in order to attend a qualifying course in tradeunionism sponsored by AFL-CIO and ICFTU-ORIT the regional organization for the Americas of the anti-communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

>> The fact that it was somewhat embarrassing for Lula, in view of the later career radical slant, to have attended such a course, has led him to downplay that early contact with American tradeunionism.

>> On 10 February 1980 a group of academics, union leaders and intellectuals, including Lula, founded the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) or Workers’ Party, a left-wing party with progressive ideas created right in the middle of the military dictatorship.

>> In 1982 he added the nickname Lula (which means “squid” in Portuguese and is also a hypocoristic for Luiz) to his legal name. In 1983 he helped found the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) union association.