BRAZIL-POLITICS: Left to Seek New Unity

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 22 1997 (IPS) - The Brazilian left is seeking a new unity capable of catapulting it into the central government next year.

The weakening of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) due to desertion by several leading figures who went over to the left has given rise for the first time to doubts over Cardoso’s reelection, up to now taken for granted.

Leftist parties will begin to meet Thursday in Brasilia to discuss an alliance to dispute the 1998 presidential and state elections.

The Brazilian Socialist Party is enjoying sudden growth and a new importance in a left up to now dominated by the Workers Party (PT) and its two time presidential candidate, former metalworker Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, thanks to the addition of several important political figures who left the PSDB and the PT.

Former finance minister and ex-governor of the northeastern state of Ceara, Ciro Gomes, made good on his threats to leave the PSDB, and offered himself as a possible presidential candidate for the Socialist Party.

His move, accompanied by harsh criticism for Cardoso, who he accused of “betraying” the PSDB, triggered a crisis in the party, which was aggravated by internal dissent from state governors who felt hurt by measures implemented by the central government.

Several PSDB legislators have already gone over to the Socialist Party, as have leaders of the PT, including former Sao Paulo mayor Luiza Erundina de Souza.

The decline of the PSDB indicates a possible expansion by the left towards the centre.

And although Cardoso continues to enjoy a comfortable lead in opinion polls, buoyed up by the popularity of the ‘Plan Real’, the economic plan which tamed runaway inflation, the most recent poll – by the Datafolha Institute, affiliated with the daily Folha de Sao Paulo – indicated that if elections were held today, Cardoso would not win in a first round, in which he would only take 35 percent of the votes.

Possible opposition candidates like Lula, who has a 22 percent favourable rating in the polls, obtain their best results among the better educated sectors. Analysts point out that such results could be capitalised on, given the opinion-making capacity of such sectors.

The Datafolha poll predicted “instability.” That outlook has stimulated the left to attempt to join forces along the lines of the successful initiatives launched by socialists and labour parties in France and Great Britain, and by the combined opposition in Mexico.

The recent triumph of centre-left candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas as mayor of Mexico City encouraged Lula to stand again for the presidency. Reluctant after his defeats in 1989 and 1994, the leader virtually launched his candidacy last month at the party’s congress. His running mate for vice-president could be former Rio de Janeiro governor Leonel Brizola, with the second strongest leftist force, the Democratic Labourist Party.

The problem now is that the growth of the opposition, especially the Socialist Party, could encourage other candidates like Ciro Gomes, who is rejected by the PT.

The socialists are demanding a decisive role. Their leaders argue that the party is the door through which the left could expand towards the centre, towards voters who find themselves between the social democrats and the PT. They also point out that long ago, Lula laid down the condition that he would only run again if a broad alliance capable of preventing a new defeat were forged.