This Sunday, October 2, Brazil elects a president and Lula da Silva leads the polls against Jair Bolsonaro. But the country is also torn between two other options, Rosangela da Silva y Michelle Bolsonarothe two wives of the candidates who have actively participated in the electoral campaigns of their respective husbands.
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Each with their role, they have assumed an important role in front of the citizens. Rosangela, known as Janja, did not miss a Lula rally, while Michelle frequently called evangelical services alongside Bolsonaro.
This is Rosangela ‘Janja’ da Silva
Rosángela Silva is a native of São Paulo. She studied Sociology at the Federal University of Paraná and has two master’s degrees, one in History from the same institution and an MBA in Social Management and Sustainable Development. She has been a member of the Workers’ Party (PT) since the 1980s.
Janja and Lula met during one of the “citizenship caravans”, to which the former president accustomed citizens during his term (2003-2010). The former Brazilian president, 76, and Rosangela, 55, said ‘yes, I do’ on May 18, in an intimate ceremony in São Bernardo do Campo, a city on the outskirts of São Paulo.
According to Brazilian media, during the 19 months that Lula was in prison, Janja visited him up to seven times. “They used to chat for almost an hour, but without the right to see each other, a situation that Lula often complained about. Since they got engaged, in prison, Lula wears a ring on his right hand,” she collected then. The vanguard.
“I am in love as if I were 20 years old, as if she were my first girlfriend. I will marry in the most peaceful way possible and I will campaign happily. I have learned that when you lose your wife and you think that life no longer makes sense, when you believe that everything is over, a person appears who begins to give meaning to your life again”, Lula da Silva acknowledged to the magazine Time.
Lula is the widower of Marisa Letícia Rocco, with whom he was married for more than 40 years and who died in February 2017. With Rocco he had three children: Fábio, Sandro and Luís and adopted Marcos, Marisa’s son from a previous relationship.
Janja has already announced that if Lula wins the elections, it will give a new meaning to the concept of first lady. “I have a little secret: we are going to try to give a new meaning to that concept of first lady, later we will talk about it,” she told her more than 200,000 followers on Instagram.
This is Michelle Bolsonaro
Considered by her surroundings as a discreet woman, her notoriety increased the same day that Bolsonaro assumed power, the January 1, 2019. That day, Michelle gave a first speech in the presidential palace with language for the deaf, with signs. She broke protocol and spoke at the Government headquarters before her husband did, and she was applauded by the public.
Bolsonaro’s third wife began her working life as a saleswoman in a supermarket on the outskirts of Brasilia, where she grew up to become a regular at services at a small Adventist church in the region.
Of humble birth, she was the first of the three brothers to become independent. When she was 27 years old she took a step forward and got a job in Congress as secretary. There, in 2007, she met deputy Jair Bolsonaro, 25 years older than her, and who would become her future husband.
Captivated by her beauty and simplicity, the former Army captain offered her a position in his personal cabinet and, a few months later, the two married. From the link, little Laura was born, twelve years old and the only girl among the five children of the former military man.
The opposition has nicknamed her ‘Micheque’, after a scandal that broke out in 2020 over checks that the first lady received from an adviser to the Bolsonaro family, who was in prison for a corruption case. In addition, she has faced much criticism from feminist groups for ensuring that the woman “is the husband’s helper.”
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