Lula Administration
In 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the PT (Workers' Party), won the presidency with more than 60% of the national vote. In the first months of his mandate, inflation rose perilously, reflecting the markets' uncertainty about the government's monetary policy. However, the markets' confidence in the government was promptly regained as Lula chose to maintain his predecessor policies, meaning the continuation of Central Bank's task of keeping inflation down. Since then, the country underwent considerable economic growth and employment expansion. On the other hand, Lula's mainstream economic policies disappointed his most radical leftist allies, which led to a breakdown in PT (Workers' Party) that resulted in the creation of PSOL.
In 2005, Roberto Jefferson, chairman of the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), was implicated in a bribery case. As a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry was set up, Jefferson testified that the MPs were being paid monthly stipends to vote for government-backed legislation. Later, in August of the same year, after further investigation, campaign manager Duda Mendonça admitted that he had used illegal undeclared money to finance the PT electoral victory of 2002. The money in both cases was found to have originated from private sources as well as from the advertising budget of state-owned enterprises headed by political appointees, both laundered through Duda's Mendonça advertising agency. The collection of these incidents was dubbed the Mensalão scandal. On August 24, 2007, the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) accepted the indictments of 40 individuals relating to the Mensalão scandal, most which are former or current federal deputies, all of which were or still allies of the Brazilian president.
The loss of support resulting from these scandals was outweighed by the president's popularity among the voters of the lower classes, whose income per capita was raised as a consequence of both higher employment, expansion of domestic credit to consumers and government social welfare programs. The stable and solid economic situation of the country, which Brazil had not experienced in the last 20 years, with fast growth in production both for internal consumers and exportation as well as a soft but noticeable decrease in social inequality, may also partially explain the high popularity of Lula's administration even after several scandals of corruption involving important politicians connected to Lula and to PT. Hence Lula's re-election in 2006: After almost winning in the first round, Lula won the run-off against Geraldo Alckmin of the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party), by a 20 million vote margin.
Following Lula's second victory, his approval ratings started to rise again (fueled by the continuity of the economical and social achievements obtained during the first term) to a record of 80%, the highest for a Brazilian president since the end of the military regime. The focus of Lula's second term have been to further stimulate the economy by investments in infrastructure and measures to keep expanding the domestic credit to producers, industry, commerce and consumers alike. In 2009, Brazil's economic rise was temporarily halted by a worldwide financial crisis, forcing the government to implement a temporary Tax Relief policy in strategic segments of the economy like automobiles and construction. These measures helped the country to prevent a long term recession and ensured a quick recovery to Brazil's economic ascension.
Another mark of Lula's second term were his efforts to expand Brazil's political influence worldwide, specially after G20 (from which Brazil and other emerging economies participate) replaced the G8 as the main world forum of discussions. Just like his predecessor, he is an active defender of the Reform of the United Nations Security Council, as Brazil is one of the four nations (the others being Germany, India and Japan) officially coveting a permanent seat in the council. Lula is also notorious for seeing himself as a friendly, peacemaker conciliator Head of State. Managing to befriend leaders of rival countries from the likes of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama from the United States to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Cuban former president Fidel Castro, the President of Bolivia Evo Morales, and lastly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fueling protests inside and outside the country due to Ahmadinejad's polemical anti-Semitic statements. Lula took part in a deal with the governments of Turkey and Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program despite the United States' (among other nuclear powers) desire to strengthen the sanctions against the country, fearing the possibility of Iran develop nuclear weapons.
During the Lula administration the Brazilian Army's most important assignment is by being the main force of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti which have been established to bring aid to the Haitian population, and suffered important casualties during the 2010 Haiti earthquake which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Read more about this topic: History Of Brazil Since 1985