BRASILIA (Reuters) – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff yesterday vowed to continue Brazil’s investor-friendly economic policies if she won the Oct. 3 presidential race as the ruling Workers’ Party candidate.
Speaking to the party’s national convention in Brasilia after it formally endorsed her candidacy, Dilma Rousseff, 62, said she would maintain fiscal discipline, a free-floating exchange rate, and inflation targets — the pillars of Lula’s economic strategy.
“We will ensure macro-economic stability,” Rousseff, a trained economist, told the party’s delegates in the capital Brasilia. She added that she felt “totally prepared” to govern the country.
She would become the country’s first female president, though two opinion polls released this month show her trailing conservative Sao Paulo state Governor Jose Serra of the opposition PSDB party by between 5 per cent and 11 per cent.
Lula, the most popular president in Brazil’s recent history but prevented by law from running for a third consecutive term, said Rousseff’s candidacy was not designed to hold his place for a possible return in 2014.
“I want her to win a second mandate,” said Lula, a former union leader who virtually imposed Rousseff’s candidacy on the Workers’ Party that he founded 30 years ago. He said he chose her for her rigor, ethics and determination.
Brazil has during Lula’s rule consolidated its position as one of the world’s leading economies. It bounced back quickly from a brief recession last year and its economy is expected to grow by more than 5 per cent this year.
The Workers’ Party on Friday approved a campaign platform that proposes extending Lula’s economic policies. But it also included proposals to expand the role of state enterprises, tax big wealth and expand social welfare programmes.
Rousseff told chanting supporters that, as president, she would continue to expand the civil service despite warnings by opposition parties of the rising costs of maintaining a bloated and inefficient state bureaucracy.
Lula, a union leader who rose from humble, working-class roots to the presidency, urged Brazilian women to support Rousseff in the election in an effort to battle deep-seated gender inequality in a country where few women have risen to high political office.
“Women are still treated like second-class citizens,” Lula said.
His appeal resonated with some of the 3,000 delegates and others in attendance at the convention.
“It’s high time for a woman president,” said Cibele Figuereido, a 50-year old teacher and Rousseff supporter.
While an all-female percussion group gyrated its way through the flag-waving audience after Rousseff’s speech, a small group of tattooed natives in traditional headdress protested against the government’s Indian policy.