The temptations of office
Every colour but red
THE new Brazilian government includes figures from a spectrum ranging from the Liberal Front Party (PFL), the party which supported Collor, but whose main principle is to be in any and every government, and the PTB (which also backed
Intemational Viewpoint #243 March 1993
THE coming to power of the government of Itamar Franco after the ouster of president Ferdinand Collor on corruption charges has shaken up the Brazilian political scene. It also
BRAZIL
Collor), to the left.
First announcements include ministers from the Brazilian Socialist party (PSB), which can be considered social democrat, and Walter Barelli, an economist who represents an important new has worked with the most militant unions and the PT, although he is not a memchallenge for the leftwing
Workers Party (PT).
There is also the main leader of the Socialist People's Party (PPS), the new name of the majority of the former Communist Party, which was very pro-Gorbachev
JOÃO MACHADO
São Paulo, February 21, 1993
The bulk of the ministerial posts however have fallen to the PFL, the Party of the
Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the country's biggest party in terms of representation and a party of the bourgeois centre, and the Party of Brazilian
Social Democracy (PSDB) which stands halfway between contemporary social democracy and traditional liberalism and can reasonably be defined as centre-
Barelli is Minister of Labour while the PPS' Roberto Friere is head of the government in the Federal Chamber - an important post. If the PT had wished it could
TAMAR was Collor's vicehave nominated ministers. The other left parties, such as the (formerly pro-Albapresident, but broke with him nian) Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B) have supported the government, with before his ouster. His political the exception of the Revolutionary Front led by the Socialist Convergence curbackground is different to rent, connected with the Argentine Morenoist current, which claims to be
Collor's. He started out in the Brazilian Democratic Movement, at the time the only legal opposition to the military dictatorship, while Collor came up through the ARENA, the dictatorship's official party and its successor the PDS.
Furthermore, Collor, despite vote-catching demagogy about the "shirtless"
poor is fascinated by modernity and the
First World and instinctively went for a neo-liberal economic programme.
Itamar, on the other hand, has a taste for nationalist declarations and claims to reject a modernity which would condemn his people to misery in the tradition of
Brazilian populism. The choice by Collor of Itamar as his vice-presidential running mate, at a point when a victory in the elections seemed unlikely, was a sign of the incoherence of Collor's project. Now, owing his office to the popular movement and political parties, Itamar has announced his intention to govern with these parties and the national congress, abandoning
Collor's high-handed presidential style
(see box).
The first months of his government have been marked by indecision. Itamar has stepped up his populist rhetoric saying that he can no longer accept misery and ber of the latter party. in its last days. left. Trotskyist. * recession and will put an end to privatizations if they are against the national inter-
At the same time, he has renewed the agreements Collor made with foreign creditors in his last days. Privatizations have been halted but Itamar has responded to the inevitable furor from big capital by stating that they will soon restart. He has done nothing about wages, which have been falling sharply.
A ministry has been offered to Luiza Erundina from the Workers Party, but none of the rightwing figures have been dropped. And he seems unable to come up with any counter-inflation policy — prices are currently rising at more than 20% a month.
But despite his lack of initiative the very fact that Itamar is not Collor, that he has moderated some of his predecessor's attacks on the workers and his populist style give him credibility in the eyes of public opinion and this has led to heated debates inside the PT.
Since 1990 the PT has experienced an internal "crisis of hegemony" owing to its own advance into the institutions and the crisis of the international socialist move-
A part of the most leftwing sectors have broken with their past and moved towards increasingly reformist and even liberal positions. Others have moved left, adopting a more coherent and anti-bureaucratic vision of socialism and moving away from a world view based on the notion of a struggle between geographically defined "socialist" and capitalist camps. The majority l'Articulação current in the party has also been split, although there is still a large body of intermediary opinion. The PT's first congress at the end of 1991 saw a bitter debate between reformist and revolutionary orientations, adopting resolutions which tended to the left.
But this did not bring to an end the "crisis of hegemony" in the PT since many of the party's spokespeople conti-
33
International Viewpoint #243 March 1993 nued to behave as if the conference resolutions did not exist.
Thus, on all the main political points of political dispute, there were very different positions. This was seen during the debate on election tactics for the 1992 municipal elections and on the nature of the campaign to oust Collor. A big discussion is underway on the tactics for the 1994 presidential elections and the attitude to the Itamar government has also been the occasion for much debate.
