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Brazil’s President-Elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is cheered by thousands of supporters
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SAO
PAULO, October 28 (News Agencies) - Just hours after being elected
president of Brazil, leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Sunday,
October 27, reiterated a pledge to respect international commitments
and maintain anti-inflationary policies.
And
celebrating his triumph before tens of thousands of jubilant
supporters, he pledged to fulfill his campaign promises of social
change in the crisis-struck and poverty-marked country, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“We
will work 24 hours a day so we can deliver on the promises we made
during the campaign,” the former trade union chief said at an
outdoor victory rally in Sao Paulo.
In
a television interview, he addressed concerns on financial markets,
but also urged investors to remember those Brazilians who suffer
hunger.
“We
will comply with the contract we have signed in the document we wrote
in June” Lula told Globo News TV in reference to a letter in which
he undertook to respect Brazil’s “contracts and commitments” and
to battle inflation.
The
document largely aimed at easing tension on international markets over
concerns that once in the presidency, the leftist leader could default
on Brazil's huge debt.
“The
market has to calm down from now on,” Lula said in reference to
months of turbulence that fueled a strong devaluation of the Brazilian
currency.
“The
market must know that Brazilians need to eat three times a day. Many
people in Brazil go hungry,” Lula said just hours after winning a
landslide victory in the run-off presidential election.
“I
hope the market will behave with the same respect toward Brazil as we
will show toward the market,” he said.
“We
have defeated all the prejudice against us,” the bearded former
factory worker said to rousing cheers at the outdoor celebration on
the Paulista avenue.
“First
it was fear of the red flag, then the beard,” said Lula, who was
flanked by his running mate, industrialist Jose Alencar.
“Now
the majority of the people gave me the opportunity to show that a
metal worker and a business leader can do for this country what the
Brazilian elite has failed to do for so long.”
He
also said that now the election is over, the hardest part is yet to
come, and called on all sectors of Brazilian society to help him carry
out the social reforms he has promised.
Lula
won more than 61 percent of the vote in Sunday’s run-off
presidential election, with a record 52 million votes.
That
gave him a lead of almost 23 points over the ruling party’s Jose
Serra, based on a tally of 98 percent of the ballots in Sunday's
run-off presidential election.
By
garnering 52 million votes, Lula beat the record current president
Fernando Henrique Cardoso set when he got 35 million votes that won
him a second consecutive term in 1998.
Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro had warm words for
Lula.
Chavez,
facing a tense domestic political standoff, said on his Sunday radio
program that “now they are trying to use Chavez to hurt Lula; saying
that (with Castro) we are going to form the ‘axis of evil.’ But
no, it is the axis of good, of peoples,” Chavez said.
“We
are not going to interfere in (Brazil’s) domestic process, we just
vote for democracy in Brazil,” Chavez said shortly before exit polls
showed Lula would defeat Jose Serra.
Late
Saturday, Castro said in Jaguey Grande, Cuba that Lula, a high-school
dropout who became a metalworker and union leader before founding the
Workers Party, is “a man who is well prepared to be president” of
Brazil.
“Nobody
doubts he is going to win. We have a friendship, and I admire his
perseverance,” Castro said of Lula, who lost in three earlier bids
for the presidency.
In
Cuba, leaders of the only communist country in the Americas, however
have said they do not see it as likely Lula would seek to achieve a
Cuban-style social revolution in his country.
