How left-wing on economics is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva?

Two decades ago, when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was running for president, “it was as if a meteor was going to hit Brazil,” recalls Pérsio Arida, a Brazilian economist. Markets “demonised” Lula, as the leftist former president is known. The currency, the real, lost 35% of its value and Lula had to write a letter to the Brazilian people promising that, if elected, he would not do anything rash. After he won, “the meteor disappeared,” says Mr Arida. Lula was fiscally prudent during his first four-year term, between 2003 and 2006. After being re-elected to a second, his Workers’ Party (pt) government used a commodities boom to help the poor. Lula’s policies were sometimes inefficient, and he expanded Brazil’s bureaucracy. But he was neither rash nor radical.

Now he is running again. On October 2nd Lula faces Jair Bolsonaro, the populist incumbent, in the first round of a presidential election. Mr Bolsonaro is trying to revive old fears about Lula, and then some. The former president is a “devil who wants to impose communism on Brazil”, he has said. Most Brazilians seem unconvinced. Lula leads by 48% to 37% according to The Economist’s poll tracker (see chart). The real is stable. “Businessmen know [what to expect from] a pt government,” Lula tells The Economist, rattling off his achievements: 4.5% annual growth, on average, during his two terms; reduction of public debt from roughly 60% to 40% of gdp; slowing of inflation from more than 12% in 2002 to just under 6% in 2010; an increase in the minimum wage; and 20m Brazilians who escaped from poverty.