Sunday, Oct. 26, was a busy day: three elections, in three different continents, all of them offering at least the hope of better times.
First, Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff eked out a second-round victory with 51.6 percent of the votes versus 48.4 percent for the challenger, Aecio Neves, who was quick to acknowledge her victory. She was equally prompt in admitting that things had to change. "Sometimes in history, close outcomes trigger results more quickly than ample victories," she said.
Most people took that as an admission that she will have to give more attention to growing the economy and a little less to redistributing the proceeds. This will not come easily to her, for the great project of the Workers' Party (PT) under both Rousseff and her iconic predecessor Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva has been to raise the living standards of poor Brazilians. They have done very well at it, but there was a cost.