The Lula effect

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

[Error: unknown template video]


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.