Word: socialists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Traditionally the Cinderella candidate in Brazilian elections, this time the socialist leader Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva is the favorite to win. Indeed, the Workers' Party (PT) candidate's current 25 point lead over his closest challenger, Jos? Serra of the ruling Social Democratic Party, suggests that Lula may already have amassed enough support to win the presidency in the first round of balloting on October 6. And the prospect of his victory has the international community paying more attention than ever to Brazil's fourth election since the country's returned from military dictatorship to democracy...
...coalition partners, the conservative People's Party of Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel - managed to accomplish a few things. They slashed spending, briefly eliminated the deficit, and wrested control of government-owned enterprises from the old proporz system, which for 50 years had divided plum public-sector jobs between socialist and conservative party loyalists. Haider still pulled some strings from Carinthia, but the low-key Freedom Party Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer won acceptance as a surprisingly moderate voice in international affairs. Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, 33, tamed the budget. Their achievements, says Sichrovsky, made Haider restless and resentful...
...leftist coalition have experienced a similar flight. The Green Party, for instance, found that the pragmatism required to be in government alienated many of its members, who had expected uncompromising policies. As elections neared, both the Communists and the Greens sought to exculpate themselves with voters by accusing their Socialist partners of selling out?a maneuver that failed to boost Communist or Green candidates but did manage to undermine Jospin...
Following Jospin's loss and immediate retirement from politics, Socialist Party leader François Hollande has led the search for lessons amid the ruins of the election. During their summer congress in La Rochelle, Socialist leaders issued a mea culpa, resisting efforts by some officials to lay all the blame on Jospin. Party members gave a sour reception to former cabinet member Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, whose recent book My Own Inventory not only found Jospin's government too market-smitten and his election campaign muddled, but also denigrated him as "not quite having what it takes...
...vast majority of party members and officials expressed disdain for Lienemann's accusations and stressed the urgency of restoring unity and cohesion. But successive speakers also made it evident that the Socialist Party?like the French left in general?is split between market-friendly "modernizers," such as former Economy Ministers Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius, and harder leftists like former Employment Minister Martine Aubry and party heavyweight Henri Emmanuelli...