TORONTO, (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will skip the Group of 20 leaders summit in Toronto this weekend to deal with the aftermath of severe flooding in northeastern Brazil that has killed 51 people.
The northeast region is a political stronghold for Lula’s government ahead of presidential elections in October in which the popular Lula wants Brazilians to elect his former chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff.
“He doesn’t want to be away from Brazil at this difficult moment,” a source from Brazil’s G20 delegation said yesterday. The government later confirmed that Lula would miss the summit.
The Brazilian source said that Lula, whose home state of Pernambuco is one of those affected by the disaster, had been shocked by the destruction he saw when flying over flooded areas on Thursday.
The G20 is meeting Saturday and Sunday to seek a consensus on how quickly to shrink government deficits, how best to strengthen banks so that they can withstand any new downturn, and how to harmonize financial regulatory reforms.
