El Opinador Compulsivo

Brasil y Lula mirados desde dos prismas diferentes:

L.A. Times:
Lula may have disappointed his more radical followers when he embraced orthodox macroeconomic policies, but the results have been strong job growth, a stable currency and low inflation coupled with dramatic increases in the minimum wage and a sweeping poverty reduction program. The program, Bolsa Familia, has been so successful that the World Bank has been trumpeting it as a model for the rest of the world. Although Lula has conducted his foreign policy quietly, letting Chavez's flamboyant fire-breathing steal headlines, he has become a voice for the world's poor, helping lead the charge to reduce agricultural subsidies in the United States and the European Union in the Doha round of trade talks.


Wall Street Journal:
Lula certainly hasn't been the worst president in Brazilian history. Despite his admiration for Fidel Castro, he has remained within the bounds of the rule of law and has not consolidated power or destroyed institutions in the authoritarian style of Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner. Also, he has been pragmatic and accepted the disciplines assigned by capital markets. His government has sought fiscal restraint, low inflation and a stable real. That the country has not dissolved into a hyperinflationary basket case over the past four years has made the Lula presidency look almost brilliant to Brazilians and the international community. But that's only because expectations were so low.

Meanwhile, at the level of microeconomic policy, where a pro-market attitude that respects private property is so desperately needed, another four years of Lula is a grim thought.