BRAZIL: PRESIDENTIAL FAVOURITE LULA CELEBRATES 57TH BIRTHDAY AS BRAZILIANS VOTE IN 2ND ROUND OF ELECTIONS.
Record ID:
640643
BRAZIL: PRESIDENTIAL FAVOURITE LULA CELEBRATES 57TH BIRTHDAY AS BRAZILIANS VOTE IN 2ND ROUND OF ELECTIONS.
- Title: BRAZIL: PRESIDENTIAL FAVOURITE LULA CELEBRATES 57TH BIRTHDAY AS BRAZILIANS VOTE IN 2ND ROUND OF ELECTIONS.
- Date: 28th October 2002
- Summary: (W6) RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (OCTOBER 27, 2002) (REUTERS) LV/GV/MV: VARIOUS OF PEOPLE AT THE BEACH (6 SHOTS) GV: PEOPLE WALKING AROUND MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT OF RIO SAYING: "It has been calm and everything was so organized. I think God is putting his faith on us." MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) ANOTHER UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT OF RIO SAYING: "Something's have to change, we want change and there will be change." GV: GENERAL VIEW OF RIO BEACH
- Embargoed: 12th November 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: RIO DE JANEIRO AND SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: General,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVADTR9N35ZL1W8QOO8IWP4G6O10
- Story Text: Leading presidential candidate, leftist Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva, has celebrated his 57th birthday as Brazilians
voted in the country's second round elections under tight
security.
Brazilians continued voting on Sunday (October 27) in
the second round elections that many polls have indicated
would propel leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva into the
presidency, ushering in a new era for Latin America's largest
nation.
Voters from the concrete jungles of the south to Amazon
outposts made their way by foot, car or river boat to
electronic ballot boxes as this country of 170 million began
registering a clamor for change.
A former metalworker, Lula is overwhelmingly expected to
win. He has become a symbol of hope for slum dwellers and the
middle class, both caught up in a vicious cycle of poverty and
violence that improved little in President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso's eight-year administration.
Rival candidate Jose Serra, a former health minister
backed by the centrist ruling coalition, was forecast to win
between 36 to 38 percent of votes while Lula could gather as
much as 64 percent.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT/6 a.m. EDT) and the count
is expected to be about 70 percent complete just a few hours
after polls close at 7 p.m.
Lula shifted his left-wing Workers' Party's platform to
the center to win over conservative voters after he failed in
his previous three bids to be president of the world's fourth
largest democracy.
If victorious, he would be Brazil's first working-class
president and the country's first elected leftist leader,
showcasing Brazil's young democracy in what is only its fourth
election since the end of a 1964-1985 military dictatorship.
Draped in the red starred flags of the Workers' Party,
supporters of the bearded ex-union boss blasted their horns,
anticipating victory for Lula.
Lula narrowly missed out on a first-round victory on Oct.
6, sending 115 million voters back to some 406,000
computerized ballot boxes from Brazil's expansive beaches to
its southern swamplands.
Lula's near-win unleashed a fresh attack by financial
markets on Brazil's stocks, bonds and the currency as Wall
Street doubted his ability to keep the world's ninth largest
economy on an even keel and to manage $260 billion in debt.
As polls opened, soldiers stood by to keep the peace in
many parts of the country with 4,000 troops backed up by
helicopters positioned around the crime-ridden slums of Rio de
Janeiro, where drug traffickers call the shots.
Some states also hold a runoff vote for governor including
Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and the capital, Brasilia.
A victory for Lula, who celebrates his 57th birthday on
Sunday, would mark a dramatic shift for Brazil and a turning
point in Latin American history, where leaders have generally
been picked from a small wealthy elite or from the military.
To increase his chances of victory, Lula swapped his jeans
for smart suits and silenced his party's radical side. The
approach, dubbed "Lula-light," appears to have paid off.
Business barons and entrenched right-wingers jumped on the
Lula bandwagon alongside grass-roots leftists in a common
belief that he was their best bet to get the limping economy
back on its feet and narrow what is one of the world's biggest
income distribution gaps.
About 10 percent of the population controls 50 percent of
its wealth, much of which sprouts from the vast agricultural
and mineral resources of a landmass larger than the
continental United States.
Serra was the hope of investors who wanted more of the
free-market reforms of the Cardoso era.
But with unemployment at its highest level since early
2000, real wages falling and 50 million people living in
poverty, Cardoso was always in for a challenge to elect his
chosen successor.
In recent days what local media has dubbed the "red wave,"
after the Workers' Party's traditional socialist colors, has
swept markets as investors have eased off what had been a
relentless pummeling of stocks, bonds and the currency. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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