Lula’s second-term victory
Lula easily won the second round of Brazil’s
presidential elections. Yet that did not represent widespread positive
support. Indeed, anger and opposition is mounting at the neo-liberal
policies adopted by the government, led by Lula’s Workers’ Party. ANDRÉ
FERRARI, of Socialismo Revolucionário (CWI Brazil), reports from Sao
Paulo.
THE SITTING PRESIDENT and candidate for re-election
of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party), Luis Ignácio
Lula da Silva, won the second round of the Brazilian presidential
elections on 29 October with 60.83% of the valid votes (disregarding
blanks and no votes). Lula defeated Geraldo Alckmin, the candidate of
the Partido do Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB – the party of the
ex-president Fernando Cardoso) and ex-governor of São Paulo state. About
6% of the votes were blank or no votes and, of the total of voters
registered, 19% did not vote, even though voting is obligatory in
Brazil.
Lula did not win in the first round – as the opinion
polls were indicating – due to the impact of the imprisonment of PT
members caught trying to buy a file containing material compromising the
PSDB from notorious, corrupt businessmen. This scandal led to the fall
of the PT president, Ricardo Berzoini, the second party president forced
out due to corruption during Lula’s government.
During the second round campaign Lula was forced to
adopt, although very carefully and moderately, rhetoric aimed at winning
those who voted for Heloísa Helena, the candidate for the Partido
Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) in the first round. Against the background
where 70% of Brazilians are against any new privatisation of state
companies, Lula accused Alckmin of planning to privatise Petrobrás (oil
and gas) and Banco do Brasil. The threat of the return of the PSDB to
government was used as a huge scarecrow that made many workers vote for
Lula as the lesser evil.
If it is true that the PT has lost its left
character during the last four years, it is still true that there is a
deep rejection of what the ‘Cardoso era’ represented, with eight years
of PSDB government attacks on workers. The weakness of the right-wing
opposition to Lula was even more evident with the fact that Alckmin got
fewer votes in the second round than in the first, a unique
accomplishment since the introduction of two-round elections.
This campaign was the most depoliticised in Brazil’s
recent history. The conversion of the PT to a party of the elite, of the
administration of capitalism, meant there were no profound programmatic
differences between the candidates. Lula’s past as a left figure was
used in the campaign, but this past will not return. As a Brazilian
journalist put it, "Lula was elected to change the country, but only
changed himself".
The PT way
IF THE PSDB privatised state companies while in the
federal government and still does on a state level, Lula’s government
implemented the system of ‘public-private partnerships’, known as ‘the
PT way of privatising’. It privatised banks, like those in Maranhão and
Ceará states, and implemented a so-called ‘university reform’ which has
handed over public money to private universities. More importantly, Lula
implemented the pensions ‘reform’ that the Cardoso government failed to
do (mainly because of the opposition of the PT at the time), which
attacks workers’ rights and promotes a private pension system.
The financial policies of the government have been
mainly aimed at ensuring the income of big financial capital. The total
annual cost of the ‘family allowance’ programme, which benefits the
poorest families, is only the equivalent of what the government pays to
bankers and speculators every two weeks in interest rates on the public
debt.
At the same time, the Brazilian economy is growing
much slower than other Latin American countries or emerging economies.
The average GDP growth during Lula’s government is practically the same
as Cardoso’s period. This leads to permanent mass unemployment, poverty
and social chaos that is reflected, for instance, in high levels of
urban violence.
The lack of profound differences in the financial
policies of Lula and Alckmin is evident in the comments of the second
biggest Brazilian banker, Olavo Setúbal, to Folha de São Paulo (13
August): "There was a big doubt if the PT was a left party, and Lula’s
government turned out to be an extremely conservative government... The
perspective was that Lula would lead the country in a socialist
direction. There were tensions in the financial system, but as he [Lula]
became a conservative, he’s now about to win the next election and the
market is calm... There is no difference from a financial point of view.
I think that either choice is the same... Both are conservatives".
In this situation, a section of the ruling class
still thinks that only Lula is capable of acting as a brake on the mass
movements and through this can implement the neo-liberal reforms that
still have not been concretised, such as attacks on labour rights and
further ‘reform’ of the pensions system.
During Lula’s government, in contrast to Cardoso’s,
there has not been any major international financial crisis and there
has been a very favourable environment for Brazilian exports. This
helped avoid an acute economic crisis, and gave space for a sense of
stability and gradual recuperation. But the scenario during Lula’s
second mandate will be more complicated.
The corruption theme that characterised the whole
period of Lula’s government was not seen by the majority of the
population as something exclusive to the PT and therefore was not a
reason to reject Lula and opt for Alckmin. Corruption is seen as a
cancer that is generalised in Brazilian political institutions. Many of
the corrupt practises of Lula’s government, such as the buying the
support of MPs in the scheme called ‘the big monthly allowance’, began
in the previous government and were also used in many states and
councils. During the climax of ‘the big monthly allowance’ crisis, the
PSDB limited its investigation and toned down its accusations against
the government, afraid that its own MPs would be exposed. The national
chairman of the PSDB, senator Azeredo, was suspended because of his
involvement in this scandal.
