Brazil’s presidential election The handover

The Economist’s coverage of the Brazilian Presidential election highlights concerns about Lula’s socialist past – concerns which were overcome, and which hopefully will be again with the new President.

“THINK back eight years, when the prospect of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leader of the left-wing Workers’ Party becoming president of Brazil, the world’s fourth most populous democracy, caused panic in financial markets. With Lula now preparing to step down after two terms, Brazilians seem poised to elect his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff. She is at least as left- wing as he is. But the markets’ mood could hardly be more different. By way of a pre-election boost, Lula even travelled to São Paulo’s stock exchange to hail a $67 billion share issue by Petrobras, the national oil company, to raise funds to develop Brazil’s vast new deep-sea fields. Brazil’s circumstances and its standing in the world have been transformed during Lula’s presidency and mostly for the better (see article). Poverty has fallen and economic growth has quickened. Brazil is enjoying a virtuous circle: soaring Asian demand for exports from its farms and mines is balanced by a booming domestic market, as—partly thanks to better social policies —some 20m new consumers have emerged from poverty. No wonder foreign businesses are piling in, while a swelling group of Brazilian multinationals is expanding abroad.”

This is part of my survey of the 30 best articles from The Economist over the past two years to gain insight into whether Brazilian attitudes towards America have declined, and global attitudes towards Brazil — comments welcome!