Word: lula
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...Lula paid for the program by cutting spending during his first two years in office, but he has been handing out more money in the lead-up to the election and he will have to tighten his belt again if he wins another term, economists agree. Growth is stunted - at an average of 2.6% over the last three years, it is around half the Latin American average and way behind rival emerging markets such as like China and India - but his success with the Bolsa Familia makes victory almost certain, in spite of his lack of action elsewhere. Although...
...redistribution of wealth to the poor has been the fundamental factor in explaining why Lula is ahead in the polls," says Carlos Ranulfo de Melo, a professor of politics and author of two books on Brazil's political parties. "There is more money around and it is reaching more people." The purchases made by those people, economists say, are helping breathe life into the economy, especially in the places where it was suffering. While retail sales in the south actually dropped 0.29% in the year ending May 2006, they rose 16% in the impoverished north and northeast thanks largely...
...That is good news but Lula probably wasn't thinking of it when he launched the program. The project in fact, wasn't even his. Lula adapted an existing program and his masterstroke was to alter the way aid was disbursed. Previously, federal funds for similar programs were given to municipalities and were therefore subject to the vagaries of local powerbrokers. Lula gave the poor a cash card so they themselves could go to the bank and take out their monthly allowance. "The poor didn't always get the money," said Carlos Manhanelli, president of the Brazilian Association of Political...
...Other programs such as those taking electricity to rural communities, water to desert hamlets, and nutritional information to schools have also boosted Lula's standing among the poor, as did a 23% increase in the minimum wage over the last two years. Together, these measures have contributed to a reversal of the seemingly endless trend of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer...
...personal popularity has even convinced many voters to overlook the corruption scandals that forced many of his closest advisors to resign and destroyed the credibility of his Workers' Party (PT). "Lula is no saint, he probably steals a little," said Silvana de Oliveira, an unemployed mother who gets $30 a month from his government. "[But] without the Bolsa Familia I couldn't afford anything. It isn't a lot, but people in precarious situations like me count...