Montes Claros Journal; A Brazilian Juggernaut Whistle-Stops the Jungle
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In the depth of winter in Brazil’s backlands, a bright 85-degree sun beats down on the dusty green hills, driving even the lizards to seek the shade. But dozens of people are gathered at midday at a highway intersection here, their bicycles, motorcycles, cars and pickup trucks festooned with red banners. An hour of waiting is rewarded when a tour bus appears through the shimmering heat on the asphalt horizon. A sound truck leads the way into town, blaring between riffs of Brazilian rap music: “Every worker to Portugal Square. Meet the first worker president in the history of Brazil.” Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his Citizenship Caravan have just rolled into Montes Claros. Mechanics at a bicycle repair shop put down their tools to gawk. A farm supply salesman hitches up his pants and ambles to the front of his store. A small girl stands frozen, clutching a soccer ball in her arms. Despite the general stir, a saleswoman at a clothing store points to the heavens and says, “The only leader I believe in is up there.” But far from little ranching towns like Montes Claros, pollsters and politicians are not so skeptical about the whistle-stop caravans of a presidential candidate known to every Brazilian simply as Lula. “The caravans help explain the depth of support for Lula,” said Marcos Antonio Coimbra, an independent pollster. “They’ve helped to bridge feelings of distance and abandonment felt by a large part of the electorate.” In April 1993, with opinion polls showing only 18 percent of the voters saying they prefer him for President, the candidate of the left-wing Brazil Workers’ Party embarked on his first caravan — a 23-day, 43-stop tour that retraced his childhood journey in an open truck as his family fled Brazil’s drought-parched northeast and moved to its industrial south. After 11 caravans, 600 towns and 25,000 miles, Mr. da Silva doubled his standing in the polls to be the preferred candidate of 36 percent of the voters. Now, centrist and conservative candidates are crisscrossing Brazil, trying to play catch-up before the first round of the nation’s presidential elections on Oct. 3. “Lula travels by bus and by boat,” said Paulo Delgado, a Workers’ Party congressman, as the candidate was leaving on a three-day trip down the Sao Francisco River, the major artery through Brazil’s northeast. “The other candidates go by airplane.” Traveling at 30 miles an hour through each of Brazil’s 26 states has changed Mr. da Silva’s strategy. “Lula is less ideological now,” said Ricardo Kotscho, Mr. da Silva’s press adviser, the same job he held in the 1989 elections when Mr. da Silva ran second to Fernando Collor de Mello, who was forced out as Brazilian President in a corruption scandal in 1992. “On any theme, he knows the problem close up, not from position papers,” Mr. Kotscho said. “The party and the program are less sectarian, less closed. Lula has met with gold miners, Indians, blacks, union people and students. In 15 months, he has had 115 meetings with businessmen.” Cornered briefly, away from fans waving ballpoint pens for autographs, the cigar-chomping candidate said: “You can’t govern the country without knowing the country. The caravans have deepened my knowledge of Brazil.” This campaign style so unnerved traditional politicians that they passed a restrictive television advertising law last year that is a throwback to the military dictatorship of the 1970’s. In contrast to the free-wheeling election advertising of 1989, this year’s television advertisements are limited to candidates speaking in studios. The law bans jingles, graphs, endorsements by outsiders and video footage from outside a studio. “The law was passed precisely so that Lula couldn’t use caravan images,” Mr. Kotscho said, noting that the law was backed by center-right parties that later united behind the candidacy of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Finance Minister who was running second in polls with about 21 percent. None of the other half dozen candidates have more than 5 percent in the opinion polls. Source : query.nytimes.com |