It well known that the last thing lame ducks want to do is look like lame ducks. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after seven years as the ruler of Brazil is striving hard to avoid having his administration getting soft as it enters its last year.

General elections are in October and a slowdown could jeopardize the strong economic growth that is expected for 2010 and harm social programs in progress.

January 21, Lula will had his first cabinet meeting of 2010 and the order of the day was full speed ahead.

According to Alexandre Padilha, minister of Institutional Relations, the first objective of the first ministerial meeting was to ensure that government programs that have already been implemented or are in progress will be preserved and continued into 2011.

Besides that, the meeting set up the groundwork for the announcement of the second stage of the government’s Accelerated Growth Program (PAC) in March.

When PAC-2 is unveiled it will incorporate budgetary investments in the areas of science and technology, as well as projects to make the Internet as universal and democratic as possible in Brazil. It will also contain specific measures for dealing with basic sanitation and solid waste disposal in metropolitan regions. 

Padilha declared that Lula is convinced that his administration’s economic team must remain on high alert. This is not the moment to let down one’s guard, just because Brazil came through the international financial crisis with flying colors, said the minister.

Padilha also explained that Lula has made it clear that the October presidential elections will not be discussed at cabinet meetings. That matter will be dealt with by the leaders of the political parties that support the government.

They are the ones who will have to see to it that alliances are made in order to ensure that the present government coalition is victorious, concluded the minister.

ABr