MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Crisis will get Obama elected forecasts Lula da Silva

Lula: It is no small matter having a black man elected President

Brazilian President Lula da Silva believes the ongoing financial crisis will lead to the election of Democrat Barack Obama as US president.

"This crisis, among other benefits it will cause, will get Obama elected as president of the United States. It will get a black man elected, which is no small matter," Lula said during an awards ceremony for outstanding personalities held in Sao Paulo and sponsored by the magazine Carta Capital. Lula da Silva, a former metal worker and trade union leader, added that the symbolic weight of Obama's success at the polls would be comparable to that of his own victories in Brazil's presidential elections in 2002 and 2006. "From the symbolic point of view, that this world has elected a mechanical lathe operator for a second time in Brazil, an Indio (Evo Morales) in Bolivia and a bishop (Fernando Lugo) in Paraguay is most impressive," he said. In his improvised speech, Lula da Silva said financial turbulence will not affect public works under his Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), which is to invest close to 210 billion dollars by 2010. "Not one Real will be missing in a single PAC," he said. Lula da Silva anticipated that the positive results of rescue programs for the financial sector launched by the United States and by European governments will be felt "very soon" and anticipated Brazil is in a favorable position to face the crisis. "Our (financial) system is more serious than the international financial system. We have a public finance system that few countries have and our internal market has room to grow," he argued.