'Scargill' of Brazil scents power

He was once regarded as the Arthur Scargill of Brazil, a peasant boy from the impoverished North East, who used his position as one of the country's most powerful trade unionists to bid for popular political support.

Next Sunday a wave of resurgent national pride is expected to set Luis Inacio 'Lula' da Silva on the path of victory in the first round of presidential elections Latin America's most populous country. The region's political panorama is set to be transformed for good.

Brazil's 110 million voters are flocking to the man they think will give the country back its self-respect by standing up to the United States. The mood was evident in a recent nationwide poll organised by NGOs and the Catholic Church in which 10 million voted overwhelmingly against entry to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an economic grouping which many Brazilians fear would be controlled from Washington and could drown Brazilian business in a tide of subsidised US exports.

'No one likes to be treated as a beggar,' says Lula, who is making his fourth attempt to win the presidency, this time tapping into a mood of resentment at Brazil being kicked around by richer countries.

He has learnt much from his first three unsuccessful tries. No longer is he the aggressive 'Scargill' of the 1990s, tieless and open-shirted, fierce about his political enemies but himself unable to present any coherent economic plan to curb hyperinflation beyond a call for 'socialism'.

Today he is rather the 'Little Lula of Peace and Love' as his opponents call him. He has buttoned his shirt, he wears statesmanlike ties and is unworried about he fact he has a style consultant, Duda Mendonca, who has kept his beard but made him into a family man who likes a laugh and a joke.

Ironically, Lula even has good words for the military who seized power in 1964 and tortured many trade unionists to death until he called the mass strikes in São Paulo that were the beginning of the end for the dictatorship.

Foz do Iguaçú is magnificently placed to take note of what happens to countries who don't produce efficient leaders with popular backing. Drive ten minutes west across the Friendship Bridge over the River Paraná and you are in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, a tawdry place of duty-free shops and rampant corruption which makes millions from stolen cars brought in from Brazil. Last week the riot police and water cannon were out in force at the bridge as Paraguayans protested against their President, who drives around in a big stolen Brazilian Mercedes. Ten minutes south over the bridge across the River Iguaçu lies Argentina, a laughing stock because of the political ineptitude of its rulers.

Brazilians are keen not to follow the example of Paraguayans and Argentines. Their desire for change is fuelled by disenchantment with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist once identified with the Left who had to seek exile in Cambridge and Paris during the military dictatorship. After he came to power eight years ago his enthusiasm for the 'Third Way' of Blairism led to much disappointment over his unwillingness to do enough to reform a society where the dice are heavily loaded against the poor.

To those who accuse Lula of ratting on Brazilian Scargillism, Lula says: 'I changed. Brazil changed. Trade unionism changed. Everyone is now more organised, more mature.'