Brazil Needs to Change': Change as Iteration and the Iteration of Change in Brazil's 2002 Presidential Election1 (original) (raw)

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?Lula, the ‘Losers' Alliance’, and the prospects for change in Brazil1

Capital & Class, 2003

The Brazilian Workers' Party () won a resounding victory in the presidential elections in October . Its candidate, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) received m votes (.%) in the first round, and m (.%) in the second round of the elections. His nearest rival, José Serra, a former minister in F.H. Cardoso's administration (-), was beaten by m votes in both rounds. 2 The new president, a former lathe operator and trade union leader, commands nearly universal appreciation. He has been fêted by the international left as well as the  government, the  and the World Bank, and he is probably the only person ever to be cheered both in the Davos World Economic Forum and the Porto Alegre World Social Forum. This can be explained by Lula's impeccable leftist credentials and personal integrity, and by his adoption of a thoroughly neoliberal economic programme. This article examines the reasons for continuity and the scope for change during the new administration.

Another world is possible: The rise of the Brazilian Workers' Party and the prospects for Lula's government

Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of …, 2005

In October 2002 Brazil elected as president a former metalworker and founder of a socialist party, a man whose family had left the miserable northeastern hinterland fi ve decades earlier to face prejudice and hardship in industrial São Paulo. The election of Luis Inácio "Lula" da Silva of the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) was a clear signal that deep changes were going on in a country marked by huge social inequalities and a contempt for manual labor engendered by almost four centuries of slavery. In the fi rst round of the 2002 presidential election, the former trade union leader had received 46 percent of the vote and won in twenty-four of twentyseven states. In the runoff election on October 27, Lula received 52.8 million votes, 61.3 percent of the nationwide total, and won in all but one state. With their vote, Brazilians had overwhelmingly supported a candidate and a party who were harsh critics of the procapitalist orthodoxies of neoliberalism and contemporary globalization. In doing so, Brazilian voters defi ed attempts by Washington, London, and the international fi nancial markets to warn them away from this use of their democratic rights, an attempt at blackmail that failed even though the value of Brazil's national currency went down by 40 percent between the beginning of 2002 and the October elections. The vote for Lula was more than twice as large, in absolute terms, as the vote given to all other PT candidates for political offi ce. Yet it would be misleading to label this triumph as only personal in nature, since one of the most surprising developments was the jump in overall support for the PT. Although the PT and its allied parties did not win control of the Chamber of Deputies, the PT did become, for the fi rst time, the party with the largest number of deputies (91 of 513 seats) and the only one with representatives from all states, also a fi rst. Thus the 2002 election was both a personal triumph of the candidate Lula and a PT party victory (it also doubled its senators), although the PT did less well in gubernatorial races (winning in only three states) and lost control of Rio Grande do Sul (an area of party strength).

The Third Way in Brazil? Lula's Presidency Examined

2011

This study identifies the way in which Brazil was able to achieve significant economic and social development during the Presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva from 2003 to 2010. The element which makes the achievement of this development extremely interesting is the fact that it was engineered by a traditionally radical Leftist party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party) within the context of the globalized world economy. Throughout much of its existence, the PT has called for a radical socialist transformation of Brazilian society. However, once it came to power, it not only rejected radical positions, but acquiesced fully with the constraints placed upon it by global capital. Thus, in addition to describing the process of development in Brazil, this study also attempts to account for the way in which it was achieved. This is done by postulating that the Lula (as he is commonly referred to) administration was successful in solidifying Brazilian economic fundamentals, as well as in significantly reducing poverty and inequality in one of the most unequal societies in the world, because it adopted Third Way economic and social policies. It is argued that, even though there were few clear indications from the government that it regarded itself as following the Third Way, a practical examination of Lula’s economic and social policies indicate that they overwhelmingly conform to the prescripts of the Third Way.

In Search of a Post-Neoliberal Paradigm: The Brazilian Left and Lula's Government

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen extraordinary political developments in the Latin American left. Indeed, there is no historical precedent for the simultaneous election across the region of governments that can be identified with the political left. From Tabaré Vasquez in Uruguay to Martín Torrijos in Panama; from Né stor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina to Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; from Michelle Bachelet in Chile to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela; from Evo Morales in Bolivia to Rafael Correa no Ecuador--as well as Luis Iná cio Lula da Silva in Brazil and, more recently, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay--representatives of practically all of the region's formative leftist currents have taken over the governments of large, medium, and small countries.

"The presidential and congressional elections in Brazil, October 2006", Electoral Studies, 27 /1 (170-75), 2008

In 2006, electors in Brazil went to the polls for the fifth time to choose a president and for the sixth time to elect the National Congress since re-democratization in 1985. With an electorate of over 100 million, Brazil's elections today are a success story: voters use an electronic balloting machine (urna eletrônica), which has practically eliminated electoral fraud and the results are proclaimed a few hours after voting closes. The highlight of 2006 was the re-election of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula); Brazilian politics over the last few decades cannot be understood without reference to Lula. As expected, the whole election campaign centered on his governmentdits achievements and shortcomingsdand comparisons with the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002).

Lula’s Victory, the New Left and the Future of Latin America

Rome, IAI, November 2022, 4 p. (IAI Commentaries ; 22|55), 2022

The election of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva as the new president of Brazil, consolidates the advancement of a New Left in Latin America: a progressive movement, with strong popular and democratic content, promoting an agenda where the fight against poverty, inequality, climate change and respect for human rights is key. The narrow margin of Lula’s electoral victory, however, is evidence of a highly polarised society and the result of a campaign marked by political intolerance and the inflaming narrative of the outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.