Word: lula
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Winning reelection was always supposed to be easy for Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and now, four weeks after a surprising stumble, that once again looks likely to be the case. Lula, as he is known to Brazil's 125 million voters, was forced into a runoff in the first round of voting, hurt mainly by a corruption scandal involving his party. But on the eve of Sunday's runoff vote he is far ahead of his rival, as most analysts expected. "If you look at the course of the last five or six months there...
...Unseating a storied incumbent with a record approval rating and the loyalty of 45 million poor people who benefit from his wide-ranging assistance programs was always a tall order for Geraldo Alckmin, the candidate of the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic Party. Alckmin benefited when members of Lula's Workers' Party (PT) were caught trying to buy documents to smear electoral rivals. The scandal helped Alckmin eat into Lula's lead and deny him the 50%-plus-one margin needed to claim outright victory in the first round of voting, which gave Alckmin 41.6% to Lula's 48.6%. But that...
...Alckmin's problems were twofold: First, Lula convincingly portrayed the former physician as the candidate of the rich, and Alckmin could not shake off the image in the minds of many voters of a button-down bogeyman out to privatize state assets and roll back the generous benefits programs that help many of Brazil's poor survive. Alckmin performed so well in the debates that Lula called their first confrontation the worst night of his political life. But in a country where informality reigns, Alckmin's starched collars and finely cut suits did not ingratiate him with the poor northeasterners...
...Correa, 43, is not a military firebrand like Chavez, an indigenous standard-bearer like Bolivia's Evo Morales or a former factory worker like Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In fact, five years ago he received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois, and he was briefly Ecuador's finance minister until he was removed last year for publicly excoriating the World Bank. Soon after, Correa launched his leftist Alianza Pais (Country Alliance) Party and positioned himself as the political outsider for the 2006 presidential race. It was a smart move in an impoverished nation whose...
...Lula's first task will be to come down from his ivory tower and engage voters again, and in the process, halt Alckmin's momentum. He has already started to, calling only the second press conference of his presidency to try and connect with voters in the folksy way only he can. If that doesn't work, you can bet that the race for the presidency will really get dirty - and a lot more interesting...