Word: pt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spurned Thursday's televised debate and was massacred in his absence. The next day newspapers published incriminating photos of cash Lula's Workers' Party (PT) was allegedly using to pay for a document smearing its opponents. Together, the two incidents dealt crushing blows to the incumbent leader and enabled his closest challenger, Geraldo Alckmin, to gain enough votes to force a runoff on Oct. 29. In final results announced Monday morning, Lula had 48.6% of the vote, against Alckmin...
...current level of support, he needs just one in seven of the available votes to put himself over the 50 percent mark. But that may not be as easy as it sounds. Neither of the two main defeated candidates are likely to back him. Heloisa Helena, the former PT Senator who polled 6.9%, has never forgiven Lula for throwing her out of the party for being too leftist. And Cristovam Buarque, another disillusioned former PT stalwart who polled 2.6% with a single-issue campaign focused on education, should see his supporters move towards Alckmin...
...more prosperous states in the south and center of the country and Lula the poorer ones in the north and northeast. The better-educated and wealthier voters care more about ethics, and Alckmin knows this: It was only after he concentrated his attacks on widespread corruption inside the PT that his numbers rose. "I think Alckmin's strategy will be to continue on about the ethical questions and the scandals of the PT that are Lula's weak point," said Geraldo Monteiro, president of the Brazilian Institute of Social Research. "He can win it, he can most certainly...
...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...
...Lula denies being aware that his government paid legislators for Congressional support and says the PT's campaign finance violations were merely a continuation of long-standing practices. Just to be sure, he has distanced himself from his party and is running almost as an independent, lapping up the support of former enemies in some states and ignoring his own party's candidates in others. The accusations, nevertheless, have taken their toll. Almost a third of all Congressmen and women are implicated in one scandal or another and confidence in politicians is at an all-time low. That's another...