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ECONOMY: Lula da Silva Megastar at Davos Forum

Emad Mekay

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 26 2003 (IPS) - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a long time critic of corporate globalisation, a former metal worker and union leader of humble background, is the unrivalled star of the pro-market, elitist annual gathering of top executives and government leaders, the World Economic Forum.

Hours before his arrival in this Alpine ski resort Saturday, participants in the 33rd meeting of the Forum were abuzz with anticipation of what the 57-year old leftist leader who presides over the world’s 12th largest economy might have to say.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a long time critic of corporate globalisation, a former metal worker and union leader of humble background, is the unrivalled star of the pro-market, elitist annual gathering of top executives and government leaders, the World Economic Forum.

Hours before his arrival in this Alpine ski resort Saturday, participants in the 33rd meeting of the Forum were abuzz with anticipation of what the 57-year old leftist leader who presides over the world’s 12th largest economy might have to say.

At a different time, the usually unilateralist and un-consultative participants of this exclusive club, may have not been so inclined to listen or extend this attention to this son of a farmer who dropped out of school.

But with the world economy going down in a spiral, corporate scandals still rattling the business community and data coming from every direction that the corporate neo-liberal model is now held in more suspicion than ever before, Lula’s words during a keynote speech were expected to find very attentive ears.

But officials accompanying the Brazilian president, seeking to quiet worries that their leader may be a leftist maverick that could take Brazil in a U-turn, said that his message would be moderate, open a dialogue but would still firmly maintain his rallying call of social equality and corporate responsibility.

– Lula is bringing a positive message in order to move questions related to social problems," Luis Ferando Furlan, minister of development in Brazil told IPS. "He will try to deliver a good message to the economic community that we cannot stand by and wait for what might happen with the recession in the first world."

High on his more specific agenda are plans to convince some of the rich countries’ leaders and top officials attending this exclusive meeting to open up their markets for products, particularly agricultural, from countries of the South.

ôHe will also deliver a message that if we can reach market access to the developed markets, then that could also move the economies in the first world," said Furlan, whose country is involved in several regional and international trade talks including a pan-American trade agreement.

Several other Latin American leaders, including Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, have already urged the industrialised nations to knock down their trade barriers.

This could also be a good time for Lula to put some alternative ideas on the table, particularly in the absence of viable economic remedies from the usual improvisers, U.S. or European officials.

With U.S. officials attending the meeting, like Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Collin Powell, clearly obsessed with the U.S. self-styled ôwar on terror" and on invading Iraq, Lula may indeed sound like the moderate voice – working for the general good, peaceful approaches and equal benefits.

But it may not all be smooth sailing for Lula here. After all, the World Economic Forum is still a bastion of free-market and neo-liberal principles. Among the attendees here are some of the most extreme business-advocates, corporate executives and market-oriented intellectuals.

To avoid what could be an unproductive confrontation here, the Brazilian president was expected to prove that he, like other European leaders from the left, can move to the centre, said Denize Bacoccina, a journalist with the BBC’s Portugese service.

ôHe’d act like (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair who started on the left and moved to the centre and is widely accepted," she said.

By earlier appointing Henriqu Meirelles, former world president of Bank Boston, as head of Brazil’s Central Bank and Furlan, a former businessman and an old hand at the World Economic Forum, Lula has sent a message to the world, still largely under neo-liberal influence, that he is not a maverick.

Other reasons why Lula will be well listened to is that he comes with a strong support from his people, along with backing from the social justice movement. Besides, he presides over the largest economy in Latin America.

Lula’s Secretariat for Social Emergencies, a plan to end hunger among 20 million Brazilians, is one of the most ambitious and daring programmes in the world of development now.

Lula, who helped set up the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001, would also have a constituency to account to here. These are his admirers from the social justice movement, the alternative movement that seeks a more equitable redistribution of world wealth and a human approach to poverty and underdevelopment.

Activists from Public Eye on Davos, a coalition of civil society activists monitoring the World Economic Forum, said Lula confirmed that he will be addressing their small parallel forum, the second head of state to do so after Swiss President Pascal Couchepin of Switzerland inaugurated their meetings two years ago.

ôI am not even sure he should have come here," said Miriam Behrens, an activist with Pro Natura-Friends of the Earth Switzerland. ôHe shouldn’t have come to the West."

Others, who see Lula as one of their success stories, say he is better advised not to mingle with the rich and powerful who are blamed for the misery of many, particularly in the developing countries.

They say however that it could be expedient if he could reserve a seat for the movement in places of influence and press on his agenda.

ôWe didn’t want Lula to come to Davos in the first place," said Andreas, spokesperson of Public Eye. ôBut now that he made his decision, we are ready to support him. It is also a good thing that he will be the second head of state to address Eye on Davos."

By coming here against some of the opposition from his sympathisers from the social justice movement, Lula is not forgetting his roots. He is also acting as a president of 175 million Brazilians; many of them still not part of the movement.