One of Latin America’s most troubled nations has its most popular president

Mr. Funes is taking a leaf or two from Lula's book. In fact, they're friends and allies - mr. Funes' wife is a Brazilian that belongs to PT, Lula´s party; he got help from PT's admen for his campaign, and his first foreign trip after winning the elections was to Brazil.

So, it should be no surprise that his moderate social-democrat policies have thrown the opposition into disarray, and that Arena party now finds itself "short of plausible presidential contenders". That's exactly what happened in Brazil in the last eight years.

Such similar developments in a huge country as Brazil and a small one as El Salvador show that, in Latin America, simple, basic policies aimed at the poorest end up producing almost revolutionary results.

We all have centuries of privilege and inequality to account for, no matter the scale of the country. Lula, the working-class president Brazil's wealthy classes love to hate, must be smiling at news like these.

The Economist is inconsistent with its own articles. It has several times and quite rightly reported that Brazil’s Lula de Silva, still in office when this article was written, has consistently received approval ratings of 80% and above, making him undoubtedly the most popular president in Latin America and probably, dixit Barack Obama, the world.

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