Customer Reviews

Lula and The Workers' Party in Brazil

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This book was written in 2002, so it is dated. It predicts how Lula will act in his presidency, and I think the authors did a good job of detailing what would happen. Lula maintained some of the policies of HC, but changed on the social front. His presidency was a contradiction. He talked of advancing the poor classes in Brazilian society, but kept some of the rich technocrats in office in the financial ministry. Overall, Brazil has a booming economy and their oil deals may signal the advancement of Brazil into the reaches of an India/China economic powerhouse.

Lula certainly advanced Brazil during his years in office. I think he has done a better job than people such as Chavez, Morales, or the Sandinistas. Brazil will develop into a rich multi ethnic country and exert powerful influences in Central and South America. This is a good read on a complex subject.

In 2002 when Lula was first elected President, some people thought he was a radical and a leftist. Now in 2010, eight years later, nobody really knows how to categorize Lula but most people had to recognize his qualities as an intuitive political character and a bright reformer.

He is everything but a radical since during his Presidency he always tried to achieve things without confronting adversaries and even political enemies.

How about the PT (Workers Party)? Born from a bunch of non Communist labor leaders (like Lula himself), leftist Catholics, Trotskyites and intellectuals the party had the goal of electing Lula President but now that Lula is leaving the Presidency with record popularity the party has the difficult task of reinventing itself. What do we want now? Who are we? Are we still Socialists? How many people are still following us?

The world has changed, Brazil has changed (a lot), Lula has changed and PT has changed. Inequalities have decreased, that's for sure, but they're still huge.

This book by Sue Brandford and Bernardo Kucinsky is very helpful to anybody who wants to understand the origins of Lula and the PT and try to guess where Brazil is going to be in the next 10 or 20 years.

The election of Ignacio Lula da Silva as Brazilian president in October 2004 was cheered in Brazil and abroad. In Brazil there was finally hope of social change. Outside Brazil Lula's rags to riches story, combined with the uncertain behaviour of the financial markets should he be elected, led to special interest.

On the wave of optimism following Lula's comfortable second round victory, Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinsky with help from Hilary Wainwright wrote this book about Lula and his workers' party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT). All three of the writers are firmly left wing and start from the assumption that PT is different and better than all other political parties, making a critical analysis impossible.

Each writer contributes his own chapter, resulting in a collection of articles and not a coherent book. The first chapter tells the story of the PT from its origins in the mass strikes in the Sao Paolo area in the late seventies to the 2002 elections. The second chapter starts in Caétes with Lula's humble origins and joins the PT story when Lula becomes the undisputed leader of the Sao Paolo strikes. The most interesting chapter covers the economic developments in Brazil in the 1990's, in which the IMF and the international banks are the villains. In the last chapter Hillary Wainwright visits Porto Alegre to see the system the ruling PT has established to listen to the wishes of its citizens.

The book also contains profiles of emblematic PT members like Marina who first went to school aged 16 and now is Minister of the Environment and black favela dweller Benedita de Silva. People like this and Lula himself are the PT's best claim to uniqueness.

Two years after his victory it's clear that real change is difficult to accomplish. Lula himself admitted Any profound change is not easy in our country. And the PT is behaving more and more like the other Brazilian political parties.