Brazil went to the polls overnight, and it seems that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (or "Lula", as he is normally known) has narrowly missed out on an absolute majority, and so will be facing a run-off election at the end of the month. The Economist will be pleased. Last week, they published an article about Lula's "underperformance". The problem? He spends money on the poor. The result is that the proportion of Brazilians living in poverty has dropped from 28 to 23 percent, and the real income of poor households rose 28% on average last year. Clearly, this is exactly the sort of "underperformance" Brazil needs at the moment...
Lula was not forced into a run-off because of elite repudiation of his redistributive policies. He has been personally touched by a vote-buying corruption scandal involving his chief aide. Given that he and the Workers Party (PT) have long campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, and given the divisions within the PT about his politics of compromise towards the traditional elite, his usual base of support was eroded by the combined dissonant chords.
ReplyDeleteNo worries--he will win the October 29 run-off handily given the alternative.
BTW, with regard to the post about the disappeared fellow in Argentina, the proper spelling is "desaparecido." "O" denotes male and "A" denotes female at the end of Spanish adverbs.
In terms of addressing poverty, and social inequality, the single most interesting thing happening in Brazil is the gradual implementation of a Basic Income Grant to all citizens. Still a long way to go but the start has been made;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=974
Anon: That, and he failed to turn up to the last presidential debate. This seems to have hurt him badly. But as you note, he'll almost certainly win the run-off. I was more interested in the international view of Lula - he does wonders for Brazil, and for some reason this is regarded as a Bad Thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat's Alckmin like? His wikipedia article suggests he also invests in the poor, though with a slightly more neo-liberal slant, and his party calls itself social democratic (while also claiming to be "third way" - oh joy). Is he a neo-lib, or is this another South American election like Peru, where the choice is between two different flavours of the left?
And thanks for the Spanish tip. I'llfix that post ASAP.
Brazil may really not have it in them to compete with the china and indias of the world and maybe not even the argentina's.
ReplyDeleteBut one doesn't have to throw the economy out the window in order to fight poverty
For example this is Thaksin's record in Thailand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policies_of_the_Thaksin_government
Per capita income rose by 38%, GDP grew from from THB 4.9 trillion to THB 7.1 trillion and Between 2000 and 2004 poverty in Thailand fell from 21.3 per cent to 11.3 per cent, according to the World Bank.
That's a nice summary Anon. To be fair to Lula, the composition and structure of the Brazilian legislature means that it's bloody hard to get anything done without engaging in something akin to corruption. This doesn't excuse his actions but it does highlight, to me, the need for real politcal reform in the country.
ReplyDeleteI/S - my understanding is that Alckman is definately centre right and will be more neo-liberal than Lula (who has been pretty neo-liberal himself). Names of political parties in Brazil don't mean much...
Anyone interested in a good (moderate) left wing economic critique of Lula might like this: http://tinyurl.com/mjo4a
My aunt is Brazilian (and a former nun, but that's by-the-by) and she voted for Lula, basically because she considered him to be the lesser of evils. Also, she lives in NZ anyway...
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