Brazilian Presidential Election

[Guest alanm]

Good news for American tourists? da Silva of the leftist Workers' Party will face Serra from the incumbent centralist Social Democratic Party in the second-round runoff in late October. da Silva missed the 50% he needed to avoid a runoff. How will this impact on Brazil's very

touchy economic position and more important how will to impact on us?

Usually leftist like da Silva are fine with a thriving sex industry,

but do not necesary win the support of the international banking community, a must for Brazil right now.

[trilingual]

Lula will win the second round, unless something very bizarre happens between now and the end of October, when the second round takes place.

Voters for other left-wing candidates (Ciro Gomes and Anthony Garotinho) really don't have anywhere else to go. Serra would probably not be a bad President. He was the health minister who was responsible for Brazil's aggressive policy to get cheap AIDS drugs by threatening to bust patents if big pharmaceutical companies didn't lower their prices and profits. However, he has zero charisma, and is seen as being a continuation of the policies of the current government. After eight years, people are unhappy about the economy and the failure to narrow the yawning gap between rich and poor, so voters are looking for a change. I doubt Serra has any real chance in round two.

 

For visitors with dollars, this will be a good thing, because the real isn't likely to strengthen significantly at least until the election process is finished. Afterwards, the real may strengthen, because the consensus is that it's undervalued at the current exchange rate. However, there's a lot of speculation going on, international investors are easily freaked, and there are some weaknesses in the Brazilian economy that could become problematic if they're not managed well. I don't think Lula will do anything very radical. He won't have control of Congress, so that will be a natural brake on any extreme tendencies. More importantly, Lula fought to hard for the presidency to want to go into history as a President who ruined Brazil. Especially because this will be the first time that the PT (Workers' Party) will have won the presidency. Lula doesn't want to make it impossible for the party to ever have another chance at the presidency. Of course, nobody can predict the economic future with certainty. We'll just have to watch and wait and see. . .