In Brazil former union chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president by a landslide on Sunday in a historic vote that gave Latin America’s biggest country its first working class leader.

Lula, the leader of the Workers Party, won over 60 percent of the vote.

The election came at the height of a new financial crisis, which saw the real, the Brazilian currency, lose 40 percent of its value this year and prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to offer a 30 billion dollar rescue package.

The crisis was widely blamed on negative investor reaction to the idea that the ex-factory worker with little formal education would become president of Brazil.

Guest:

• Luis Gomez, veteran Mexican journalist who has been covering Mexico, Central America and South America for the past 14 years, mainly for the Mexico City magazine Macropolis. He is in Sao Paulo Brazil where he is reporting on the Brazilian presidential election.