On Oct. 29, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the second round of Brazil's presidential elections with more than 60% of the vote. A large portion of Brazilians, including several leftwing critics, believe that Lula's second term (2007-2010) will center more on development than the first term, model itself less after the demands of the market, and move closer to the social movements.

The facts are clear: the poor, the black, and those with less education won Lula the presidency. The middle class, elite, academics, and the white voted for Geraldo Alckmin, the social democracy candidate who represents the traditional right. In geographical terms, the division was equally clear.

The first four years of Lula's administration created a radical change in the population's voting preference, in large part because social policies have favored the poorest while several reforms have marginalized the middle and working classes. But the unknowns surrounding Lula's next administration will become clear over the next few weeks as he announces his cabinet. The primary struggle is over the economy, where there are at least two opposing forces. Brazil's political scene is marked by a strong rivalry between the elite class and social movements, the results of which will set the course for South America's largest country.

The Renewed Power of the Elite

Compared with the elections of 2002, the Party of Workers (PT, for the Portuguese initials) lost 2.1 million votes. This is a 13% decrease, from 16,094,000 votes four years ago to 15,990,000. It obtained only 83 seats of the 513 that make up the House of Representatives, whereas four years ago it held 91. The primary losses suffered by the PT occurred in the south (22% loss) and the southeast (23% loss), where it lost almost one million votes. In the state of Sao Paolo—the wealthiest, most powerful, and most populous in the country—the PT lost a million votes, a 21% loss. However, it grew in the northeast (up 13%) and the north (up 31%), the poorest regions of the country.

Lula celebrates his reelection.

The opposition maintained their positions: The social democrats (PSDB) held 65 seats and the right (PFL) another 65. The center right (PMDB) is the largest legislative group with 89 representatives, some of whom will make alliances with the PT. In the Senate, the outlook is even worse for the left: the PT gained only 11 senate seats, compared with 15 for the PMDB, 16 for the PSDB, and 18 for the PFL, out of total of 81. Once more, the Lula administration will have to establish alliances with small parties of the left and the center right in order to govern.

The electoral map reveals a divided country. The north and northeast voted for the left, the south and southeast (the wealthiest party of the country) voted for the right. But the PT will not control any of the country's three largest states (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais). It also lost in the emblematic Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, but it won in Bahia, a bastion of the traditional right. The PT will not hold the majority of governorships, though it can count on support from several governors belonging to the PMDB.

In terms of social sectors, significant changes have taken place. Afro-descendants, which make up 47% of the 187-million population, voted strongly for Lula. A poll released by Datafolha just before the second round of voting showed that 63% of blacks favored Lula for the October 29 elections. Only 29% indicated they would vote for Alckmin. Mestizos(or “ pardos,” as they are called in Brazil) favored Lula over Alckmin by 54% to 40%. Among whites the proportions were reversed: 51% favored the right while 42% supported Lula.1 These numbers are not, however, reflected in the Congressional makeup: according to predictions, afro-descendants will hold only 20 seats out of a total of 513 representatives and 81 senators. The president of the NGO Fala Preta, Deise Benedito, a defender of the rights of the black population, especially women, argues that “the majority of black parliamentarians are not committed to the cause of racial equality,” and “black candidates do not, within their parties, make use of the same financial and other types of support utilized by the whites.”

The discrepancy between the parliamentary makeup and the social reality of Brazil is abysmal and only serves to impede real change from taking place. “One out of every three representatives elected is a millionaire,” reports the daily publication Folha de Sao Paulo.2 According to a report by the same publication, 165 representatives report capital worth of over one million reales (U.S. $500 thousand). The average capital worth of those “millionaires” is one million dollars, but the publication points out “it is impossible to know if these declarations (of income) are consistent with reality.” During the next four years, the House will have 49 more millionaires than the previous Congress, which only had 116, a fact that reveals the growing influence of the elite over public office. In terms of party makeup, the rightwing party PFL has 38 millionaires (more than half of its representatives), the PMDB has 37, and the social democrats have 21. The PT has only six millionaires out of its 81 representatives. The majority of the millionaire parliamentarians come from the southeast (62), with Sao Paulo leading the crowd with 29, followed by Minas Gerais with 25.

There is also a correlation between parliamentary members and ownership of media conglomerates. A third of senators and more than 10% of representatives (80 total) control radio or television stations, according to a study carried out by the Institute for Communications Research and Investigation.3 This fact proves to be crucial, since winning an election requires large investments in propaganda and publicity—a formidable task for anyone who does not own or have ties with those who own communications media. Virtually all members of parliament who own communication channels belong to the right or center, which explains why the media waged a massive campaign against Lula, forcing a second round of elections when the president failed to procure 50% of the votes on Oct. 1.

