Brazil Closer To A Left Turn

Brazil's left scored a partial victory in a presidential race that now goes to a second round, with more than three-quarters of the electorate rebuffing the government candidate, who supported continuing U.S.-backed, free market reforms.

Former labor boss Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is headed for an Oct. 27 runoff with the government-backed candidate Jose Serra, Brazil's Supreme Electoral Tribunal confirmed Monday.

"Let us go wage the fight. Let's go to the streets immediately!" said Jose Geonino, a close Silva aide, as he rallied a thousand cheering supporters of the leftist Workers' Party candidate after Sunday's election. "I call for the vote of all who want to change Brazil."

With 98.3 percent of the ballots counted, Silva had 46.4 percent and Serra had 23.2 percent. Eliminated in first-round voting were former Rio state Gov. Anthony Garotinho with 17.9 percent and Ciro Gomes with 12 percent.

More than three-quarters of the voters rebuffed Serra, who promised to continue the free market reforms of outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

At a midday news conference, Silva exhorted Brazilians to stick with him in the runoff.

"This was a historic vote and I wish to thank the millions of Brazilians who voted to give the Workers' Party their greatest victory ever," said Silva, who smiled broadly and raised his hands in triumph.

He said Brazilians clearly turned away from "one economic model" at the polls and voted for another.

"There is disillusionment with free market policies," said political scientist David Fleischer, an American teaching at the University of Brasilia.

Fleischer said there is region-wide dissatisfaction with unbridled free markets from crisis-ridden Argentina and Uruguay on Brazil's south to Peru and Ecuador on the west.

For many, Silva also represents a challenge to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a U.S.-backed effort to form the world's largest trading bloc by 2005. Brazil's current administration had reservations, and Silva has called the effort Washington's "Latin America annexation plan."

Like the current administration, Silva opposes the presence of U.S. troops in Colombia and the U.S. embargo on Cuba. But a top Silva aide said Brazil's international relations "will not be dominated by ideological considerations."

"We want to establish correct diplomatic relations with the United States in which the defense of Brazilian interests ... will be present," said Marco Aurelio Garcia, who has been mentioned as a possible foreign minister in a Workers' Party government.

Silva has drastically softened his radical rhetoric to attract votes from the center and rack up his biggest election victory after three failed presidential attempts since 1989.

He no longer urges landless farm workers to invade private property and has dropped calls for an audit of Brazil's foreign debt — widely understood to mean a default on payment. His running mate is a textile magnate with factories employing 16,000 workers.

Trying to allay market fears, Silva pledged to honor Brazil's debt and abide by terms of a $30 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. He said his concern is boosting exports and creating jobs, bringing Brazil's impoverished millions into the consuming mainstream — not a populist revolution like the one Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez attempted.

Brazil, weighed down by $230 billion in foreign debt, saw its currency plummet in recent weeks over the country's ability to meet debt obligations and adjust to a possible Silva victory.

Many here openly embraced Silva as a catalyst for change in a country rife with poverty, hunger and a growing gap between rich and poor.

"Lula! Luuuu-Laaa!" people shouted in Sao Paulo, Silva's home turf, waving the Workers Party flag with its red star into the early hours Monday, amid a barrage of fireworks after a compulsory ballot by 115.3 million registered voters.

Silva's campaign announced it would immediately begin hunting for votes from Garotinho, who had strong support from evangelical groups, and from Gomes, a center-leftist seen as sympathetic to Silva.

Francisco Pereira, whose foot was amputated last year because of diabetes, limped to the polls on splintered crutches from Villa Prudente, the city's largest and most violent slum.

"Things are bleak," said Pereira, 49, after punching in his vote on a computer in a public school. He said Silva was the workers' candidate and would look kindly on the poor, unemployed and sick. "I hope a lot from him."

At Serra headquarters, the atmosphere changed from depression to elation when it became clear he would face Silva in a runoff.

A 60-year-old economist, Serra was expected to urge voters to cast ballots for "experience," citing his service in Congress and the Senate before becoming health minister.

"Today is better than yesterday," he said. "And tomorrow will be better than today."

One Serra aide, Wilma Motta, pledged the government candidate will "show the real face" of Silva's Workers Party. Silva, 56, was jailed as a subversive in the '80s for leading strikes that challenged the military dictatorship of the time.

Some Silva supporters worried the next round would be the most vicious.

Vitor Hugo Simoes, a 41-year-old school teacher, was crushed that the leftist didn't clinch an outright victory.

"I am so saddened," Simoes said. "I was so sure he would win in one round."

By Bill Cormier