A month before the presidential and legislative elections of October 2006, politics in Brazil is in a bad way. The prevailing atmosphere of cynicism and mistrust is symbolised in recent comments by well-known cultural figures who disparage any talk of ethics in public life. Wagner Tiso, a famous musician, conveys the mood: "I am not worried about any kind of ethics", he said. Paulo Betti, an equally well-known actor, reinforces it: "Politics does not exist without dirty hands. There is no way of doing it without putting your hands in the shit."
If the reputation of politics has ever been lower in Brazil, it is hard to remember when. The supporters of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the president elected in October 2002 and seeking a second term in office, are hard at work justifying his record in office. They have an uphill task: the dominant public perception of what has happened during his tenure can be summed up in a single word – scandal.
There are all kinds of scandals: buying votes, bribes, candidates, places, laws, illicit ambulances, anything one can imagine. It is difficult to say how many funds and how many people were, have been and are involved in the series of corruption scandals that have happened in these four years in Brazil. The casualties include high-profile, senior ministers in Lula's government – long-term aide José Dirceu, and finance minister Antonio Palocci – who were forced to resign after revelations connected with the mensalão (money-for-votes) affair that dominated the second half of 2005. But the net goes far wider; in it have been caught congressional members standing for the elections while being investigated by the judiciary for illicit political transactions. The courts have been forced to prevent some of them from running.
It is not surprising, then, that Brazilians are also intensively debating the causes of their country's current political predicament. Their conclusions stretch from blaming the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party / PT – the party that provided Lula with his historic opportunity to reach the summit of power after a series of epic campaigns) to identifying the entire "system" as guilty.
On the eve of major elections, however, such arguments are overshadowed by the more important and dangerous consequences of disillusion with politics itself. As the respected Brazilian journalist Miriam Leitão has recently written, the dominant public worry surrounding the coming election is political, not (as it usually is) economic. Brazilians are fearful of the very sustainability of politics in their country.
Arthur Ituassu is professor of international relations at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro. His website is here
Also by Arthur Ituassu on Brazil in openDemocracy:
"Lula and Brazil: new beginning or dead end?" (May 2005)
"A big mess in Brazil" (June 2005)
"Lula: the dream is over" (August 2005)
"Brazil: never the same again" (October 2005)
"Farewell José, farewell 2005"
(December 2005)
"Lula's flame still burns" (January 2006)
"Lula in London"
(March 2006)
"Brazil's next winning team" (March 2006)
"The sum of all fears in Latin America"
(May 2006)
"Violence in Brazil: all are targets, all are guilty" (May 2006)
"Brazil at the crossroads"
(August 2006)
The end of the affair
It is not yet clear how this factor will influence the outcome of the election campaign that is now underway. But two electoral possibilities are uppermost in Brazilian analysts' minds: the prospect of Lula's re-election, and the weakening of the PT.
The opinion-poll numbers are hopeful for the president. With exactly a month to go, Lula has almost 50% support among those who have declared an intention to vote, something that would probably give him a first-round victory on 1 October. However, his main adversary, Geraldo Alckmin, from the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB – the party of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso), is still saying that he will contest the second round on 29 October.
The opposition's argument is based on a strategy of attacking Lula directly only in the last weeks before the voting – leaving him little opportunity to defend himself. However, Alckmin's disadvantage in the polls has been consistent throughout the campaign (and has even grown in some), so there is little time for a significant move in his favour.
There are a number of symptoms of the PT's predicament. One was evident when the candidates started their election broadcasts on television: it was noticeable that Lula presented himself to viewers only by suppressing reference to the PT's logo and its history. The symbol of the party that had a proud record of fighting against Brazil's military regime appeared only once and in very small characters on the screen, while even the president's biography was altered to remove details of his past within the organisation. The party members who had been involved in the latest corruption scandals were also nowhere to be seen at the PT's election rallies.
Besides the presidential dispute, the PT's prospects for the elections are not very good. The party is likely to lose strength in an already very divided Brazilian congress, and to be defeated in the country's three main states: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.
An autumn maneouvre
But in light of the argument about the discrediting of politics, these factors are only the outward face of a deeper crisis characterised by the political expression of two emotional currents in Brazilian society: a religious one, and what might be called a radical-nationalist revolutionary one.
The first current is centred on a powerful religious group known as "the evangelicals", who aspire to represent the 15% of the Brazilian population describing themselves in this way. The influence of the movement began to work for Lula after the defeat of Rio de Janeiro's former governor Anthony Garotinho in the first round of the 2002 presidential election; this led the evangelicals to ally the movement completely with Lula and the PT, and with considerable success: it is guaranteed at least sixty votes in congress, and its members include Brazil's vice-president José Alencar and Rio's governor (and Anthony Garotinho's wife) Rosinha Garotinho.
The ideological orientation of this group is conservative. It focuses on issues such as abortion, drugs, homosexual rights (and sexual rights more generally), reproductive technologies and stem-cell research; it is also very aggressive in relation to nuclear weapons, interest rates, arms, national firms and energy (perhaps it is no coincidence that José Alencar - who belongs to the PRB, a party controlled by Igreja Universal, an evangelical church - was also defence minister). It would not be a surprise if "the evangelicals" win more political power in the election, at a moment when appeals to trust and conservative values may appear attractive to many voters.
The radical-nationalist revolutionary current was given a boost by Lula's declaration supporting the call for a constitutional assembly (instead of the congress) to vote on comprehensive political reform. For many people, this was an echo of statements made by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and (more recently) by Evo Morales in Bolivia. The mixture is explosive: a president elected by a large majority but handicapped in actually governing, alongside a discredited congress and political environment. A "revolutionary" platform of this kind could potentially unite sections of the PT, the fragmented (but nationalist) Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), and the evangelical group.
How will these forces play out in the election? Lula still has major cards in his hand, and a skilful manoeuvre in relation to the divided PMDB could see him establish a new basis of legitimacy. This would involve – after an assumed victory in the polls – taking advantage of the PMDB dispute by strengthening the elements of the party that want to support his presidency; thus allowing him to compensate for a possibly weakened PT and gain more independence from the evangelicals. Lula then consolidates this (left, or at least centre-left) alliance between the PT and the PMDB around a moderate nationalism (progressive in the PT's case, more conservative in the PMDB's). This new alliance could create a new equilibrium with the forces of liberalism in both its more leftwing (PSDB) and more rightwing (the historic farmers' party, the Partido da Frente Liberal [PFL]) variants.
This outcome, involving a bruised PT and a successful Lula strategy of attracting PMDB support, could also pave the way for a future presidential contest between a PMDB candidate and the current Minas Gerais governor, the PSDB's Aécio Neves – grandson of the former president, Tancredo Neves. This would break a long period of São Paulo rule in Brasília.
The consequences of such a polarisation in Brazil between new political blocs would be far-reaching. It would illuminate real political differences, strengthen checks and balances, and fix the possibility of an alternation of power without institutional rupture. It would, therefore, create the political foundation for the country to address the pressing needs of its people: security, education, health, justice, credit and jobs. These, after all, are what elections in democratic countries are supposed to be about.
