Brazil hoping for miracles
January 3 2003 By Hector Tobar Brasilia
Amid a swirl of red flags and a chorus of leftist slogans, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was inaugurated as President of Brazil on Wednesday. He promised to launch a crusade for social justice, but his aides announced that one of his first acts would be a fiscally conservative move to limit the size of government.
"When I look at my own life, I know with great certainty that we can do much more," said the man most Brazilians call simply Lula, recalling his rise from an impoverished rural family, to factory worker and union leader, and now President of Latin America's largest nation.
"We will bring about change with courage and humility," Mr da Silva said in an inauguration speech before the National Congress that lacked specifics on measures he will take to address the nation's economic crisis and its $A464 billion debt.
That didn't seem to matter at the inauguration: More than a few of his supporters greeted the arrival of Mr da Silva's caravan with the wild enthusiasm of rock fans. One man nearly pulled the new President out of his moving Rolls-Royce in an attempt to embrace him, while others jumped into the pools of water that surround many government buildings, waving their arms frantically.
Yesterday Mr da Silva was scheduled to sign his first decree. It will require all ministers to reduce their staffs by 10 per cent and will prohibit them from issuing new contracts for 30 days. advertisement advertisement
Such austerity defined the government of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
"Change will be slow and gradual," said Luciano Dias, a political scientist. Yet, as was clear again on Wednesday, many of the voters who elected Mr da Silva in a landslide in October expect nothing short of a wide-ranging social revolution. They want quick action on the promises he reiterated in his inauguration speech, including agrarian reform and a "zero hunger" program.
"This is a victory of the people," said Odete Costa, an activist from the President's Workers' Party from the Amazonian state of Para. "We will have a new kind of government, we will do away with corruption, and we will fight hunger."
In all, more than 100,000 people, many of them Workers' Party activists, descended on the capital to celebrate.
Cuban President Fidel Castro was among the visiting dignitaries, as was beleaguered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - both fiery leftists.
In his speech, Mr da Silva received the loudest and longest ovation for a jibe at the Bush administration's war plans in Iraq. "International crises, like the one in the Middle East, should be resolved through peaceful means and negotiation," he said.
More than 100 countries sent representatives to the inauguration. The US sent its Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who met Antonio Palocci, Mr da Silva's Finance Minister, for an hour on Wednesday.
"It was a listen-and-learn visit, in which the basic economic problems of Brazil were discussed," Mr Zoellick said.
While still a presidential candidate, Mr da Silva agreed to abide by an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to maintain a budget surplus of 3.75 per cent during his first year in office.
In the weeks before the inauguration, he filled key economic posts with men considered friendly to Wall Street and the international investment community, including his nominee for president of the Central Bank, Henrique Meirelles, a former executive at Bank Boston.
"One thing that the Workers' Party has learnt in these past eight months is that the markets have power and the party will have to abide by that," said Alexandre Barros of Political Risk Analysis, a Brasilia consulting firm.
- Los Angeles Times