Who is this person?

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (commonly referred to as Lula) is the winner of this year's first round of the Brazilian presidential election. Lula is an old-time unionist and a member of the "worker's party" (PT). Lula is fairly left wing.

Brazil's last president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso:

	A left-wing professor who helped develop dependency theory, which claimed that developing nations such as Brazil were exploited by capitalist economies such as that of the U.S.
	Cardoso ended a rate of inflation that had exceeded 5,000% a year by launching a new monetary unit, the real.
	Cardoso also privatized the inefficient state telecommunications and electricity companies as well as a few other sectors. But in its attempt to raise more revenue from the sale of these enterprises, the government alienated Brazilians by replacing public monopolies with protected private monopolies.
	Two months ago, Cardoso created a tropical forest reserve covering an area the size of Switzerland. But the credibility of the project has been undermined by corruption at the state environment agency. Note: This corruption is an issue which concerns any major environmental preservation policy. It will soon become a focus of my research.

Lula's presidential agenda:

	Lula plans to be hard on crime. Brazil has one of the highest crime rates in the world.
	Lula supports cautious government spending policies and has committed his party to upholding the market-oriented reforms of the '90s.
	FREE MARKETS: Lula's primary advocacy
	Lula is likely to continue Mr Cardoso's economic and social policies, which have been outstandingly successful.
	Likely to promote the preservation of the Amazonian rainforest!
	Lula is suspicious of the U.S. push for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, which would create a free-trade zone from Alaska to the southern tip of South America.
	"I defend a policy of free trade with every country in the world, as long as there is a certain equality in the participation for these countries," Lula told the Brazilian news magazine.

Lula and the environment:

	The PT (Worker's Part) is an ally of the indigenous Amazonian peoples who want to preserve the forest and of the landless poor whose poverty drives them to cut it down; just as it is an opponent of the rich illegal loggers and the companies keen to build roads in the Amazon basin.
	Lula has called for the use of the Amazon in a "rational way" for research and development that does not promote further deforestation or pollution of the world's largest rainforest. "I do not want an untouched Amazon ... we need to develop non-polluting industries in the region," said Lula, adding that it is important to keep in mind the 20 million people who call the rainforest home.
	Lula has especially strong support for the rainforest preservation projects in Acre, a state in Brazil in which Lula used to be Senator.
	According to environmentalists, although Lula may have been more pro-rainforest than his rival in the presidential election, he will not likely have a considerable impact on Brazilian environmental policies. "The Amazon is not in the national political debate with the potential it could have," said Analuce Freitas, public policy director for the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil. "There's always been a lot of interest in the Amazon, but that's mostly an imaginary Amazon and has little to do with reality." The Amazon rainforest was an insignificant campaign issue in the presidential race. Environmentalists say that regardless of who wins Sunday's election, little is likely to change in the Amazon, where logging and farming destroy a Connecticut-sized region each year.
	"At best, a left-wing victory might mean a little reorientation of the economic model directed toward the people and less toward the fat cats," said David Fleischer, a political science professor in Brasilia. Note: all the major presidential candidates are careful to balance their concern for the environment with the promise of prosperity (i.e. development of the rainforest for industrial advancement).

For the articles which provide evidence of the above information, download here.