Before Collor's departure there were four positions in the PT leadership. On the right, some defended participation in government with the notion of defending their orientation "from inside". At the start the main supporter of this position was the federal deputy Eduardo Jorge. He was later joined by Senator Eduardo Suplicy and the former mayor of Sao Paulo, Luiza Erundina.
In the centre was the "independence" position, urging that the PT not enter the government but that it work with it in various fields, put forward its own proposals and oppose measures it disagreed with. In this scenario there would be a "constructive" relationship between the PT and the government and the PT would aid in preserving "governability". In fact, the only difference with the first position is that no name would be put forward for participation in the government. The main proponent of this position is federal deputy José Genoino.
On the left there is an opposition position that could be described as "constructive" towards the government. The idea here is that the PT should declare its opposition to the government for various reasons — as much for reasons of original sin, Itamar having been Collor's vice-president, as for political reasons.
This tendency argues that the PT cannot take part in a government which contains so many conservatives, whose policy is highly confused and which is not firmly opposed to neo-liberalism; and that the PT should only enter government if it is so elected as part of a coalition with a programme of social change.
However, this current holds that the PT should be concerned about "governability" and even the success of the Itamar government, arguing that a defeat for Itamar would help the most conservative forces. It believes, furthermore, that the public expects the PT to contribute to solving their immediate problems and that even an extremely confused - and bourgeois — government such as Itamar's has something to offer in this sense. This position shades into that of "independence". Its main proponents are the central leaders of 34 the PT such as its president Lula and the general secretary José Dirceu.
Finally, on the left there are those who are firmly opposed to the government, which they characterize not only as bourgeois but as conservative, and who are not interested in "governability". This latter is an essential difference with the previous position. Furthermore, for this position's supporters, the PT should not only not take part in the government, but should do its utmost to ensure that figures associated with the party, such as Walter Barelli, do not enter the government.
Luiza Erundina
This position has the support of the left of l'Articulação, of the Democratic Socialist tendency (to which this wrtier belongs) and the bloc of tendencies in the Na Luta, PT ("Into Struggle") movement as well as some independents, including the deputy Vladimir Palmeira.
Naturally, there are views which all the tendencies in the PT share — such as a concern for the revival of the social movement and that the CUT union confederation should make bolder demands. Even those who defend participation in the government explain it in terms of confrontation and of bringing the weight of the social movement to bear. However, the divergences are deep, involving the party's strategic vision.
The National Executive Commission started off by opting for "opposition" plus "governability" - with no participation in the government. Subsequently, on October 24, the national leadership on a very close vote (25 votes to 24) rejected "governability" and supported more clear-cut opposition.
The polemics inside the party, a lot of whose leaders have more moderate positions, became heated. Things reached the point where it was announced that the "anti-governability" majority was accidental and that the position would be reversed at the next meeting. The irreconcilables gained a point when Vladimir Palmeira, a supporter of their position, was elected as the leader of the PT's parliamentary fraction - which had been a stronghold of the most conciliatory wing of the party.
This was the state of things when
Luiza Erundina, the former mayor of Sao
Paulo, accepted an offer of a ministerial post (as the secretary of the Federal
Administration), openly flouting her
For some years Luiza Erundina has been aligned with the most reformist wing of the PT. Her closest collaborators were from the "Plan for Brazil" current which argues for the party to lean more towards a movement with unclear limits and few organizational structures which would follow public opinion. They describe such a party as a "party of dialogue" rather than a "party of intervention". Probably no longer happy in the party, she has now explained that "the interests of the nation must be put above partisan interests" and reaffirmed that she will struggle to change the party's posi-
The big press has had a field day supporting Erundina against the "sectarian"
PT. The meeting of the national leadership which discussed the issue on February 6 and 7 was filmed live for TV. The meeting voted to suspend Erundina from membership for a year (40 votes for suspension against 25 for outright expul-
Many of those who voted for suspension favoured expulsion, but they were sensitive to the negative reaction of the press and on public opinion - which, according to polls published in the papers, supports Erundina's entry into government.
In the same meeting and by a big majority the line of opposition to the government and against the "condominium of governability" was reaffirmed. *