Brazil Victory for the Great Conciliator

President-elect Neves ends 21 years of military rule

In Rio de Janeiro and in Sao Paulo, ecstatic citizens showered paper from office windows, leaned on their car horns and set off firecrackers in the streets. In towns and villages across the vast reaches of the country, Brazilians danced and swayed to the tunes of countless samba bands. The occasion was the election last week of Tancredo Neves as the nation's first civilian President after 21 years of military rule. Neves, 74, a lawyer and the former governor of Minas Gerais state, quickly promised reform: "I come to make urgent and courageous political, social and economic changes indispensable to the...

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