DEBT RELIEF
Lula turns to helicopter money to win back Brazil's micro-entrepreneurs
Lula tries catering to MEI entrepreneurs. Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/PT
Twelve days before the runoff, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered micro-entrepreneurs a debt amnesty, a cash grant, and less paperwork. The Prosper MEI package, unveiled in Brasília, targets the 17.6 million people registered as individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEIs), a group that has drifted toward Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who finished the first round ahead with 47.03% of valid votes to Lula's 45.16%.
Lula has already drawn the kind of street crowds the Brazilian left had stopped expecting. Now he is adding cash to make an improbable comeback possible. The package has five parts:
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