Brazilian real
Lula refused to run for re-election as a Congressman in 1990, busying himself with expanding the Workers' Party organizations around the country. As the political scene in the 1990s came under the sway of the Brazilian real monetary stabilization plan, which ended decades of rampant inflation, former PSDB Minister of Finance Fernando Henrique Cardoso defeated Lula in 1994 and again, by an even wider margin, in 1998.