Weekly Report - 20 April 2004

Perhaps the least of President Lula da Silva's worries right now is the renewal of the attack by his party's radical wing on his economic policies. He is facing two far greater threats that could mark the rest of his mandate: on one hand, the escalation of land seizures by the movement of landless peasants, MST, coupled with announcements of protest campaigns by the unions; on the other, clear signs from his biggest political partner, the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), that the current state of the alliance is unsatisfactory.