Brazil's Lula Gets No Break at Carnival

RIO DE JANEIRO -- He was not there in person, but President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's image was everywhere during last week's Carnival celebrations -- caricatured as a puppet on hand-drawn posters, distorted to comic excess on cheap plastic masks, lampooned as a thief in songs written for annual samba contests.

The famously rowdy pre-Lenten festival is the time for Brazilians to exorcize demons and take stock of the year. This time, they also took stock of their president, who is seeking reelection this fall after a roller-coaster first term.

The fun-house mirror of Carnival reflected a presidential image as varied and shifting as Brazil itself, a country where a two-lane road can divide waterfront elegance from grinding poverty.

"He's the best president we've ever had," said Sebastao dos Santos, 45, an auto mechanic who lives in Rocinha, Rio's largest hillside slum.

"He's a thief," pronounced Sonia Maria Alves de Moura, 57, a widow in the luxury beachside community of Ipanema.

Lula's image was not so elastic four years ago, when the former factory worker and union leader received more votes than any president in Brazil's history and vowed to bridge the yawning gap between rich and poor.

His early months in office earned him approval ratings near 80 percent. His underdog ethos helped fuel a recent tilt toward working-class populism throughout South America and enjoyed broad support from a developing nation eager for first-world prominence.

But last year, a bribery scandal forced some of Lula's closest advisers to resign and sent his popularity plummeting. Members of his Workers' Party were accused of paying monthly stipends to lawmakers, and one was arrested with $100,000 stuffed in his underwear.

Lula denied personal knowledge of wrongdoing, but with his approval ratings falling to less than 45 percent last summer, he seemed vulnerable to an election challenge from Jose Serra, a former health minister.

Since then, he has worked hard to recover. Aides report that he has lost more than 30 pounds on a strict diet, and he recently toured the northeast to tout the social programs he was elected to carry out.

Recent opinion polls showed Lula regaining his lead in the race, but the embarrassments have defined his central challenge in this election: to salvage his image as the country's best hope for progress, and not be tarred as a fallen idol.

In Paulo Costa's neighborhood, bright stucco houses sit among glassy high-rise apartments, where a spartan one-bedroom apartment sells for about $200,000. Bossa Nova tunes drift in the air and fashionable people sip cold caipirinhas in the shade.