Brazilian Congress Kills Move to Let Lula Seek 3rd TermBRASILIA – The Brazilian opposition managed to sidetrack a bill for constitutional reform that would have allowed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to seek a third term in 2010, a proposal rejected by the head of state himself.
Opposition parties forced members supporting the bill to withdraw their support, so that the measure will be shelved, leaders of the lower house told Efe.
The controversial statute was officially introduced Thursday by Congressman Jackson Barreto of the PMDB, the most influential party in Lula’s governing coalition.
To be considered, the bill needed the backing of 171 members and had the support of 183.
But 13 of the lawmakers who backed the reform were from the DEM and PSDB opposition parties, and around midnight decided to withdraw their signatures from the document presented by Barreto, which was left without the support necessary to go forward.
“A legislator of the PSDB could not have signed a bill of that kind,” said party chairman Sergio Guerra, who admitted threatening with expulsion those he described as “rebels.”
Barreto’s bill called for a referendum in September on allowing the president, state governors and mayors to serve up to three consecutive terms.
Barreto denied that the bill was in any way related to the lymphoma suffered by presidential chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, whom Lula had already designated as his preferred successor.
The president has expressed many times his rejection of a reform that would allow him to run for a third term, which was also criticized by his Workers Party and by Supreme Court judges.
According to Barreto when he introduced the bill, the possibility of Lula continuing in office would allow Brazil “to maintain a stable economy despite the international financial crisis.”
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=336096&CategoryId=14090Approval for Brazil's Lula recovers to near recordSAO PAULO, May 31 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's approval rating bounced back in May to nearly all-time highs as confidence grew in measures to stoke growth in Latin America's largest economy, a new poll showed.
Lula's approval rating of 69 percent was 4 points higher than in March and close to the peak of 70 percent in November 2008, pollster Datafolha said on Sunday.
The former union leader's rating slid in March from November as the global financial crisis took its toll on Brazil's economy, with unemployment soaring.
"The previous drop was a direct result of the crisis," Mauro Paulino, Datafolha's general director, told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. "With people more confident in the government's performance dealing with the crisis, the approval rating recovered."
But Brazilians are now split on proposed constitutional changes that would allow Lula to run for a third consecutive term in the presidential election due in October 2010.
About 49 percent said the law should not be changed, down sharply from 65 percent in a November 2007 poll. But 47 percent wanted the change to allow Lula to run again, up from 31 percent in November 2007.
Lula has repeatedly said he has no intentions of seeking a third term but a lawmaker in the governing coalition has put forward a proposal for a referendum in September to amend the constitution.
2010 ELECTIONLula's handpicked successor for president, chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, narrowed the gap sharply with front-runner Jose Serra, the poll also showed.
Support for Serra, the governor of Sao Paulo state and the opposition's leading presidential hopeful, fell to 38 percent from 41 percent in March.
Rousseff, who revealed last month she had a tumor removed from her armpit and would have chemotherapy to treat lymphoma, saw her support rise to 16 percent from 11 percent in March as more Brazilians became familiar with her, Paulino said.
Datafolha interviewed 5,129 people from May 26-28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
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