The Lula effect

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

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There was a nice recent post about the influx of politicians of immigrant origin to the top ranks in South America. Yesterday Dilma Rousseff won the presidential elections in Brazil. Obviously, between change and continuity, Brazil chose the latter. Dilma Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil, was the most trusted ally of the charismatic Lula da Silva who's ending his reign after two extremely successful mandates and an amazing 80% popularity.

Dilma defeated her opponent Jose Serra, the former mayor of Sao Paulo, from the Social-Democratic Party - yes, in Brazil and many South American countries, the political spectrum seems to be the exact opposite to the US, where the liberals (generally seen as center-right anywhere else) are regarded leftist, and the conservatives are the right. In most of the rest of the world, it's otherwise. The differences with the US and Obama continue in that the electorate saw in Dilma a continuation of Lula's successful policies and they didn't want any change, rather they wanted "more of the same", possibly with some minor improvements.

So Dilma defeated Serra with 56% to 44% on the second round, and on January 1st she'll be sworn in as the first female president of the largest economy in Latin America. Thousands of Workers Party supporters took to the streets to celebrate her victory on a typically wild Brazilian fiesta.

Dilma, 62, daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, spent some time in prison for being involved with the anti-junta insurgency. She was Lula's chief of staff, and she'll be put in the spotlight for the first time, now without the supportive hand of her mentor. Some call her "Lula's autopilot", and that's an image she'll have to disprove with her actions. Now we'll see if she's really an independent politician or just "a Lula with lipstick", as a blogger from The Economist said.

For most of her career she was the person behind the scene, the trustee in the shadows. Meanwhile her opponent Jose Serra was undoubtedly the more experienced and better known politician. She'll have the hard task to prove that they call her the Brazilian Iron Lady for a good reason.

No surprise, from her initial statements Dilma Rousseff indicated that she'll be following Lula's successful model and she'll continue his smart and moderate leftist policies. Her top priorities will still be fighting poverty and keeping the country's remarkable economic stability. In her victory speech she said this is the beginning of "a new era of prosperity" and she promised to drag another 20 million Brazilians out of poverty. "We cannot rest while there are still hungry Brazilians, and families living on the street, and poor children being left at the mercy of fate", she said.

Dilma Rousseff took over a rapidly developing economy amidst a stagnated world, a country which is running on the fast lane to becoming a world superpower. Lula built the foundation of this new Brazil, he built it on the pillars of strong economic development, structural reform, stability at home and increased positive influence abroad. Brazil's new image will be further boosted by two huge upcoming events - the soccer World Cup in 2014 (Brazil is taking the baton from my country South Africa), and then the Olympic games in 2016. It's highly probable that somewhere around 2014 the country will have already become the world's 5th largest economy, leapfrogging UK and France, and possibly the world's fastest growing large economy, surpassing India.

After 16 years of unstoppable economic stability, most surveys clearly show that almost no one in Brazil wants radical change of direction. Still, Rousseff will be meeting with some serious issues like the still underdeveloped infrastructure, the need for reform in education, suffocating bureaucracy, the heavy tax system, the clumsy judicial system, and most importantly the accusations of corruption which kept piling during the previous administration but still didn't prevent it from winning the elections again. And that's another difference from the US.

What's more, the new gov't will have to put extra effort in supervising and regulating the oil industry which is growing amazingly fast and is moving the country toward the top-10 oil producers in the world.

Her first task now is to form a competent government. Lula said he hopes she'll accomplish even more than he did. In her turn, she promised she'll be "knocking at his door often for advice".

Her opponents call her a conservatively inclined bureaucrat who lacks the charisma of her predecessor. They say most of the votes she got were in fact meant for Lula who's worshiped as a messiah.

On the other hand she's known as a firm, capable and straightforward politician of integrity who has earned her way fairly through the ranks of the Workers Party with her efficiency and resilience. Granted, so far she hasn't shown any serious political abilities, especially when compared to Lula who was the master of negotiation and compromise, both domestically and internationally. Now when she's finally in the spotlight, Dilma Rousseff will have an opportunity to prove her critics wrong. She has a real chance to become a truly historic figure for her country.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of De Gaulle's statement about how Brazil has always had great potential and that it always will. Brazil's problems, like that of most states in America are IMHO not exactly easy to address without the kind of radical change needed. And frankly I don't know what you're implying given that the last serious challenge to a US election was in 1860 where as I remember the last time a US President got in trouble for sexual matters it was a consensual blowjob, not rape, as Zuma nearly got thrown in jail over.

