Buddha of Brazil

The real surprise out of Brazil is not that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has taken a thumping majority of the vote in the run-off for Brazil8217;s presidential election. Or that he took votes off his opponent, former Sao Paolo governor Geraldo Alckmin, since the first round of voting a month ago. It is this. Even after the embarrassment of losing campaign officials to financial scandal and being denied outright victory in that first round, Lula managed to set the economic agenda for the election so firmly. Alckmin, as the challenger from the right, was forced into cleaving as close as he could to Lula platform of social welfare driven by heightened bids to attract investment. This has great implications for the ideological battles raging in developing countries, and it casts direct light on the reformist urge in India8217;s Left represented by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Latin America is a most interesting region for political observers today. It is easy to be misled by its slew of charismatic, and democratically elected, leaders to believe that a great battle is being waged between Right and Left. It is, as Mexican academic Jorge Castaneda has been writing, more complex and meaningful than that. It is a tussle within the Left. Ranged on one side is the unreconstructed Left represented by Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. On the other is Lula, springing off the giddy populism that comes so naturally to Latin American leaders and tapping the market economy and globalisation to sustain a programme for social welfare.

Lula8217;s core vote was secured by his direct grants to poor families in Bolsa Familia programme. To sustain it and his ambitious plans for education, he says he8217;s aiming to up investment to 25 per cent of GDP and start pension reform. The point is: the priorities of a leftist agenda 8212; including poverty eradication 8212; are most efficiently met from the unideological centre. If it seems akin to what Buddhadeb has been attempting, it should hopefully remove his party8217;s overwhelmingly misty view of the Chavez spectacle.