Brazil's Bright Future

As Brazil holds national elections this month, the country is poised to become a globally dominant, socially conscious superpower.

One of the great stories of the young 21st century is the emergence of Brazil as not only a global power, but a nascent egalitarian society. After decades of poverty and inequality, the gap between rich and poor in the country is rapidly closing, and the nation of 192 million boasts a booming economy. Much of this success is thanks to one man: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the hugely popular leader who is stepping down pending the outcome of elections this month. His chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, is poised to win the run-off vote on Oct 31.

Brazil is “riding an unprecedented wave of optimism,” according to a Globe and Mail editorial. But Rousseff has big shoes to fill. “It will be difficult to maintain the momentum of ‘Lula,’ who finishes his two terms with an 80 per cent approval rating and has been called ‘the world's most popular politician.’” Rouseff can’t hope to be as popular as Lula, and “will have to move beyond the Lula personality cult” to effectively address “income inequities that persist, increase access to education and housing, and tackle environmental issues and one of the highest crime rates in the region.”

“What’s really interesting here is the emergence, two decades after the restoration of democracy, of what you might call Brazil’s political personality,” writes Sun Media’s Gwyn Dyer. And that personality is decidedly lefty. All three major national parties are economically liberal, and have vowed to continue Lula’s brand of socialism. The Green’s capture of 20 per cent of the vote in this month’s first round of elections “is the second-highest share of the vote ever won by any Green Party anywhere,” according to Dyer, who speculates that the “rapid rise of the Greens is partly driven by Brazilians growing awareness that they are the custodians of the world’s largest tropical forest.”

It seems Brazilians are so optimistic that they feel not even a buffoon could screw up their historic transformation. They recently elected Tiririca, an honest-to-goodness illiterate clown, to Congress by a landslide.