The social composition of the Brazilian parliament reflects the type of policies pursued during the neoliberal decade of the ‘90s, which have been continued and strengthened by Lula. In spite of social policies that transferred $13 billion to the poor over the last four years, the banking sector reaped its highest profits in history over the same period. Soaring interest rates allowed the rich to continue amassing wealth, and the concentration of wealth continued unabated in a country already considered to have the biggest gap between the rich and the poor in the world. It appears that under Lula, Brazil's elite have consolidated and increased their power, a fact that is reflected in the congressional makeup.

Nevertheless, the power of the political oligarchy that began with the military regime following the 1964 coup has visibly deteriorated. According to Claudio Lembo, conservative PFL governor of the state of Sao Paulo, “We are witnessing the biological end of a cycle of oligarchies born during the military regime. We experienced its political demise with democratization. Now we are experiencing its biological demise.”4 The analysis of Lembo is one of the most interesting to come from an intellectual of the right. He points out, “The military regime was a centralized power, distributing goods among its friends across the country. Since there was no rule of law or respect for the law, the government could do whatever it wanted to help out its friends and local allies. It was thus that the oligarchies came into existence and gained power.” The result was powerful political dynasties that controlled the poorest states, such as Bahia, Pernambuco, and Maranhao, but also the richest, like Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo, and others.

These oligarchies came to control state apparatuses and distributed favors in exchange for votes, constructing a powerful system of clientelism that did not address the problems of their constituents. The oligarchies impeded the democratization of the country. But in the opinion of Lembo, “the oligarchies will not disappear entirely,” but rather, new ones are forming through the vote. In any case, because Brazil has established a stronger system of laws and regulations, “the distribution of favors and kickbacks is slower. The cycle is being renewed, but it is not the same.” These changes have put these old family dynasties, which have controlled some states ever since the first true democratic elections in 1989, in retreat. The victory of PT candidate Jacques Wagner in Bahia, a state controlled by the conservative Antonio Carlos Magalhaes since the military dictatorship, demonstrates this trend. What is occurring is a slow but steady process of democratization of society, without which change—political, social, cultural, and economic—could not take place.
The Pressure of Social Movements

“The Palocci era is over,” pronounced the Secretary of Institutional Relations, Tarso Genro, in reference to the former Secretary of Treasury, who imposed a neoliberal agenda of strong fiscal surplus and cuts in social spending. Immediately, Lula himself contradicted his own Secretary, saying that Palocci's work has strengthened the economy, in spite of the fact that the country is registering low levels of growth. In Latin America, Brazil's low growth rate is trailed only by Haiti.

PT leader Marcio Pochman believes “the Treasury Department is in the middle of a fierce battle.” On the one hand, there is the current Secretary Guido Mantega who “is moving toward sectors and leaders with a more developmentalist attitude, like Chief of Civic Affairs, Dilma Rousseff. On the other, we have Palocci doing the same thing but with the opposite goal, to give the Treasury the appearance it had under his leadership.”5 In his opinion, it is Lula who will set the economic tone of the future government. “Lula is very pragmatic, and will choose a safe path based on the political backing he manages to acquire as well as on the result of the correlation of forces.” He predicts the pressure of the market will be strong enough to force a preliminary reform, which will be the first in a series of reforms during the second term.

The position being adopted by the social movements is different. The Movement of Landless Workers (MST) presented an analysis of the electoral results and explained why during the second round it chose to mobilize in favor of Lula. Together with other movements, like the Coordination of Social Movements and Via Campesino, it decided that after the first round, “it was possible at that time to promote a serious debate of ideas, political projects, and class struggles.”6 Nevertheless, they point out the necessity for social movements to “maintain their autonomy, develop theory, and mobilize.” The strategy was to create the political conditions necessary to promote economic development and redistribution of wealth, which in the opinion of MST, requires “a break from the economic policy of neoliberalism, and above all, a confrontation with the powerful interests that hold monopolies on land (rural and urban), channels of communication, and the financial system.”

The MST argues that a true political reform will have to take place to create new avenues for popular participation, on the path to “building grassroots struggles to construct unified forces around a new project for the country.” Movements agree that under Lula's second term they will have to make their voices heard from day one. Many note that during the first term (2003-2006), Lula caught them by surprise by opting for neoliberalism, a choice that left them disconcerted for quite some time. Sister Delci, who does social and pastoral work for the Catholic Church, says, “After four years of timidity, it has become clear how the government-church-movement relationship should function. The actions of the executive branch over the last four years have contributed to relaunching the debate.” During the electoral campaign, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops—an unconditional ally of the social movements—released a document criticizing the government's economic rigidity to the detriment of social policies. Delci assures, “the discourse of the social bases will be much stronger over the next four years.”7

