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News :: Elections & Legislation |
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LULA WINS BY LANDSLIDE! |
Current rating: 0 |
by a1w & AFP
(No verified email address) |
27 Oct 2002
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Official Brazilian election results with 90 percent counted
Votes/Percent
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva- 47,847,845 - 61.46%
Jose Serra- 30,002,139 - 38.54%
Serra has conceded, per BBC News |
Click on image for a larger version  |
Leftist former union chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected Brazil's president by a landslide victory on Sundayy
Workers Party Candidate Lula elected Brazil president
Agence France-Presse
Sao Paulo, October 28
Leftist former union chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected Brazil's president by a landslide victory on Sunday, in a historic vote that gave Latin America's biggest country its first working class leader.
The head of the Workers Party (PT) had 61.46 percent of valid votes, election authorities said with 90 per cent of ballots for the second round runoff counted. Jose Serra of the ruling Brazilian Social Democratic Party, had 38.5 per cent and conceded defeat before the count was finished.
US President George W. Bush was among the first foreign leaders to congratulate Lula and raucous street celebrations marked the triumph by the 57-year-old, who rode to victory on widespread discontent over Brazil's social divide.
Attention in the United States and other countries will now be focused on whether Lula can keep promises to maintain fiscal discipline.
The election came at the height of a new financial crisis, which saw the real, the Brazilian currency, lose 40 per cent of its value this year and prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to offer a $30 billion rescue package.
The crisis was widely blamed on negative investor reaction to the idea that the ex-factory worker with little formal education would becomed president of Brazil. But the financial sector appeared to have come to terms with the idea after the October 6 first round, which Lula dominated.
Lula - widely regarded as honest in a country plagued by corruption - has recently moved closer to the political centre, reached out to the business community, and pledged to aim for a budget surplus while carrying out wide-ranging social reforms. Investors were keenly awaiting indications as to who Lula's key advisors will be. |
See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=213113&group=webcast
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=213129&group=webcast
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