It was turning into a good day for Nina Rodrigues, a dusty town of 8,731 people on the banks of the Itapecuru river. A crowd of more than 900, young and old, had gathered under the orange clay-tiled roof of Our Lady of Conception's church hall to launch Zero Hunger, the Brazilian government's plan to put three meals a day on the plate of every man, woman and child.
On stage was a cross section of the community, the town's photographer, the church helper, the teacher, the nurse and a dozen others. Each was seeking to be elected by his or her peers. Those chosen would decide who in their poor community would receive handouts from the new scheme.
Nobody doubts that Raimunda dos Santos Moraes will be one. The 55-year-old mother of 10 lives 20km away, down a dusty ochre track cut through a patchy green forest, and has waited for much of her life for independence from poverty. If Zero Hunger works as it should, she will get a card with credit on it which she will use to buy food for the three children who still share her one-room house.
Sitting on a small, moulded plastic chair on the compact earth next to her crumbling front wall of mud she mulls over the past year, her village life and a man who, like her, came out of absolute poverty but who, unlike her, for the past 12 months has led her country.
She has little doubt that Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, president of Brazil, will bring her a better life and that Zero Hunger is just the start.
"He came from the same background and he can understand what people want ... He is a fighter and he will bring us all together," she says.
But though there is hope in Raimunda's state of Maranhao -- where 50 percent of families earn less than the minimum wage of 240 reals (US$82) a month, and 36 percent of youngsters are registered as being in child labour -- there is also frustration. Despite an extraordinary amount of optimism even the most committed of the president's supporters will tell you that progress is patchy. His critics put it far more harshly.
They say he has sold out, abandoned decades of struggle against poverty, against international bankers and the ruling elites, and embraced neo-liberal politics. The debate is dampening the euphoria which accompanied his coming to power almost exactly a year ago.
On Jan. 1 last year Lula became Brazil's first working class president. A shoeshine boy, turned metal worker, turned fiery union official, it was his fourth attempt at the leadership. This time his Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers party, fought the election embracing right and left in the cause of a better Brazil.
Jubilation was widespread and nowhere greater than in the PT, an unusual amalgam of social groups, unions, former guerrilla fighters and left-leaning intellectuals. At first the signs for the faithful were good. His choice of administrators included Gilberto Gil, one of Brazil's most popular musicians, appointed culture minister; Marina Silva, a former rubber tapper and domestic maid given the environment portfolio; and Benidita da Silva, who was said to still live in an inner city slum, appointed social welfare minister. The promises in his inaugural speech that first January day in the capital, Brasilia, were equally inspiring.
Hunger would no longer be a factor in Brazilian society, hundreds of thousands of landless people would be given land, millions of jobs would be created, violence would be curbed, a powerful judiciary would be tackled and Brazil would take its place firmly at the center of international affairs.
But very quickly the new government showed an unexpected trait. Orthodoxy.
Before his election Lula's socialist reputation had frightened the markets. A run on the real threatened a financial crisis. To calm the markets the PT was forced to agree to a fiscal straitjacket.
Analysts say that in the light of these harsh economic realities, with huge debts and investor confidence at a low, radicalism went out of the window.
"There were people who thought that a Lula government would be much different, further to the left, less preoccupied with inflation, but they were dreaming the wrong dream," said David Fleischer, a professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasilia. Pragmatism saw cuts in government budgets, a hike in interest rates to control inflation and, probably worst of all for the intellectual left, a new deal with the hated International Monetary Fund.
"It is like Britain in 1997 when old Labour became [British Prime Minister Tony Blair's] New Labour. New Labour did a lot of things that old Labour would be shocked to think about," says Fleischer.
The shocks for the faithful came in rapid succession.
The appointment of Henrique Meirelles, a former Bank of Boston executive, to be head of the central bank was received badly.
Antonio Paloccio, given the finance minister's post, compounded the heresy by setting forth on a fiscal path that saw 14 billion reals lopped off government spending and negotiating a new IMF agreement meaning a self-imposed budget surplus of 4.24 percent. Lula also set about tackling the Brazilian establishment, limiting civil service pensions to around 2,577 reals (US$895) a month and raising the age of retirement to save billions in years ahead. This was combined with an assault on the tax system.
But prudence came at a cost. Interest rates were high to curb inflation, the economy ground to a halt, and prized social programs stumbled. Unemployment, already high in a country of 175 million, rose to around 13 percent, 20 percent in Brazil's biggest city, Sao Paulo. In Rio de Janeiro, 160,000 people applied for only 1,000 jobs as rubbish collectors. The queue for applicants stretched miles.
This provoked a mini-rebellion in party ranks. This month four members were expelled for voting against the government too consistently. One PT rebel, Heloisa Helena, a heroine of the left, is scathing about what happened. She may now set up a new party to rival Lula.
"I devoted the best years of my life to help build the PT," she said. "Today all our ideological beliefs, our program, our vision of the world, everything we have accumulated throughout our history is being thrown away, discarded on behalf of a single thought which is expelling all radical lines that oppose this model."
Fiona Macaulay, from the Institute of Latin American Studies in London, says she can understand some of the discontent.
"Possibly people are surprised at how far they have bent over to satisfy international investors," she said.
"The buck stops with the IMF and international capital unfortunately so the government has, perhaps, gone much, much further than people might have imagined they would have done to show what good boys and girls they were.
"This is from a party that used to demand a complete moratorium on debt repayments."
Despite the discontent Lula has remained popular, with approval ratings of 66 percent. Part of this popularity is down to his background of struggle, which leads many to believe it inconceivable that he could betray them.
This is partly is due to his charisma. He sparkles while he mediates. A protest march by thousands from the Landless Workers Movement (MST) to Brasilia last month saw the president come to meet the protesters rather than wait for them at his palace. He then boldly told them: "For those who are in a hurry, I ask you to wait until the end of my [four year] term."
Part of his popularity comes from a robust foreign policy. Brazil has started to punch its weight internationally, leading a group of nations which scuppered a perceived stitch-up at the WTO trade talks by the US and EU at Cancun.
Lula has visited 27 countries, including ones deemed pariahs by the US such as Syria and Libya in the cause of opening up new export markets.
The domestic picture has improved recently. Interest rates have dropped eight points since June. The central bank is predicting 3.5 percent growth next year and the confidence of international investors has returned. The Sao Paulo stock exchange has risen by 94 percent over the year, albeit from a dismal base.
But analysts say a payback for domestic austerity is needed. Kenneth Maxwell, from the Council on Foreign Relations in the US, said: "Next year will be the big test -- if there are any real benefits that show up. You cannot change everything over night, the grotesque poverty, but you can begin to shift that and I think Lula knows that. But I do not think he has that much longer. I think they have to show growth in the economy."
Jorge Romano, country director of ActionAid Brazil, puts it another way: "2004 is a year of definitions for Brazil. A year in which Lula's campaign slogan of `No fear of being happy' and the World Social Forum slogan `Another world is possible' must leave the level of utopia and be our daily reality."
Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim admits it has been a difficult year for the government.
"Of course people who want to have immediate results might feel frustrated. I think every economist agrees that next year will be a year in which growth will take place, and second, using this growth [we will] to try to distribute income in a way which is fairer. I think we will have good prospects ahead."
In Nina Rodrigues, Zacarias de Moraes, a 35-year-old community activist, surveys the results of the Zero Hunger vote. His wife has been elected to the committee.
"It is impossible for this to take just four years. This is only the beginning. If Brazil starts to grow as Lula promised then this will help people," he says.
"But if change does not come sooner then the people will start to doubt that they will ever come and they will stop their support."
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