The Workers Party (PT) government headed by da Silva, commonly referred to as “Lula,” won the October 2002 election with 61 percent of the vote—the widest margin ever in Brazilian presidential elections. The PT victory reflected the opposition by workers, farmers, and layers of the middle classes in Brazil to the attacks on social programs and living and working conditions carried out by previous administrations. Brazil had been plagued by double-digit unemployment, ballooning interest rates, and rural conditions where 1 percent of the population of 175 million owns 40 percent of the land.

Da Silva’s campaign promises included a “Zero Hunger” program to raise welfare allotments to $25 per month for 50 million people, a doubling of the minimum wage, and the “resettlement” of 400,000 landless peasant families. The new Brazilian president pledged to implement these proposals during his four-year term.

Da Silva has spent his first two years in office carrying out cuts in social programs and pensions, which he has defended as necessary to comply with spending limits mandated by the International Monetary Fund. In 2003 the Workers Party government cut $4.7 billion—one-quarter of proposed spending on public works and other social programs. Da Silva has fought to limit increases in the minimum wage. Cuts in pensions have been a cornerstone of the new administration. And the Zero Hunger program has only begun to address those in need in the big cities.

The Movement of Landless Rural Workers, which supported da Silva in the 2002 election and called for suspending land takeovers after he took office, lifted the moratorium two months later because of the government’s failure to act on its promises.

Da Silva responded to the protests at the World Social Forum by demagogically playing on his years in the Brazilian labor movement as a metalworker and union leader, and pointing to the decline in the unemployment rate to below 10 percent for the first time in years. “For now I’m president of this country, but my roots are in social movements, I’m a political militant, and when I finish my time in office, I’m not going to France or the United States to do a postdoctorate degree,” he said.

Among those protesting da Silva, who he derided as impatient children, were former members of the PT who oppose the government’s capitalist policies. “These people that don’t want to listen are sons and daughters of the PT that rebelled,” said da Silva. “That’s typical of youth, and one day they are going to mature, and we’ll be here with open arms to welcome them back.”

At sessions of the World Social Forum in the past da Silva had been welcomed by many as a hero. “So many people thought that Lula’s election meant change was on its way, but instead we’ve been disappointed,” Francisco Whitaker, a founder of the forum and member of the Brazilian Commission for Justice and Peace, a group linked to the Catholic Church, told the International Herald Tribune. Referring to the PT’s electoral victory, he said, “It’s sad, but the big lesson that we learned from these past two years is that it is an illusion to think you can change the world by taking political power.”

Following his appearance in Porto Allegre, Brazil’s president headed for the World Economic Forum, a meeting of government representatives, taking place in Davos, Switzerland.  
 
 
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