Brazil picks inflation over reform in re-electing Dilma Rousseff.
Surging inflation, to the highest levels in more than a decade, didn’t torpedo President Dilma Rousseff’s chances of re-election after all. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but what Ms. Rousseff might want to do is revisit predecessor in Fernando Henrique Cardoso – even though she used him as an ugly vestige of the past during her re-election. Ms. Rousseff in several TV ads and speeches, warned the electorate that a vote for her opponent, Aecio Neves, a centrist, in the runoff vote in late October, would be a return to the policies seen under Mr. Cardoso, who was president from 1995 to 2002. Many felt these were elitist times that left the poor behind.
But during his presidency, Mr. Cardoso passed free-market reforms that ended decades of runaway inflation and helped lay the groundwork for a long economic boom after he left office. Twenty years ago International Treasurer about some of the actions Mr. Cardoso needed and in some areas did, take.