Alliances with right-wingers
THE ELECTIONS AT state level were characterised by
victories for many candidates who were supported by Lula, even if the
majority were right-wing. The victory of the PT’s candidate in Bahia
state, Jacques Wagner, defeating a group from the local oligarchy, made
a big impact. But, in most states, Lula made dozens of agreements with
traditional right-wing elite politicians.
An extreme example of this is that former president,
Fernando Collor de Melor, elected senator for Alagoas state, is now one
of the MPs and senators supporting Lula’s government! Collor defeated
Lula in 1989 in the first direct presidential elections after military
rule but ended up being impeached in 1992 after a mass movement that
demanded the fall of his government. The fact that Collor is now back in
Brasília as an ally of Lula is a signal of the PT’s complete
degeneration.
But Collor is just one example. Another was Pará
state, where Lula and the victorious candidate for governor, Ana Julia
Carepa, allied themselves with a traditional right-wing politician in
the state, Jader Barbalho of the Partido do Movimento Democrático
Brasileiro (PMDB). Carepa is a member of the Democracia Socialista
tendency, the section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International (USFI) that remains in the PT (although another section is
now in PSOL). In Maranhão state, Lula supported the re-election campaign
of the governor, Roseana Sarney, of the right-wing Partido da Frente
Liberal and daughter of the ex-president José Sarney, who also supported
Lula. In Santa Catarina state, Lula supported Espiridião Amin, the
candidate of the right-wing Partido Progressista, the heir of the party
that was the support base of the military dictatorship. (In the event,
however, both Roseana and Amin were defeated.)
Of 27 Brazilian states, the PT increased from three
to five governors, in Pará, Bahia, Sergipe, Piauí and Acre. It lost
again the elections in Rio Grande do Sul, where the capital, Porto
Alegre, used to be the symbol of the ‘PT way of governing’, this time to
a candidate from PSDB, Yeda Crusius. The PSDB won six governors, three
of them in some of the most important states in the country – São Paulo,
Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul.
A second round of attacks
THE NEO-LIBERAL LOGIC prevailed during Lula’s entire
first mandate, but a layer of workers still cling on to the hope that
the second term will be different. However, there is not any real reason
to imagine that this will be so. ‘Don’t swap the certain for the
doubtful’, was a slogan in Lula’s campaign. But if there is one thing
that is certain about Lula’s second term it is that support for him will
continue to come from conservative parties and that the logic of the
financial policies will be maintained.
Soon after Lula’s victory, minister Tarso Genro and
some PT leaders announced an end to the so-called ‘Palocci era’, a
period when the ex-finance minister Antonio Palocci promoted high
interest rates, low growth and big cuts in the budget to guarantee the
servicing of the debt. Palocci was eventually brought down by corruption
scandals, although he has now been elected as an MP after he spent
millions on his campaign.
Immediately, Lula and other ministers publicly
denied any change in economic policy, defending the financial measures
that have been implemented, insisting that there will be further cuts,
and that the budget surpluses of the first term will be maintained.
Lula’s ministers have already stated the necessity of renewing the DRU,
the legal mechanism that allows the government to cut 20% from the
education and health budgets, which are supposed to be guaranteed by the
constitution.
As part of its policy of budget cuts, the government
is preparing a new phase of pension ‘reform’. This time it plans to
raise the minimum age for retirement to 65 years and break the link
between the minimum wage and pensions. One of the main aims of the
government is to attack workers’ rights as soon as possible, in the name
of ‘job creation’ and ‘development’.
During Lula’s government, the jobs created have had
a precarious character, with 64% of them in the last two years paying
only up to the minimum wage (about $160 a month). The government had
already sent a proposal to Congress that allows small firms not to give
basic labour rights to their employees. This is just an indication of
what is to come.
To sustain his second term administration, Lula is
trying to build a support base among the right-wing conservative
parties. The PT-led government relies on small parties that maintain
their position by trading support for positions in government and
demanding bribes such as ‘the big monthly allowance’. The PMDB is split
between those in favour and those against the government. In the last
analysis, however, the PMDB provides important backing to it. Moreover,
Lula announced publicly the necessity for a national agreement on
economic development. By this, Lula means to involve even the most
conservative opposition in implementing neo-liberal attacks.
Lula is also working to come to agreements with the
PSDB, especially the re-elected governor in Minas Gerais, Aécio Neves.
Part of this discussion includes the 2010 elections and the question of
who will be the successor after Lula. As Lula cannot stand in 2010, he
is working to build an alternative that involves sections of the PSDB.
In the PSDB, Neves is competing against José Serra, newly elected
governor of São Paulo, over who will be the party’s candidate for
president. Facing the possibility of being defeated in his own party,
Aécio is leaving the door open for a future closer relation with Lula
and the PT.
