Lazy, hazy days for lucky Lula

The Economist tenta explicar o que para muitos parece difficil de entender: Lula tem o apoio do povo.

Leia a seguir as conclusões do artigo da revista inglesa

(...)

Brazilians often gripe that their politicians, ensconced in Brasília, live in pampered isolation from everyday realities. Yet perhaps it is the newspapers, for all the polished competence of their investigations, which are living in a bubble. They are read by the few: Folha de São Paulo, the biggest-selling daily, shifts only 300,000 copies in a country of 190m people. Meanwhile, the average Brazilian is rather content, less interested in the television news than the soap opera that follows it. Scandals notwithstanding, the president is hugely popular. In São Paulo's gritty periphery “everyone loves Lula,” says Afonso Gonçalves, who owns a small supermarket in the suburb of São Bernardo, where the president was once a trade-union leader. “He focused on the poor. He's the people's president.”

It is not hard to spot the reasons for the public mood. In many ways, Brazil is doing better than it has for a generation. Inflation is low and economic growth is steadily rising. Aloizio Mercadante, who chairs the Senate's economic-affairs committee, reels off many other positive numbers: the current account is in surplus; the fall in the public debt is ahead of target; the Central Bank's benchmark interest rate has fallen from 27.6% in 2002 to 12% today; total wages in the economy have grown by 8% over the past year; investment is up 7% over the same period; and consumption has risen for 15 consecutive quarters. Leia aqui na integra o artigo do The Economist