Socialist Action /October 2002
Brazil's Presidential Elections: Lula
Wins Near Majority in 1st Round
By GERRY FOLEY
Workers Party candidate Luis Ignacio da Silva (Lula) won over 46 percent
of the vote in the first round for the Brazilian presidency, while the candidate
of the outgoing Cardoso administration, Jose Serra, got only 24 percent.
Two other candidates that criticized the government from the left, Ciro
Gomes and Anthony Garotinho, got 29 percent between them. Lula failed to
get 51 percent and therefore will have to face Serra in a second round.
But it is unlikely at this point that any political maneuver can block Lula's
ascent to the presidency. Nor does it seem sufficiently in the interests
of the bourgeois politicians to try to block him.
The Buenos Aires daily La Nacion claimed in its Oct. 2 issue that
the U.S. government fully expected Lula to win. La Nacion also said
that Washington was reconciled to Lula's victory and did not anticipate
that it would cause big problems for U.S. imperialism in Latin America,
although it was somewhat uneasy about the prospects following a crushing
defeat of Jose Serra, the standard bearer of the neoliberal Cardoso regime,
a close ally of the United States.
The capitalists themselves are even more nervous, as indicated by the
preciptous fall in the value of the national currency, foreign investments,
and government bonds over the last months as Lula's victory loomed. But
in view of the political and economic situation in Brazil, most of them
seem to think now that their best chance is relying on Lula to keep the
mass movement under control.
Inevitably, the victory of Lula will open a new political era, despite
his pledge to abide by the rules set by the International Monetary Fund.
The rout of the Cardoso regime's heir represents the eclipse of illusions
that a "free market" will bring economic development and a better
life for the Brazilian people.
In this respect, the Brazilian elections are another step in a process,
whose most dramatic moment so far was the mass demonstrations of December
that drove the neoliberal government in Argentina out of office, and which
is being seen in more and more Latin America countries. This is a historic
watershed in which the advance of the Workers Party seems an irresistible
tidal wave.
The Workers Party's origins go back to a wave of strikes in the industrial
complex of Greater Sao Paulo, which forced the Brazilian bourgeoisie in
1985 to abandon the military dictatorship established in 1964 and to return
to parliamentary rule.
Lula celebrated these roots in the culminating rally of his campaign,
which he led in the headquarters of the metalworkers union in San Bernardo,
in the Sao Paulo industrial belt. He was cheered by crowds of workers waving
flags emblazoned with a red star.
The bourgeoisie's political representatives have been able to bar Lula's
road to the country's top political position several times in the past but
with the discrediting of their economic model, their ranks are breaking.
One leading bourgeois politician after another, including two ex-presidents,
have been abandoning their old ships and trying to clamber abroad Lula's
vessel in hopes that they can ride out the wave. In fact, his campaign has
become so broad that the Brazilian politicians been likening it to Noah's
ark, which was supposed to carry all manner of beasts.
The effects of Lula's move to the right on the rank-and-file and supporters
of the Workers Party are not yet evident. For the time being they are probably
overshadowed by the euphoria generated by his prospects of winning the presidency
at long last.
But once Lula is in charge of the government, they will accelerate, since
he will be forced to make concrete choices between the interests of the
masses and of the capitalists. And the Brazilian capitalists and their imperialist
big brothers have powerful means of putting pressure on a conciliationist
reformist government.
The uneasiness of the big money interests, owing both to an uncertain
political situation and the deepening world recession, have already reduced
the value of the national currency by more than 20 percent against the dollar,
while foreign investment has shrunk by nearly a third, 32 percent.
An initial test will be what kind of economic officials Lula appoints.
The capitalists and their representatives are saying that these officials
will have to have the confidence of the financial community, of the "market."
Lula has been saying that any officials he appoints will have to understand
the problems of the people and to "love Brazil."
In an interview with La Jornada, Workers Party leader Jose Dirceu
stressed that Lula was not seeking "an ideological confrontation"
with the United States, but he also "recognized that there were differences,
as in the case of Iraq ... or Cuba, whose isolation and blockade have historically
been condemned by his party. However, he pointed out that the WP has demonstrated
its capacity on negotiations on various fronts" (La Jornada,
Oct. 5).
Dirceu also said with respect to Venezuela, where the U.S. has been supporting
a rightist campaign to oust the populist president Hugo Chavez through a
military coup, that the WP supports the "right of self-determination
and constitutional government."
The Mexican daily also quoted Marco Aurelio Garcia, until recently the
Workers Party international secretary, opposing U.S. intervention in Colombia
under the Plan Colombia: "We don't think that the Plan Colombia is
a good solution because it carries a grave risk of Vietnamization."
Moreover, Lula, paradoxically but symptomatically, has been attacked
from the left to some extent by Anthony Garotinho, the candidate of the
Brazilian Socialist Party, a populist formation. In particular, Garotinho
has mocked Lula for his alliances with businessmen and right-wing capitalist
politicians.
In any case, Lula will also be under pressure from the masses in his
own country and in other Latin American countries. With all his touting
of "reconciliation" and "consensus," he cannot afford
to look as if he is jettisoning all his old principles. In fact, he has
been constantly proclaiming the opposite. Thus, his election as president
of the decisive country in Latin America is likely to complicate the situation
of U.S. imperialism in the region.
The big question is how the mass of activists in the Workers Party who
have spent many years or even their lives fighting the capitalists and their
goons-and suffered repression for it-will respond to a situation in which
their historic leader holds the principal responsibility for the government
and is hugging their enemies.
The Workers Party is a multi-tendency party that even includes many revolutionists,
such as the Brazilian section of the Fourth International, Socialist Action's
cothinkers in Brazil.
One of the leaders of the Brazilian Fourth Internationalists, Heloisa
Helena, was the Workers Party candidate for governor of the state of Alagoas.
The polls predicted she would win. But she resigned her candidacy in protest
against Lula's alliances, in particular his acceptance of Jose Alencar,
a leader of the right-wing Liberal Party, which claims to represent the
interests of Brazilian capital, as his vice-presidential candidate.
In her statement of resignation, Helena pointed to the very concrete
problems Lula's alliances pose for fighters like herself: "We cannot
and will not ally ourselves in Alagoas with a group of low-life lackies
of the local sugar mill owners, who look down on and insult me and my comrades
in the PT [Workers Party ]."
Socialist Action /October 2002 |