"Brazil’s remarkable success in reducing poverty speaks
for itself. Building on a foundation of macroeconomic stability and stable
democratic institutions, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was Brazil’s president
from 2003 to 2010, oversaw the most remarkable period of social mobility in
Latin America’s living memory.
As millions of Brazilians rose into the middle class,
Mr. Chávez’s autocratic excesses came to look unnecessary and inexcusable to
Venezuelans. Mr. da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, have shown that a
country does not need to stack the courts, purge the army and politicize the
central bank to fight poverty. Brazil proves that point, quietly, day in and
day out."
