POLITICS-BRAZIL: Sao Paulo, a Testing-Ground for the Left

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 7 2000 (IPS) - Marta Suplicy, mayor-elect of Sao Paulo representing Brazil’s leftist Workers Party (PT), is preparing for the start of her term, seen as crucial for the political future of women and of her party, not to mention her own career.

Among the myriad problems Suplicy will have to tackle are widespread corruption, the city’s enormous debt, chronic flooding, soaring violent crime, 17.7 percent unemployment, daily traffic jams, air and water pollution, and the fact that at least one- third of the housing in Sao Paulo is irregular.

Suplicy, who was elected in the Oct 29 run-off for the municipal elections, will take office Jan 1 at the head of Brazil’s largest and wealthiest city, population 10 million. Sao Paulo accounts for 14 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, and holds the largest debt of any of the cities in this South American giant of 168 million.

The city government currently owes more than 9.5 billion dollars — a debt that will be one of the biggest hurdles for Suplicy to apply the PT-style of government that has given fruit in other municipalities.

The prestige gained by several PT city governments was decisive in enabling the party to triumph in 17 of Brazil’s 57 largest cities in last month’s municipal elections, according to analysts.

The outgoing mayor of Sao Paulo, Celso Pitta, signed an agreement with the national government stipulating that the city government is to earmark 13 percent of its revenues to paying off the debt.

Also to be left to Suplicy to handle are past-due payments for a sum equivalent to 24 percent of the city budget, which will make her first year in office an even more complex challenge.

The mayor-elect wants to renegotiate the debt and reduce annual servicing to seven percent of the budget. However, that idea has already been rejected by Finance Minister Pedro Malán, who argues that it would violate a “Law on Fiscal Responsibility” approved this year to prevent local governments from posting deficits.

Drastic spending cuts will be needed in next year’s budget as drawn up by outgoing Mayor Pitta, admitted Amir Khair, a PT expert in Sao Paulo finances.

Khair said the new government of Sao Paulo would have to postpone social projects like one that would pay a monthly stipend to poor families who keep their children in school, or the expansion of microcredits.

The situation in Sao Paulo is “catastrophic,” in Suplicy’s words, with the city still reeling from a spate of corruption scandals that led to prison terms for several town councillors this year, and to the temporary suspension of the mayor, who is standing trial.

Political analysts see the PT triumph in Sao Paulo, whose residents are traditionally conservative, as a result of the widespread conviction among voters that shady business deals tainted the last two municipal governments, which were of the right.

PT mayors have earned an image of honesty and rectitude in the cities where they have governed.

Suplicy will have to effectively dismantle the structures of corruption and govern with transparency if she wants to hold onto the trust and confidence of voters, without which she will be unable to implement her government programme, which is based on participation by the people.

A centrepiece of PT municipal governments is the so-called “participatory budget”, under which neighbourhood assemblies of local residents have a voice in determining the assignation of budget resources.

That arrangement was first used in Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern state of Río Grande do Sul, where the PT triumphed for the fourth time in a row last month.

Suplicy will have to introduce the “participatory budget” in a city seven times the size of Porto Alegre, where the decentralised administrative structure has been one of the chief seedbeds of corruption.

She will also have to do something about the disastrous flooding that paralyses the city after heavy rains every summer, due to structural problems difficult to resolve, which will require investment from the state government and neighbouring municipalities.

Another serious problem is the contamination of the city’s water sources by sewage from the shantytowns. The pollution makes it necessary to ration water in the city, with millions of people left without running water on a daily basis over the past few months.

Transport is another major headache in a city where daily traffic jams bring movement virtually to a halt on 140 kms of roads at the morning and evening rush hours.

The number of vehicles circulating in Sao Paulo has expanded by 50 percent in the past 10 years, to the current total of around five million.

An inefficient bus service and limited subway system have led to a mushrooming of unlicensed “mini-buses”, which have further congested traffic. Many people spend as long as four hours a day commuting back and forth between their home and their workplace.

Although a former PT mayor of Sao Paulo, Luiza Erundina, who governed from 1989 to 1992, left few good memories, and the city’s problems have only worsened since then, Suplicy is in a much better position to govern.

Unlike during Erundina’s term, the opposition today will not enjoy a majority on the city council. Furthermore, the opposition has been severely weakened by all the scandals, said Ladislau Dowbor, an economist who specialises in municipal administration and served as secretary of extraordinary affairs in the previous PT government of Sao Paulo.

The recent triumph of PT candidates in large neighbouring municipalities will also make it possible for Suplicy to coordinate policies and agree on joint solutions, which are indispensable, for instance, in resolving the problem of flooding, he added.

The disorderly expansion of the city of the past few decades has also slowed down, the population has grown very little in recent years, and unemployment has begun to drop in the past few months, in response to the growth of the economy and, especially, of industrial production, a key sector in Sao Paulo.

All of that will play in Suplicy’s favour. A psychologist from one of Sao Paulo’s traditional elite families, the mayor-elect earned solid support from the middle classes and business community, thanks to which she garnered 58.5 percent of the votes in the second round of elections.

Suplicy’s term is seen as a testing-ground for the PT to demonstrate that it is capable of governing Brazil at a national level. Her performance is also seen as crucial to women’s future access to important public posts.

A solid performance by Suplicy could also launch her as a presidential hopeful, say analysts, while Roseana Sarney is taking shape as a possible candidate for the right-wing Liberal Front Party, based on her own successful administration as governor of the northeastern state of Maranhao.