PT does well in municipal elections
Best results in areas where the left co-ordinated the PT campaign
* Brazil The Workers' Party (PT) has extended its vote to new areas of Brazil, doing best in towns where it ran a radical left, rather than a moderate campaign. Results were particularly good in the southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, where Fourth International sympathisers have been elected mayors of the two largest cities, Rio Grande and Caxias. João Machado* THE ELECTIONS WERE DOMINATED BY LOCAL and regional themes. Most campaigns concentrated on the record of the outgoing municipal team, not national issues.
The elections also revealed the divisions between the parties which support the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso.' This disunity only accentuated the local nature of most campaign efforts.
The left was also divided. Two centre-left groups presented their own candidate lists in several towns: the populist Democratic Workers party (PDT) of Leonel Brizola, and the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) led by Miguel Arraes In 1989 and 1994 the PSB supported the PT's presidential campaigns.
Election results were good for the PT. We won more votes than any other party in the 26 State capitals, and more than 20% nationwide. The hard right Brazilian Progressist Party (PPB) won 17%, and President Cardoso's own party, the Brazilian Social Democrats (PSDB) came third. Outside the state capitals, the PT usually came second.
Our vote is not higher than in the last elections. But a slight decline in areas where we were strongest (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte) was compensated by a clear growth in areas of the north and north-west where the party had been very weak. The vote confirms that the PT is the main opposition party facing the federal government, and that we are able to form an alternative pole of attraction to the government.
We are becoming stronger, geographically speaking. This is due to our natural growth - by this I mean that, across the country, we are putting forward more and more well-known local candidates: people who have already taken responsibilities at the municipal level, and can present themselves as a real alternative to the other party lists.
The fall in support in Rio and Sao Paulo suggests that we can expect some slip in support in other areas where we are traditionally strong. This is due to fatigue more than any16 International Viewpoint
*LEM TEMPO:
PRESIDENTE ABAITE
RANA TOBAIRA
Presente homem mal, falso e trattor thing else. Opinion polls have not indicated a connection in voters minds between PT government and bad practice. The problem is more that, in a number of areas, good practice is perceived as the work of honest individuals, rather than of PT activists.
The decline in support is also linked to the internal divisions in the party. In some regions, like Diadema, a working-class suburb of Sao Paulo, the PT candidates and the outgoing PT administration refused to collaborate on the campaign.
In Sao Paulo, PT candidate Louisa Erundina chose not to attack her opponent, Ceso Pitta, the hand-picked successor to Mayor Paulo Maluf, a key leader of the Brazilian right since dictatorship days. She based her campaign on her personal experience as Mayor of Sao Paulo (1989-92). She even tried to change the opposition profile of the PT through her campaign slogan "Erundina: the PT which says yes!"
She was obliged to withdraw this slogan, under pressure from the rank-and-file and the leadership of the party. But the result of her ultra-moderate campaign was that she went from an initial 30% support (against a very powerful, populist incumbent) to less than
The results of these elections confirm the argument of those of us who have been arguing for the PT to re-affirm its own identity, rather than seek alliances with other parties to our right. The national leadership warned us that our left coalition strategy in Salvador and Recife (the two largest towns in the North-East), Belem (Para State, North Brazil) and Maceio (capital of Alogoas State) was too narrow. They said we would loose votes for the party. In fact, the results were higher in these towns than in the rest of the country! The PT had much weaker results in those towns where we were in alliance with sections of the centre-right PMDB, or even Cardoso's own PSDB. In Belem, the position of the PSDB governor was weakened by the massacres of landless peasants earlier this year. The PT in Para State, which actively supports the Movement of the Landless (MST), clearly benefited mobilisations in response to this outrage. Across Brazil, the Movement of the Landless is probably the most dynamic social movement. It is massively popular.
The most interesting PT electoral results came from the southern-most state, Rio Grande do Sul. This is the most politicised state in the country, and the PT has a strong presence. We have held the town hall in the state capital, Porto Alegre, since 1988, and we had a good score in the 1994 state and
One of the reasons for our strength is that, in Rio Grande do Sul, the PT operates as a real, unified party. The left-wing within the party is the dominant element, and the differences between the various currents do not prevent the party making a useful intervention. Since 1988, all the currents in the PT have participated in the municipal administration of Porto Alegre, which has over 1.5 m. inhabitants, implementing policy in a homogenous way, on the basis of an open debate within the party.
As a result, the party has deeper roots here than in some other parts of the country. At the centre of PT work here is the Participatory Budget [IV #282] which has won the support of a majority of the population. First introduced here in 1988, the process of decentralised discussion and modification of the budget and work plan of the municipal authorities is much more developed in Porto Alegre than in other PT-run town halls.
As a result, PT candidate Raul Pont won 52% of the vote in the first round, and the PT candidate in the state's second largest town, industrial Caxais do Sul (500,000 pop.) is almost certain to win in the run-off, having scored 49% in the first round. These victories will have a positive effect on the whole party. They show the importance of a unified party, based on democratic party life, and not on the popularity of a few personalities. These Rio Grande candidates are members of Socialist Democracy, the current in the PT identified with the Fourth International. Their strong results show that a left profile for the PT is more than justified. * * Leading member of Socialist Democracy (DS), a current inside the PT identified with the Fourth International 1. The Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), Party of the Liberal Front (PFL — the main support for ex-president Collor), the Brazilian Progressist Party (PPB — traditionally the most right-wing of the conservative parties), and the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB under the dictatorship known as the MDB).