On March 24, Brazil's second largest labor federation, Union Force, staged protests in several cities to push President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers Party (PT) to start making good on his campaign promise to create 10 million jobs. Nearly 4,000 people attended the largest of the protests, in São Paulo. Meanwhile, some 8,000 agents of Brazil's Federal Police force have been on strike since March 9, demanding an 85 percent pay hike; the strike has increased waiting times at the country's airports, where the Federal Police handle security, including the fingerprinting and photographing of U.S. visitors. On March 24, Social Security workers ended a 48-hour strike, and agriculture inspectors struck on March 19, blocking $575 million in farm exports. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 3/25/04 from AFP]
On March 25, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) officially acknowledged that the country's unemployment rate rose to 12 percent in February, up from 11.6 percent in February 2003. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 3/26/04 from correspondent]
In a poll commissioned by the National Confederation of Industries and released on March 26, the Brazilian Institute of Opinion and Research (IBOPE) found that confidence in Lula has slipped from 69 percent last December to 60 percent in March, while those expressing a lack of confidence in the president went from 26 percent to 36 percent during the same period. The approval rating of Lula's administration sank even lower, from 66 percent in December to 54 percent in March, with the disapproval rating growing from 25 percent to 39 percent. The poll surveyed 2,000 Brazilian voters older than 16 between March 20 and 25; its margin of error is 2.2 percent.
In addition to the growing unemployment rate, analysts blame Lula's drop in the polls on a scandal which broke in February when a video emerged showing Waldomiro Diniz, former adviser to cabinet chief Jose Dirceu, soliciting campaign contributions for Lula from the owner of an illegal gambling business. Lula has warned that rightwing sectors are organizing a "war" against his government. [LJ 3/27/04 from AFP, DPA; ENH 3/27/04 from AP]
But Lula is also under pressure from the left and from Brazil's large, highly organized grassroots movements. On March 21, a group of 15 PT deputies organized a seminar at a union office in São Paulo called "We Want Another Brazil," in which they demanded a change in the government's economic policies away from compliance with the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ivan Valente said the seminar "shows that the PT is alive and that there is a pressure from below to above." PT founder and economist Plinio de Arruda Sampaio said the seminar sought to protest "an unacceptable economic policy." The government must "face the problem of debt payment, go to the IMF and tell them we can't pay the debt with the hunger of the Brazilian people." Similar seminars are planned for other cities. [ENH 3/22/04 from AFP].
