Brazilians will cast their votes for a new president this Sunday and Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party is leading in the polls by a large margin.

Lula, as he is known by Brazilians, is a former labor leader who has run for president in the past but lost by small margins to various center-right coalitions.

He has been highly critical of the IMF and World Bank policies but has toned down his criticism recently, some say in response to pressure from the business sector and international financial institutions.

The mainstream media throughout the world has been attributing the collapse of the Brazilian real to a panic among investors over the change in the Presidency.

But the crisis in neighboring Argentina indicates that it is IMF lending policies which have led to huge unmanageable debts in Latin America.

Guests:

• John Williamson, Economist and former advisor to the World Bank and the IMF and currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics.
• Andre Singer, Spokesperson for Brazilian Worker’s Party.
• Mark Weisbrot, Co-founder of the Center for Economic & Policy Research.

Related links:

• Institute for International Economics
• Center for Economic & Policy Research