All this points to a broad and complex process of
political reorganisation within the ruling class in Brazil. The crisis
of political representation for the ruling class, the fragility of the
regime’s institutions, and the conversion of the PT to a party of the
established order, are the central factors pushing this process forward.
Mass resistance
AS IN 2003, when he implemented his first pension
‘reform’, Lula will try and use the ‘honeymoon period’ to implement new
attacks. But this time the government will be weaker and broad layers
now have more concrete experience of the PT. This means that the chances
for victorious struggles against the government are greater.
One example of this potential is the fact that the
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST – landless workers’
movement), whose main leaders give critical support to Lula, has already
announced a plan for action and land occupations for April 2007 in what
is likely to be an extended version of the ‘Red April’ of 2004, when
more than 100 occupations took place at the same time around the
country. Leaders of the MST have even stated their support for the idea
of organising a general strike with sections of the most combative trade
unions, against the attacks on workers’ rights and pensions.
The CUT trade union federation, first set up in
1983, initially united the most combative and left-wing sections of the
trade union movement in Brazil, but is today nothing more than a
transmission belt for the interests of the government. In the middle of
the crisis around ‘the big monthly allowance’, for example, the chairman
of the CUT was taken into Lula’s government as labour minister.
There are however at least two trade union
initiatives beginning to organise as an alternative to CUT, Conlutas
(National Coordination of Struggles), headed by trade unionists from the
Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado (PSTU – the biggest group
from the Morenoite tradition in Latin America), but also involving PSOL
members; and the Intersindical, an initiative developed by PSOL trade
unionists and independent union activists, a majority of whom have
already left the CUT, but also some who are still in the federation.
A unified conference between those two initiatives
will probably take place at the beginning of 2007 to draw up a common
plan of action against the government’s reforms and financial policies.
Even if a general strike is unlikely in the short term, an intense
process of struggle can take place which will have a major impact on the
destiny of the government and the working class.
PSOL’s position
PSOL, TOGETHER WITH the PSTU and the Partido
Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB), formed a left front that contested the
first round of the presidential election, with Heloísa Helena, a PSOL
senator, as the candidate. Heloísa Helena got almost 7% of the votes,
coming third. These votes were what Lula needed to win in the first
round and were also vital for him in the second. To win these votes,
Lula began denouncing Alckmin’s policies of privatisation, and spoke of
Latin American integration and other important issues for left voters.
The day after the announcement of the first-round
results, PSOL’s national executive declared that its position on the
second round was of no support to either Lula or Alckmin. The executive
did not give any direction to PSOL supporters as to which way they
should vote while forbidding any public support from party members for
either candidate.
The two biggest currents within PSOL that were not
initially part of the party and who joined in 2005, the Socialist
Popular Action (APS) and Enlace (‘Links’, which includes former members
of the USFI) had a different position. Most USFI members opted for a
critical vote for Lula. In some states, such as Pará, its members,
including a state MP, even appeared on TV supporting PT candidates.
A section of PSOL defended the idea that demands
should be made on Lula by the left, with the expectation that he would
reject them. On this basis, they argued, it would be easier to justify
why not to support his candidature in the second round. The problem with
this position is that it would lead to illusions being sown in the
possibility of winning Lula over to a more left-wing position.
The position of members of Socialismo Revolucionário
(SR, a tendency in PSOL), was for a no-vote on the second round, and
that the priority should be the preparation for the ‘third round of
struggle against the government’. We explained that a vote for Lula, on
the basis that this would be the ‘lesser evil’, would only serve to help
the government regain a false left profile which it would use to confuse
the working class during the next governmental term.
At the same time, we took a very critical stand
towards the posture of the PSOL national executive regarding internal
democracy. The decision of the executive was made without all its
members being consulted and without even the minimum of debate within
the party. During the whole campaign, the base of the party was ignored
and the party’s structures were dissolved. SR members called for the
need to rebuild the party politically and organisationally, from the
base upwards.
Where we could, we attempted to encourage internal
debates about the election campaign and the tasks for the next period.
In São Paulo, a PSOL membership aggregate meeting had 150 in attendance
and 80% of those present voted for a no-vote in the second round.
In the debate, we questioned the simplistic analysis
that the elections meant a turn to the right in society. This argument
was used to moderate PSOL’s political positions in the election
campaign. We explained that the election marked an important step in the
process of the recomposition of the left through PSOL’s and the left
front’s candidature. However, there was a turn to the right within PSOL
which led to a watering down of its programme and a weakening of its
structures. This process was undertaken by more reformist tendencies
within PSOL and does not reflect a weakening of the support for
socialist and revolutionary ideas among rank-and-file party members and
sympathisers.
The future of PSOL is now linked with its capacity
to be an active and leading part of the struggles and resistance against
attacks from Lula’s new government. This will only be possible if it is
based on a socialist programme with a democratic internal structure.
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