“who died in 1985 of intestinal disease before taking office as Brazil’s first democratically elected leader”

So the U.S. killed Tancredo in favor of Lula?

Knowing America’s history of meddling in Latin American politics, this wouldn’t surprise me. However, why would the U.S. want a working-class and clearly leftist politician like Lula in power in the middle of the Cold War? Especially since this president advocated for agrarian reform, the very same policy that just 30 years earlier got Guatemala on the U.S.'s sight.

More broadly, by the time Tancredo was elected, the U.S. had spent the last ~30 years supporting rightist military dictatorships in Latin America, of which arguably the most infamous were Guatemala, Chile, and Argentina. These were set up to protect American interests.

And so a question arises, how could a leftist president represent American interests in the middle of the Cold War?

But perhaps more pragmatically, Lula supported Tancredo in the 1985 elections. I don’t know the exact reasons why, but it’s not hard to imagine that it has to do with the fact that Tancredo was a social democrat.

This doesn’t exclude the possibility of conflict, which is why I’m asking both (1) why Lula would want to kill Tancredo and (2) why Lula would be of interest to the U.S…