Like leftist leader Inácio Lula da Silva, who on Sunday won a third term as president of Brazil four years after his controversial arrest on suspicion of corruption, other political leaders in world history have unexpectedly returned to the center of power.
Winston Churchill
Before becoming one of the most prominent figures on the international stage during the Second World War, Winston Churchill was forced to resign as commander of the British Navy in 1915, after the failure of the Battle of the Dardanelles, in Turkey, in which dozens died. of thousands of soldiers.
However, 25 years later, in May 1940, after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Churchill came to power.
Prime minister of the coalition government during the war, he galvanized the United Kingdom with his impassioned speeches.
After the war, he lost the election and finally returned to power in 1951, aged 76.
Charles de Gaulle
Protagonist of the “Appeal of the 18th of June” of 1940, Charles de Gaulle presided over the provisional government of the French Republic, installed after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
But he resigned in 1946, failing to unify the main parties. He even retired from political life after the failure of the RPF (Reunion of the French People) in the 1953 municipal elections.
He, however, returned to being the protagonist of politics a few years later: on June 1, 1958, after the May 13 insurrection in Algiers, President René Coty appealed to De Gaulle, who assumed power in the last government of the Fourth Republic.
On December 21, 1958, De Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic.
He abandoned politics for good in April 1969, after the failure of the referendum on regionalization and Senate reform, in which he put his term in dispute.
Juan Domingo Peron
After holding various positions in the government of the Argentine military dictatorship, Juan Domingo Perón was elected president in 1946 and re-elected in 1951.
He became one of the great myths of Argentine history, reinforced by the role of his wife, actress Eva Duarte, Evita, who became an important political leader.
The couple, who founded Peronism, enjoyed immense popularity but were overthrown by a military coup in 1955.
Perón went into exile in Paraguay and then to Spain. In June 1973 he returned to Argentina a hero.
He was elected in September 1973 to a third term, 18 years into exile, but died less than a year later.
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping, idealizer of the modernization of China, a great economic power of the 21st century, was removed several times.
Appointed a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1945, he experienced a meteoric rise after the establishment of communism in 1949.
But during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Xiaoping was accused of “following the capitalist path” and sent as a mechanic to various provinces.
In 1973, he assumed the post of deputy prime minister and later that of commander of the Defense General Staff.
But when Prime Minister Zhou Enlai died in January 1976, Xiaoping was ousted again from power for “right deviation”.
He returned to power in 1978 and initiated a policy of economic reform and opening up.
Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar’s opposition leader won elections in May 1990, but the military junta refused to cede power.
Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest at her family’s home in Yangon.
She took over as prime minister in 2016 after her party won the first free elections in 25 years.
In February 2021, a new military coup took place. Aung San Suu Kyi was detained and isolated in a Naypyidaw penitentiary.
Silvio Berlusconi
Since 1994 Silvio Berlusconi has ruled Italy on three occasions. The last 30 years of this Italian political figure are intertwined with the country’s history.
At 86, despite the sex scandals and judgments that affected his image, he achieved his umpteenth comeback by being re-elected to the Senate, at the head of one of the parties in the far-right-led coalition, which won the legislative elections in September.
