Brazil Victor a Temperamental Political Loner : South America: Wealthy Collor calls the poor ‘my people.’ But he has considerable wealth.

Fernando Collor de Mello, the winner of Brazil’s presidential election, is a political loner with a privileged personal background and a controversial personality.

Collor, 40, defeated socialist Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s runoff vote. With 97% of the ballots counted Tuesday, he had 52.6% of the votes to Lula’s 47.4%.

“My adversary won the election, and that must be respected,” Lula said Tuesday.

The winner drew mass support with his good looks, youthful vigor and fiery diatribes against government corruption and waste. On television and in open-air rallies, he aimed his appeals mainly at the poor and uneducated people who are the majority in this nation of 145 million. Collor called them “my people.”

In his origins and political background, however, Collor is hardly a man of the people. His considerable wealth is inherited, and he has a reputation among Brazil’s intelligentsia as temperamental. According to a report printed by the newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, he once dumped a bowl of hot food on his household cook after finding a hair in it.

“Collor loses control easily, as is known,” wrote Ricardo Noblat, a leading political columnist.

Collor’s late father was an influential politician who served as governor of Alagoas state and as a national senator. He also owned a prosperous business empire, including a newspaper and a television station in Alagoas.

While a senator, the father, Arnon de Mello, once killed another politician accidentally with a shot he had meant for a political enemy. De Mello was absolved.

Young Collor attended prestigious schools in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, then took university degrees in journalism and political science. Tall, handsome and well-dressed, he was popular with young women and once modeled designer clothes at a charity benefit.

“He was a ladies’ man, a happy fellow, a partier, crazy about sports cars, very vain,” said businessman Paulo Otavio, an old friend of Collor.

As a youth, Collor earned a black belt in karate. He also became known as a tough street fighter, although friends say he never picked fights. He married a millionaire’s daughter when he was 22 and they had two sons. Collor later divorced and married his current wife, Rosane.

At age 23, Collor became editor of his father’s newspaper. At 29, thanks to his father’s influence, he was appointed mayor of Maceio, the capital of Alagoas. Brazil then was governed by a military regime, and Collor belonged to the conservative official party. He won election to the national congress in 1982.

When the armed forces gave up power in 1985, Collor switched to the new party in power. He won election to the governorship of Alagoas in 1986. That post was his trampoline to national fame. From his first day in office, he pressed a crusade against overpaid public servants known as “maharajahs,” and soon he was known throughout Brazil as the Hunter of Maharajahs.

With inflation on the rise, a strong anti-government mood was sweeping Brazil. The handsome young Hunter of Maharajahs became a popular symbol of resistance to official abuse and inefficiency.

Collor bolted the official party and formed his own National Reconstruction Party. The small party commissioned public opinion surveys to sound out support for Collor, which proved to be strong.

With increasing television exposure, he quickly rose to the top of voter-preference polls, astonishing long-established political rivals.

He salted his strident speeches with such words as “dignity,” “honesty,” “courage” and “justice.” Later in the campaign, he blasted President Jose Sarney with such epithets as “corrupt” and “incompetent.” And he labeled socialist Lula as “radical” and “totalitarian.”

Collor’s political detractors call him impetuous and unpredictable, and they question whether he will have the judgment and patience to lead the country as it adjusts to full democracy and struggles with an economic crisis that includes inflation of about 50% a month.

Political scientist Alexandre Barros said Brazil would be best served now by a president with negotiating skills and conciliatory powers. But Collor “is a very confrontational guy,” Barros lamented Tuesday. Others say Collor is sometimes moody and withdrawn.

In answering similar criticism, Collor has said: “I have a very fragile, emotional, sentimental side. And so I have tried to create defenses, which make me seem reserved, quiet, but they really serve to hide my fragility and my shyness.”

On television Tuesday night, Collor told Brazilians, “You can be certain that you will have a president who will exercise his mandate with dignity, with austerity, with authority and, above all, with character.”