Those who live in glass houses.....

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Could you be more specific about your point?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Essentially that I have my doubts she'd be as effective as Evo Morales, given Brazil is a very big country, with correspondingly bigger issues. And frankly I'd also note that unlike the USA the Brazilians were led into the 1950s by a fascist regime following the Integralist subset of fascism. That's why such comparative ideas IMHO are invalid, because Brazil's problems are Brazil's, and the USA's problems are related (both are, after all Euro-American empires) but they aren't the same type of problems, not least because Brazil's political spectrum is healthier than the USA's is.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

OK I get it. Brazil is Brazil and USA is USA. Point.

I have my doubts she'd be as effective as Evo Morales

I don't mind expressing doubts about a hypothetical future.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes. One has global responsibilities and a huge amount of problems its systemic failings do not quite permit it to address, the other has either the first or second-greatest number of uncontacted people in the world and has also a completely different set of issues than the USA does, not least of which are much graver issues with infrastructure than the USA's, because while the system we have is rotting and falling apart, we *have* one, Brazil does not have much of one at all.

I also have some reservations about economic growth that rapid as there can be a danger that such growth leads to economic overheat. And in an economy on Brazil's scale that is not good at all.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

You mean sochulizt leftist policies could be actually successful? o__o
How dare you deceptive lying vermin!


;)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Eh, Evo Morales has done a better job of so-called socialism than that self-absorbed twit Hugo Chavez has, without the Berlusconi-style pseudo-dictatorship, no less. Somehow all the progressives like to mention Castro and Chavez and completely ignore Morales.

;).

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

A certain someone is rubbing off on you I think.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Good point about Dilma being Lula's autopilot. 56% of the vote gives her a pretty strong mandate, which she shouldnt scrap. IMO the economic boom from the Lula times could be tricky for her. The initial joy from the influx of capitals has changed for worries because this was one of the factors that raised the Real to its highest levels for the last couple of years. That episode in whats known as the "currency warfare" is largely perceived as damaging for the Brasilian exporters.

Another thing is the ineffective state expenses that are bound to eat some of these investments. And she'll need that money for upgrading the infrastructure. Currently the roads are in a terrible condition, and transportation hubs like airports and sea ports cannot meet the demand. Furthermore, if the state banks keep giving out loans with the current tempo the inflation could fly out of control. This is an area Dilma should be extremely careful. Presently the credit interest in brasil is 10.75% which is one of the highest in the world and double the sie of the other developing countries like Russia, India, China (with whom Brasil forms the BRIC group).

Its again the economy, stupid. And Dilma was smart enough to declare in the very first day after her victory that the fiscal policy would be her priority, along with two other priorities - curbing poverty like you said, and keeping economic stability, along with achieving gender equality.

Prolly her first challenge of all would be to craft new legislation that'd simplify the extremely complicated tax system which is endemic for the region. But La Presidenta will surely manage to pass this law since she now has an even bigger support in Congress than even Lula at his time. And though she vowed to keep state expenses under control she has already dismissed the possibility of drastic budget cuts.

As far as i'm able to gather for the time being, her first priorities are:
* Keeping budget deficit below 3.3% of the BNP, while the net debt should drop to 30% of BNP by the end of 2014 (its 41% now).
* Bigger role of the government in strategic sectors like banking, petrol and energy. She's continuing Lula's policy of strict state control over newly discovered oil deposits.
* Structural reform - easening the tax system, harmonising the tax levels between al states, and macroeconomic reforms. Partial reform of the pension system (are you lis'nin, Sarkozy?) Dilma refused to bring the working week down from 44 to 40 hrs, but she also made it cleare she won't touch the generous bonuses for the workers, which according to the business decreases Brasil's attractiveness as a labour destination.
* Continuity in all now existing foreign policies.

Guys to watch for the new gubmint: Antonio Palossi, Luciano Coutinho, Paolo Bernardo, Guido Mantega, Enrique Meirelles, Alexandre Tombini, etc.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

And much more interesting, at that!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given the asshats on the ballot here I'll say amen to that.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

what? there are elections in other countries besides the United States?

erm, some places, I'm yet to see "Free and Fair and uncorruptable ones though, but for 25Bn, I can organise free and fair elections worldwide, will that be cash cheque or credit card sir?