Lula, the workers’ president Come the 2002 election, Lula, at the fourth time of asking, toned down his socialist rhetoric, campaigned with the slogan ‘Lulinha, Peace and Love, ’ swapped his jeans for suits, and promised to repay Brazil’s international debts. This, and the PT’s corruption-free reputation, won over enough of the electorate’s middle ground – and the media giant Globo – to give Lula a convincing victory over the center-right candidate Jose Serra. For the first time ever, Brazil had a government on the left of the political spectrum and a president who really knew what poverty was like. One of 22 children born to a dirt-poor illiterate farm-worker from Brazil’s stricken Northeast, Lula had worked as a shoeshine boy, then a mechanic, then a trade-union leader. But there were no quick, easy solutions to Brazilian poverty. Forced into alliances with other parties in Congress, Lula’s government had to be pragmatic. He managed Brazil’s budget prudently enough to repay the country’s entire US$15 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ahead of schedule in 2005. Inflation fell, the minimum wage was raised, and – what Lula’s first term will probably be most remembered for – the Bolsa Família (Family Fund) program paid up to R$95 (about US$45) a month to 11 million of Brazil’s poorest families – about a quarter of the population. Families received these payments in exchange for keeping their kids in school and making sure they received prescribed vaccinations. Half the recipients were in the Northeast. But the rural landless remained unsatisfied, and land invasions and violent rural conflicts continued. Around 700, 000 landless families were settled in four years, but this was chiefly on public land or in existing settlements. The large-scale land expropriations the landless had hoped for did not happen. The 1.5-million-member Movimento Sem Terra (MST; Landless Workers’ Movement), which occupies unused land and establishes cooperative farming settlements there, claimed that Lula had failed to live up to his promises. Nor did Lula’s government do much to improve Brazil’s low education standards, a big reason why so many of the poor are trapped in poverty. The richest 10% of Brazilians garner nearly half the income in the country, while the poorest 10% get less than 1%. Meanwhile, big business complained that Brazilian economic growth was being held back by high taxes and the large size of the public sector. As Lula’s first term neared its end, scandals showed that even the PT could not avoid the taint of corruption. A cash-for-votes rumpus in Congress in 2005 was followed in 2006 by the exposure of an attempt by the PT to buy damaging information about the opposition. Lula’s re-election hopes were further jeopardized by the continuing drug-gang violence in the main cities. Nevertheless Lula’s popularity and commitment to the poor carried him to a second resounding presidential victory in October 2006, over center-right challenger Geraldo Alckmin. Lula’s first significant act after re-election was to raise the minimum wage by 8.5%, well above the rate of inflation. Brazil’s poor were a little less desperate than four years previously, but land reform and education now had to join welfare programs as real priorities if the country’s first workers’ president was to narrow the wealth gap in a lasting way. Brazil looks set to take an even higher profile place on the world stage in coming years, as it hosts the 2014 FIFA World Cup (one of only five countries to have hosted the tournament twice) and the Olympic Games (in Rio de Janeiro) in 2016. ^ Back to top Read more: lonelyplanet/brazil/history#209587#ixzz3GbPphXAz
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 14:48:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015