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Brazilian Leftist Wins Re-election

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil?s president for the last four years, won re-election this week in a landslide against his opponent, the center-right politician Geraldo Alckmin. With the vote going 61 percent for Lula da Silva and 39 percent for Alckmin, analysts say voters wanted to reward the Worker?s Party candidate for the work he has done for Brazil while in office. In a way, the scope of Lula da Silva?s victory is surprising, given that Alckmin appeared to be gaining at one time, and because the president?s political party has been stained with corruption charges.

Known simply as ?Lula? to his supporters, following his victory in a second round of voting ? as required by law when no candidate gets a solid fifty-percent-plus-one majority in a first round ? the president told cheering supporters at a hotel in the city of Sao Paulo, ?We?re going to do a lot better in my second term than we did in the first. The foundation is in place, and now we have to get to work.?

Sunday?s runoff election was expected to bring out 125 million voters who would decide on who the country?s president would be. And in addition to runoffs for the presidency, in 10 of 27 Brazilian states there were to be runoffs for the governorships. Despite his leftist stance, Lula da Silva is not the sort of South American so-called ?populist-leftist? as represented by Venezuela?s Hugo Chavez.