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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, wearing a Bavarian hat and hoisting a stein of beer, helped to celebrate Oktoberfest in the southern Brazil state of Santa Catarina. Questions have been raised about his drinking.
BRASÍLIA
– Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has
never hidden his fondness
for a glass of beer, a shot
of whiskey or, even
better, a slug
of cachaça, Brazil’s potent sugar-cane liquor. But some of his countrymen
have begun wondering
if their president’s predilection for strong drink is affecting his performance
in office. Though
political leaders and journalists are increasingly
talking among themselves about Mr. da Silva’s consumption of liquor, few are willing
to express their misgivings
in public or on the record. One exception is Leonel Brizola, the leader of the
leftist
Democratic Labor Party, who was Mr. da Silva’s running
mate in the 1998 election but now worries
that the president is "destroying the neurons
in his brain." "When
I was Lula’s vice-presidential candidate, he drank a lot," Mr. Brizola, now
a critic of the government, said in a recent speech.
"I alerted him that distilled beverages
are dangerous.
But he didn’t listen to me, and according to what is said, continues to drink." During
an interview
in Rio de Janeiro in mid-April, Mr. Brizola elaborated on the concerns
he expressed to Mr. da Silva and which he said went unheeded.
"I told him ‘Lula, I’m your friend and comrade,
and you’ve got to get hold of this thing and control it,’ " he recalled. " ‘No, there’s no danger, I’ve got it under control,’ " Mr. Brizola, imitating the president’s gruff, raspy voice, remembers Mr. da Silva replying then. "He
resisted, and he’s resistant," Mr. Brizola continued. "But he had that
problem. If I drank like him, I’d be fried." Spokemen
for Mr. da Silva declined
to discuss the president’s drinking habits on the record, saying they would not
dignify baseless
charges
with a formal reply.
In a brief
e-mail message responding to a request
for comment, they dismissed
speculation that he drank to excess as "a mixture
of prejudice,
misinformation
and bad faith." Mr.
da Silva, a 58-year-old former
lathe
operator, has shown himself to be a man of strong appetites and impulses, which
contributes to his popular appeal.
With a mixture
of sympathy and amusement,
Brazilians have watched his efforts
to try not to smoke in public, his flirtations
at public events with attractive actresses and his continuing battle to avoid
the fatty
foods that made his weight
balloon shortly
after he took
office in January 2003. Aside
from Mr. Brizola, political leaders and the news media alike seem
to prefer to deal
in innuendo,
but do so with relish.
Whenever
possible, the Brazilian press publishes photos of the president bleary-eyed
or ruddy-faced,
and constantly makes references both to weekend barbercues
at the presidential residence at which the liquor flows
freely
and to state events at which Mr. da Silva never seems
to be without a drink in his hand. A
week later, the same magazine printed a letter from a reader worrying
about "Lula’s alcoholism" and its effect on the president’s ability
to govern. Though
some Web sites have been complaining
for months about "our alcoholic president," it was the first time the
mainstream
national press had referred to Mr. da Silva in that manner. Historically,
Brazilians have reason to be concerned
at any sign of heavy drinking by their presidents. Jânio Quadros, elected
in 1960, was a notorious tippler
who once boasted,
"I drink because it’s liquid"; his unexpected resignation,
after less than a year in office during what was reported to be a marathon binge,
initiated a period of political instability that led
to a coup in 1964 and 20 years of a harsh
military dictatorship. Whether
or not Mr. da Silva really has a drinking problem, the issue
has seeped
into the public consciousness and become the subject
of gibes.
When the government spent $56 million early
this year to buy a new presidential plane, for instance, the columnist Claudio
Humberto, a sort
of Matt Drudge of Brazilian politics, sponsored
a contest
to give a tongue-in-cheek
name to the aircraft. One
winning
entry, recalling
that the United States president’s plane is called Air Force One, suggested that
Mr. da Silva’s jet should be designated
"Pirassununga 51," which is the name of the most popular brand
of cachaça. Another suggestion was "Powered
by Alcohol," a pun
referring to a government plan to encourage cars to use ethanol as fuel. Speculation
about the president’s drinking habits has been fed
by various gaffes and faux
pas that he has made in public. As a candidate, he once offended residents
of a city regarded
as a haven
for gays by calling it "a factory that manufactures queers,"
and as president, his slips
in public have continued and become part of Brazilian political folklore. At
a ceremony here in February to announce a large new investment, for example, Mr.
da Silva twice referred to the president of General Motors, Richard Wagoner, as
the president of Mercedes-Benz. In October, on a day honoring the nation’s elderly,
Mr. da Silva told them, "when you retire,
don’t stay at home bothering
your family, find something to do." Abroad,
Mr. da Silva has also stumbled
or spoken ill-advisedly. On a visit to the Middle East last year, he imitated
an Arab accent
in speaking Portuguese, mispronunciations
and all; and in Windhoek, Namibia, he said the city seemed
to be so clean
that it "hardly
seems like
Africa." Mr.
da Silva’s staff and supporters
respond that such slips
are only occasional, are to be expected from a man who likes to speak off
the cuff and have nothing to do with his consumption of alcohol, which they
describe
as moderate in any case. As they see it, he is being held to a different and unfair
standard
than that of his predecessors because he is Brazil’s first working-class president
and received only a sixth-grade education. "Anyone
who has been at a formal or informal reception in Brasília has
witnessed presidents sipping
a shot of whiskey," the columnist Ali Kamel wrote in the Rio de Janeiro daily
O Globo recently. "But you’ll have read nothing in that respect about other
presidents, just about Lula. That smacks
of prejudice." Mr.
da Silva was
born into a poor family in one of the country’s poorest states and spent years
leading
labor unions,
a famously hard-drinking environment.
Brazilian press accounts
have repeatedly described the president’s father, Aristides, whom he barely
knew and who died in 1978, as an alcoholic who abused his children. Stories
about drinking episodes involving Mr. da Silva are legion. After one night on
the town when he was a member of Congress during the late 1980’s, Mr. da Silva
got off
the elevator at the wrong floor
of the building where he lived at the time and tried to batter
down the door of an apartment he mistakenly
thought was his own, according to politicians and journalists here, including
some who are former residents of the building. "Under Lula, the capirinha has become the national drink by presidential decree," the daily Fôlha de São Paulo said last month in an article about Mr. da Silva’s association with alcohol and referring to a cocktail made with sugar-cane liquor.
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