Dilma Rousseff with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
With less than three months until the presidential election, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is trying to make enough of his magic dust stick to his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, to persuade voters to elect her as the first female president of Brazil, Latin America's largest country.
|
|
In campaigning for Ms. Rousseff, his former chief of staff, the president has flouted electoral laws and credited her for programs and public works done under his watch.
In a high school gymnasium here on Friday, a 20-minute drive from his birthplace, Mr. da Silva was in his element, crisscrossing a stage with a microphone and energizing 3,000 supporters with an improvised stump speech. "Today there is no one more prepared to govern our country than our future president, our comrade," he declared, pointing to Ms. Rousseff, seated nearby.
Whether his lobbying will suffice is unclear. What does it take for a Latin American leader, even one as beloved as Mr. da Silva, to pass on popularity?
The answer, as the recent elections in Colombia and Uruguay have shown, often depends on a unifying issue like security or the economy that voters resist entrusting to opposition candidates.
Popularity alone may not be enough. In Chile, the sweeping support for Michelle Bachelet did not extend to her coalition's choice to succeed her. He lost the race even before the earthquake struck in February, stirring discontent.
But in Brazil, Mr. da Silva seems to be betting that his almost cultlike following can make Ms. Rousseff win.
"The attitude is, 'If Lula says she is the right person, she is the right person,' " said Riordan Roett, the director of the Latin American program at Johns Hopkins University. "I can't think of any other case in Latin America in the recent past where this has been the case, where a twice-elected president was simply saying, 'Trust me.' "
Click here to continue reading.
SOURCE: The New York Times
