Strange bedfellows in the Brasilian Transition
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By Chris Jones in Brasilia 13th November 2002 The period between the election of a new President (October) and their taking office (January) is known here as 0 Transica (The Transition).
The outgoing and incoming Presidents appoint people to the transition committee who negotiate around and oversee the transfer of administrations.
it can be a testing time for govemment employees as there are over 20,000 politically appointed positions, heavily concentrated in one townBrasilia.
These transitions are frequently quite bumpy rides and everybody is emphasising the need for a calm and peaceful one this year. This is not just because Lula is politically left and from outside the establishment, most transitions have involved some amounts of conflict.
The 1937 elections were cancelled as the incumbent didn't even like his own candidate. under me mitary I wasn't plain sailing, and the first (appointed) civilian President who took over from the military died (some ask how) before taking office. The last time a 'leftist' became President (1961) a military coup was thwarted but a new constitution took away most of the Presidential powers. (The Congress amended the current Constitution earlier this year to reduce Presidential powers - somebody saw Lula coming I think).
The current incumbent, Cardoso, has seen the most stable period having been elected President twice after two years as a highly successful finance minister under his predecessor. In Brasilian political terms, ten years of relative stability.
The most visible issue today is the complex negotiations underway to create blocks in the Congress. Lula is seeking the votes to carry out a programme, and some interesting bed fellows are emerging.
• Firstly, the centre right PMDB have joined up. They don't want govemment office but they will hold the very powerful President of the Senate post. The politician behind this move, Samney, has astutely backed Lula since corruption charges put his daughter out of the presidential race as the right wing PFL's candidate. This gives Lula a majority in both houses if the Congressional members from the various Labour and Socialist (and Green?) parties all stay in line with their leaders. • Secondly, Lula yesterday met with PFL Senator Magalhaes and some kind of deal was done. This man is the most blatant example of the clientist oligarch in Brasil and is de-facto boss Lula: laughing all the way to the bankers? of Bahia state.
Magalhaes signed up for Lula after the first round of voting he had backed Ciro, Popular Socialist candidate). The strength of the clientist system was shown in Monday's papers. In one small town in Bahia, where the PT has a tiny presence, Lula got 94% of the vote in the second round.
Thirdly, and relating to the above points, the PT are having to discuss what criteria to use when members of Congress apply to join. Brasillian politicians like being in with the winners, whoever they are, and there is concern that the PT will become another 'parties indiscriminately. new recruits PL double to 50. electoral system! tion block he was seeking real opposition to Lula. tido onibus' (party bus) picking up members of Congress from other parTraditionally parties have had little compunction about who they recruit in a largely "scratch my back' political culture. Some people in the PT are arguing that some connection with the PT's tradition must be insisted upon in
However, as the PT is in alliance with the rightist Liberal Party (PL) it will be possible for Congress members to join the government without joining the PT. One estimate is that the PT will grow from 91 to over 100 Deputados (members of the lower House) and the
That is at least 5% could change to government parties before they take their seats in February - in a PR based
At least for the time being it would appear that Cardoso has failed to unite the parties of his governmental coalition into the constructive opposiThe Economist has argued that Lula should reject the advances of the oligarchs and join with Cardoso's Social Democrats (PSDB). The PSDB might not be up for this at present but one of their senior members. has already said that the PT and not the PSDB is the
to face. experiences of the participatory budgets and other forms of direct democracy imple mented by the left of the PT in Porto Alegre and elsewhere, to point the way towards another way of governing - one which begins to develop the mechanisms for returning direct sovereignty back to the people, and which can provide mass legitimacy for any confrontation when it comes..
For the comrades of DS "this is our victory". They have committed themselves to fight, within the PT, in the social movements, even within parts of the new administration, to push for the promises of the PT's own programme, and the aspirations of the voters, to be met.
This will not be easy. The left in the PT will need all the support it can get.
But this isn't only a challenge for the Brazilian left. The questions they are confronting are the same ones facing, in different circumstances, the whole of the global justice movement.
What kind of dialogue or what kind of break is needed with the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and so on?
By working out how best we can support them, we'll also be working out key ele ments of the strategy needed by the entire movement. And that will be the biggest challenge this third World Social Forum has
18 socka International resistance
Winter 2002 of enlargement. Just as fundamentally, how-