Lula leads the vote

BRAZIL: Congratulating Luiz Inácio da Silva - "Lula" - on his victory in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, the general secretary of the International Metalworkers' Federation, Marcello Malentacchi, said that "the metalworkers of the world are all looking forward to the day you will be elected president of the great country of Brazil. This is a great moment for the entire trade union movement of the world, and we want to express all our solidarity and support for the final round in three weeks' time." Lula, the candidate of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), or Workers' Party, received close to 47 per cent of the ballots cast in yesterday's (October 6) voting, far ahead of his nearest challenger, and just short of the minimum 50 per cent needed for an outright victory. A former metalworker, Lula became the leader of the metalworkers' union of Sao Bernardo, outside Sao Paulo, in the mid-1970s, and even though strikes were banned under the then military dictatorship, he played a leading role when Brazil's first strikes for ten years - over union demands for better wages and working conditions - erupted at the Swedish Scania truck factory in May 1978. In 1980, he participated in the launching of the Workers' Party, and in 1986 was elected to Congress. A second and final round of voting in the presidential election will take place on October 27. Main issues in the election have been the country's sluggish economy, a 10 per cent unemployment rate, the drop in wages and high crime rates.