>

You forgot to mention that the judge who arrested Lula became Bolsonaro's minister of justice.
What an f'n concept >

Any Brazilians wanna weigh in on him? During the elections people were saying he's just as shitty as the last guy. But I've heard this and one other thing today that makes him sound ok. Has he changed or something else happened? >

Sigh. I'll try to be unbiased.
Lula run Brazil for 8 years from 2003 to 2010. He left the presidency with some 85% approval. This approval allowed him to bolster his party's next candidate - Dilma Rousseff - to get elected as president.
Rousseff's first term wasn't as great as Lula's and her second term became a shit show. The 2014 world cup and Rio 2016 didn't make people happy for several reasons, but mainly because of the ever increasing stack of corruption scandals.
This is the part where it's quite difficult to be unbiased.
The workers party had been in power for 14 years, and, differently from Lula, Dilma wasn't an appeaser with the legislative bodies. The workers party had been very open for corruption investigations throughout the 14 years, and by 2015 big names were being mentioned in corruption scandals. So, in a political maneuver, the legislative used a financial inconsistency to impeach Dilma and place her very aligned to the legislative bodies vp  as president.
Meanwhile, an investigation is going on about corruption and bribe taking called operação lava-jato - or operation car wash - that arrested several politicians. Eventually they get to Lula. It's 2018 and Lula is leading the polls for the elections, however, he gets arrested for getting a bribe in the form of a triplex and a country house.
Lula is removed from the electoral process and Bolsonaro wins.
As time passes by, things get strange. Turns out the judge that put Lula in jail is close friends with the prosecutor that was accusing Lula. Worse yet, they were working together to remove Lula from the elections.
Lula is released and the sentence nulled. All the evidences are also nulled, because they were acquired through illegal means. The justice system eventually archives the case because of lack of evidences.
Lula wins the 2022 elections.
This is an abridgement of everything. But it hides away an important factor. With the stack of corruption cases being investigated in the workers party's government, a feeling of distrust towards the party emerged and became critical on Brazilian politics - it being the main agenda of ex-president Bolsonaro. This feeling became an ideology itself called antipetismo.
Antipetismo is currently very strong in Brazil and sells Lula as a very big criminal who is trying to make Brazil a new Cuba. Unfounded or not. This makes a lot of Brazilians say that Lula is a crook. Unfounded or not.
Edit: grammar