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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in intensive care recovering from surgery to remove a bleed on his brain connected to a fall in October, the government said on Tuesday.
The 79-year-old, known as Lula, underwent a craniotomy procedure to drain a haematoma on his head after an MRI scan showed an “intracranial haemorrhage”, according to a medical note shared by the government.
Lula had sought medical attention in Brasília on Monday evening after suffering headaches, then flew to São Paulo at about 10pm for further treatment, a government official told the Financial Times.
The injury was linked to a fall in his bathroom at home on October 19, according to the medical bulletin, after which he required several stitches. Following “uneventful” surgery, Lula was “well” and being monitored in intensive care at the Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo, it said. Doctors will hold a press conference at 9am local time on Tuesday.
Brazil’s social communications minister, Paulo Pimenta, said that at the moment there was no expectation that the president would take formal leave from his role.
He told a radio station that Lula was “conscious and calm” after the operation and was likely to spend 48 hours in the intensive care unit.
Vice-president Geraldo Alckmin will take the leader’s place on Tuesday at a meeting with Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico in Brasília, according to Alckmin’s office.
A one-time political foe who Lula defeated in the 2006 presidential election, Alckmin is seen as business-friendly and twice served as governor of São Paulo state. He also heads the ministry of development, industry and trade.
Lula, a former metalworker and union leader, was Brazil’s president between 2003 and 2011 and has previously survived cancer.
He spent more than a year and a half in jail until 2019 on corruption convictions that were subsequently overturned, opening the door to his political comeback. Lula narrowly defeated hard-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a 2022 election.
Since returning to office for a third term at the start of last year, Lula has had a busy travel agenda. But he skipped a Brics summit in Russia following the accident in October, and has made just one international trip since then, travelling to Uruguay last week for a Mercosur summit at which the bloc of South American nations announced a trade deal with the EU.
Lula’s surgery comes at a challenging moment for his presidency, as he pursues pledges to lift welfare spending and expand the role of the state in a drive to boost living standards in Latin America’s largest economy.
Investors have expressed rising concerns over the administration’s tax-and-spend fiscal policy, despite its promises to eliminate the primary budget deficit, meaning before interest payments.
The Brazilian real hit an all-time low last month, falling below six to the US dollar, amid worries over the country’s public finances. On Tuesday, it was flat in early trading at 6.08 per US dollar.
A police investigation last month claimed that rightwing coup plotters, including elite military personnel, had planned to assassinate Lula, Alckmin and a top supreme court judge before the 2022 transfer of power. However, the alleged scheme was ultimately aborted.
