RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - (KRT) - Voters in Latin America's largest democracy moved Brazil sharply to the left Sunday by electing as their president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former union leader.

With more than 77 percent of the vote counted, Brazil's Supreme Election Tribunal reported that da Silva was winning 61.34 percent of the valid vote to 38.66 percent for Jose Serra, the ruling party candidate.

As returns came in, da Silva's Workers' Party supporters poured gleefully into the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and across Brazil. In street parties rivaling Carnaval, they danced, lit off fireworks and waved large red flags that are the leftist party's trademark.

Da Silva had failed in three prior presidential bids, but a slumping economy, soaring crime, high unemployment and a widespread desire for change helped him prevail on his 57th birthday.

"This is the happiest day of my life," da Silva said after voting Sunday morning in industrial Sao Bernardo do Campo. He dedicated victory to the "suffering people" of Brazil and to his mother, who raised eight children on her own in extreme poverty. "My only regret is having arrived here 22 years after my mother died," da Silva said.

Da Silva was elected with overwhelming support from Brazil's poor, who consider that he has struggled like them. Imprisoned for challenging military dictators, he was in jail when is mother died. Da Silva's first wife and son died during childbirth. He lost a pinky finger in a factory accident.

"I think he has suffered much in his personal life, so I think he understands us," said Edina Gunha, an unemployed housekeeper in Rio de Janeiro, after voting for da Silva.

The election of a veteran leftist is likely to put Latin America's most populous and geographically largest nation on a collision course with the United States. Throughout the campaign, da Silva criticized Brazil's leaders' submission to U.S. foreign and economic policy. He blasted ongoing hemisphere-wide free-trade talks as "economic annexation" by the United States.

That rhetoric caused financial investors to fret that da Silva, who moderated his views in his campaign, is really a radical who will turn away from free-market reforms in favor of a closed, protectionist economy. In his campaign, da Silva backed most broad economic reforms and pledged to run a budget surplus, but said job creation was his top priority and pledged to favor companies and sectors of the economy that generate employment.

Da Silva aides said Sunday that a transition team should be announced Tuesday, with an eye toward calming investors who have battered Brazil's stock and currency markets in recent months. The team is expected to include bankers and business leaders in a nod to nervous foreign and domestic investors.

Aides said da Silva also wants to begin talking immediately with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to rework next year's federal budget and focus more on social spending. Da Silva also wants legislation passed before he takes office on Jan. 1 to grant autonomy to the central bank. Such a move, patterned after the British model, would boost Brazil's credibility with investors since it reduces political influence over monetary policy.

Da Silva feels he has a mandate for change. Eight years of U.S.-backed economic policies tamed inflation in Brazil but failed to produce significant economic growth. Instead, Brazil suffers a sinking currency, high unemployment, high crime and a growing informal economy in which workers are paid off the books and the government can't collect enough taxes to pay for social programs.

"Even people who didn't vote for him before like my (elderly) father are voting for him," said Ana Moreira, a Rio de Janeiro voter, "because we need saving."

Da Silva rose to fame as a union leader in the 1970's and early 1980's who led worker strikes against an unpopular military dictatorship. In 1980, he founded the Workers' Party, which became an umbrella for disaffected workers, communists and dissidents. By 1995, it had become a national party with more moderate views. This year the Workers' Party won more seats than any other party in congress.

Born into extreme poverty in the northeastern state of Pernambuco in 1945, da Silva migrated to industrial Sao Paulo with his family when he was seven. He dropped out of school to help support the family, working as a delivery boy at 12 and a factory worker by 14. The only other modern parallel of an uneducated worker rising to become president is Poland's Lech Walesa, whose shipyard union movement helped bring an end to communism in Poland.

---

© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.