NOVA IGUACU, Brazil — Three years ago, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was languishing in a prison cell.
The former president of Brazil, who led the country from 2003 to 2010, was months into a 12-year jail sentence for corruption. His political career appeared to be over.
So when he took the stage on a recent balmy evening in this working-class city outside Rio de Janeiro — smiling widely as a crowd of thousands chanted his name — it was a comeback that once would have been unimaginable.
