Gaga over Lula's

I think we could gauge the greatness of a nation from its sports performance. First stop, look at Lula's country - one of BRIC - the powerhouses of the future!

If you read TIME's "Brazil Start-Up Generation", you'd be surprised that it invests 1% of its GDP in R&D (in its goal to push the country's exports up the value chain by focusing on developing world-class high-tech industries in a variety of sectors — from aerospace, agribusiness and energy to information technology, business-process outsourcing, semiconductors and telecommunications), leading the nation towards entrepreneurship, making every 15 out of its 100 residents involved in a start-up and putting more than 50% of its 190 million citizens in middle class bracket.

So, what makes Brazil so hot in the eyes of investors considering its onerous taxation and regulations, archaic labour laws, dysfuctional education system, squalid political system and endemic corruption?

How could such huge stumbling blocks could produce high employment rates, successive increases in the minimum wage in addition to a nationwide assistance program that has given billions of dollars to the poor, has helped keep Brazil's domestic demand strong?

If you read TIME's "Postcard from Sao Paulo", you'd see that even in 'rumah setinggan' areas, people can earn a decent living.

So, what's so special about Brazil that we can't be as good?

Perhaps, all we need is a smart politician like Lula - dubbed one of the most intelligent politicians in the world - who believes in doing what is right by reducing poverty and inequality.

Perhaps, lackluster of our nation isn't about us being lazy, stupid and weak. It boils down to our indifference to accept people with weak political will to rule our nation.

Again, as I said before, "politics matters"!

So, the vote is in our hand - who would you vote in the next GE to bring back this nation to where it used to be?