throughout 2012 and well into 2013, Rousseff remained relatively popular. Indeed, during 2012 her ratings improved. With each opinion poll she became more confident and assertive and less tolerant of criticism and counter-arguments. “Now nobody is going to be able to put up with her”, said Giles Azevedo, Rousseff’s chief of staff and one of her clo

Critics would claim that Lula had been lucky. During the 1990s his party had opposed both the Real Plan and the subsequent rounds of fiscal austerity that had eventually vanquished inflation. The trade boom – from which his government benefited – was mainly a result of China’s own growth and opening to world markets, and the neat fit between this a