BRAZIL: Despite Doubts, Activists Energised by Likely Lula Triumph

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 24 2002 (IPS) - The prospect of a triumph by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in next month’s presidential elections in Brazil has generated excitement mixed with doubts among the country’s social movements, which see him as a son who has moved away, but without severing family ties.

Lula, the candidate of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), is a former metalworker and trade unionist who was catapulted to national fame in 1978, when he led strikes challenging the 1964- 1985 military dictatorship in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the hub of Brazil’s car-making industry, near Sao Paulo, the country’s largest city.

Before the armed forces withdrew from power in 1985, Lula took part in “refounding” the Central Unica de Travalhadores (CUT), which is now the country’s largest union. He later helped found the PT.

Although he was defeated as the PT’s candidate in his first three bids for the presidency, Lula is now the poll favourite, with nearly 40 percent ratings – more than double those of his main rival, former health minister José Serra, who is backed by two of Brazil’s biggest parties, the co-governing Social Democratic Party and the Brazilian Democratic Movement.

Political analysts say it is possible, but unlikely, for Lula to win outright in the first round of elections on Oct 6. If he does take half of the votes, the Oct 27 run-off will become unnecessary.

With Lula at the helm, Brazil’s social movements would be strengthened, Gilmar Mauro, a national coordinator of the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) – the landless movement – and Guacira de Oliveira, the president of the Feminist Centre of Research and Advice (CFEMEA) and ex-coordinator of the Umbrella movement of Brazilian Women, told IPS.

Having Lula as president would boost popular participation and mobilisation, and thus bolster democracy, said Mauro.

But Lula’s campaign strategy, based on an alliance with the right, greatly toned down rhetoric, and a moderate platform, has generated doubts and uncertainty among non-governmental organisations and movements that have been historically aligned with the PT.

Oliveira said she did not expect “the government of my dreams,” and expressed concern that the PT had struck up an alliance with the conservative Liberal Party (PL), which required the exclusion from their joint platform of a draft law legalising abortion and same-sex civil partnerships.

Evangelical religious leaders have a strong influence in the PL, and even hold leadership posts in the party.

Nevertheless, Lula’s past history makes him “the best of all of the candidates,” the women’s activist conceded.

A majority of Brazil’s black women back the PT candidate, “because he certainly represents the best chance of advancement for the black movement,” said Lucía Xavier, the head of another local NGO, Crioula (Black Woman).

“Having a worker in the government would provide an opportunity for all of those who have been systematically excluded and marginalised, not only blacks, to be heard,” she said.

But her fellow activist Ivanir dos Santos, the head of the Centre of Articulation of Marginalised Populations, expressed reservations about a government headed by Lula.

“A triumph by Lula could strengthen the social movements, but it might not,” because he will face great economic difficulties as well as a heavy “social debt,” dos Santos told IPS.

The coalition led by the PT is “a bit awkward” for the black movement, because the PL’s evangelical leaders have always been “declared enemies of religions with African roots,” dos Santos pointed out.

Lula’s effort to gain credibility in the eyes of a majority of Brazil’s 115 million voters, who analysts describe as moderate and opposed to radical proposals, has led him to forge ties with centrist factions, and even political leaders tainted by accusations of corruption, such as former Sao Paulo governor Orestes Quercia.

He has also distanced himself from initiatives by social movements, such as a “people’s referendum” on the future Free Trade Area of the Americas, organised early this month by the Roman Catholic bishops conference and around 60 social organisations.

More than 98 percent of the over 10.1 million citizens who voted in the “people’s referendum” were opposed to the Americas- wide free trade area.

The PT and Lula have also tried to distance themselves from the powerful MST, whose occupations of fallow land and government offices in demand of faster, more effective agrarian reform could hurt the candidate’s image and scare off voters who want change, but in moderation.

Lula’s present discourse is “centrist,” and his alliances, designed to draw votes, “hurt the party’s leftist tradition and its coherence,” said Joao Pedro Stédile, the MST’s most well- known leader, in an interview published earlier this month by the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

The MST and other peasant movements, however, will urge their members to vote for Lula because his candidacy “holds up the symbol of change.” Furthermore, it is the level of organisation and mobilisation of the people that will determine just how progressive the next government will be, agreed Stédile and Mauro.

Lula’s campaign has been marked by moderation and a strong shift towards the centre, said Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida, a political scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, who added that the candidate would win only if his platform convinces the average voter, who wants “cautious change,” without social conflicts.

But if he is elected and fails to bring about major social changes, due to economic and political restraints, the left will be frustrated, the professor warned.