For a decade, Brazil has performed the invaluable service of showing a superior model for Latin American development to that championed by Hugo Chávez and his acolytes. Brasília’s recent decisions on managing giant new oil finds, however, strike a false note.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his protégée, heir apparent and chief minister Dilma Rousseff, trumpet their plan for newly discovered oil fields as a way to keep oil wealth in the country and end the unconscionable poverty of many Brazilians. But a package of exceedingly vague laws they have asked Congress to pass under an emergency procedure does more to make Mr da Silva and Ms Rousseff appear to serve the public interest than actually to promote it.