One of the more interesting analyses was done by the sociologist Francisco de Oliveira, who helped found the PT a quarter century ago. De Oliviera left the PT at the start of Lula's administration and founded the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). The PSOL ran Heloisa Helena as its candidate for president, receiving support from a number of intellectuals around the world, among them Noam Chomsky. The PSOL, created two years ago as a spin-off of the PT that was later expelled, garnered 6.5% of the vote. In an article published by Folha de Sao Paulo the day after the elections, de Oliveira explained why he voted for Lula in the second round: “for a second chance to reopen spaces where the left, perhaps or even in large part the portion of the left that chose to remain with the PT, can in some way influence the direction of the new administration. I am skeptical about this. I don't think economic policies will change; I predict that Luiz Inacio will promise that ‘the sky is the limit,' as is the duty of a demagogue, and that the left and various other movements will be able to come together to set part of the agenda.”8

It is difficult to find a clearer position than that articulated by this intellectual, who has not hesitated to criticize his old friend Lula head on. “It is necessary to create problems for the new administration,” he said. He argues that the government program Bolsa Familia (that serves 40 million poor families and accounts for Lula's success in the north and northeast) must be made incompatible with the primary surplus. He notes that the “30 years of glory” of capitalism were possible because of Keynesian social policies. “Without the Keynesianism of the war, the capitalist system would have fractured,” he insists. Going against the commonly held notions of the majority of the left wing, he argues that the facts are becoming clear across the country: unity at any cost opens the door to the enemies of change. “At certain times, the method has been “divide to fight more effectively ”: that's what a small portion of the left did by leaving the PT, myself included, in order to better grasp the complexity of the new situation in the face of the over simplification being made by sectarians.”

His conclusion is similar to that of MST and the movements: the first Lula government was a total failure, but “without pressure from the left and popular movements, the second term could transform into the neopopulism of the globalization era.” One of the most compelling aspects of this argument is based on his analysis of social policies (the Zero Hunger Program, Bolsa Familia, and others). He argues that the social programs “are a confession of failure, a neoliberal capitulation, a recognition that the nation no longer exists, since they are merely last ditch survival programs. They are the programs for those who are considered expendable. ”9

In the midst of the debates over the government's new course, one of Lula's prominent inside men, Marco Aurelio Garcia, international political adviser and coordinator of his electoral campaign, assures that “we are not just going to maintain our foreign policy, we are going to deepen it.”10 This is without doubt good news, as it means a strengthening of regional integration and multilateralism.

And there is more good news. Lula plans to dismiss several of the directors of the Central Bank who were responsible for the elevated interest rates that stunted economic growth. Certainly, economic policies will be one of the major points of contention between the elite class and social movements.

Most observers agree there will be little change, and any changes will happen slowly and will not affect the current neoliberal scheme. It is what they call “silent development within the rules,” as Carta Maior titled their Nov. 1 commentary. The Fifth National Plenary of the Coordination of Social Movements, which met on Nov. 11, defined a platform of causes to sway the direction of economic policies. “We have never had an environment so favorable for advancing the struggle for Brazil to be more just, sovereign, and supportive of economic and social development,” the final document of the meeting reads.11 All indications are that as long as there are movements willing to step up, Brazil's stage is open.


Endnotes

1. Mario Osava, “Electores negros cruciales para Lula,” online at www.ipsenespanol.net.
2. Folha de Sao Paulo, October 22, 2006.
3. “Entre los electos 80 parlamentarios controlan radio o television,” October 24, 2006, online at www.mst.org.br.
4. Interview with Claudio Lembo, ob. cit.
5. Interview with Marcio Pochman, October 31, 2006, www.pagina12.com.ar.
6. MST, “Estimular las luchas sociales y construir un nuevo proyecto para el país”, ob. cit.
7. Valor Económico, “Movimentos ameaçam romper atrelamento,” November 6, 2006.
8. Folha de Sao Paulo, “Voto condicional em Luiz Inácio,” October 30, 2006, www.folha.com.br.
9. To explain his position on social programs that barely allow the poor to survive, Fancisco de Oliveira refers to a book by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, where he speaks of the “naked life” forced to the very edge of survival, a condition tested in, for example, the concentration camps of Nazi Germany or in the States of Exception.
10. Interview with Marco Aurelio Garcia, November 10, 2006, www.agenciacartamaior.com.br.
11. Letter from the Coordination of Social Movements, "Com a unidade e a força dos movimentos sociais o Brasil vai mudar," Guararema, November 11, 2006.

Translated for the IRC Americas Program by Nick Henry, IRC.

- Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, is a professor and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de America Latina and adviser to several grassroots organizations. He is a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org).


Source: Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC), americas.irc-online.org