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Support From Brazil's Poor Gives Lula Edge in Election
Marlene Silva, a kitchen worker in a Sao Paulo restaurant, cites an increase in her spending power in explaining her preference for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
(By Monte Reel -- The Washington Post)
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Lula's campaign on Saturday said the publication of the photos was another example of foul play by the media. Throughout the campaign, Lula has declined interviews, contending that most journalists are biased against him. Pundits and those who listen to them might disdain the president, one campaign aide said, but Lula doesn't need them to win.
"You don't know what a burden it is to govern a country with a small group -- the elite -- that is so full of prejudice as the one here," Lula told his supporters during a campaign-closing rally Thursday in a suburb of Sao Paulo.
But the polls suggest the criticisms haven't stuck to him, particularly among those who have benefited from his social programs. For the 70 percent of the population with less than eight years of schooling, the social programs speak louder than the media, according to political analysts.
"Being a government considered more daring in the social field seems to have built a barrier that protects Lula from the corruption allegations," said Francisco Fonseco, a Sao Paulo-based political scientist who published a book last year criticizing the Brazilian media for advancing a non-representative political viewpoint. "Whoever reads only the mainstream media, especially the large newspapers and magazines, tends to have a relatively distorted vision of the political process."
But Claudia Ramos said that from her viewpoint -- that of a 41-year-old secretary with two daughters and a husband who is a lawyer -- the country under Lula has entered a crisis of conscience because of the corruption that has touched the president's party.
"Economically, everything is the same for us, but the country has changed morally," she said, preparing for lunch at the restaurant with her family, who live in the wealthy neighborhood of Campo Belo in Sao Paulo. "I am ashamed of the political situation here."
She added that her daughters' school held a mock election in which Alckmin won handily. But her 6-year-old daughter interrupted to say she had met someone at the school who supported Lula.
"The cleaning lady," she said.
