02.38
For release October 12, 2002
Lula Lá - Brazilian politics begins moving to a new beat
* Will Lula remain being Lula in the advent of a likely second-round electoral victory?
* Complications for U.S.-Brazilian relations
* Complications for U.S.-Venezuela relations
* Complications for U.S.-Mexican-Brazilian relations
On his fourth try at the Brazilian presidency, Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva is poised to capture it in the second round
of voting on October 27th. Although Lula's 46% share of the first round votes was just shy of the total predicted by
previous polls, analysts in Brazil have been quick to point out that outgoing Fernando Henrique Cardoso faced a similar
task when he was first elected in 1994. And now José Serra, the ruling coalition's candidate, must confront a Herculean
task if he is to surpass his meager first round total of 23% and achieve victory in the second round. Not only must he
now recast his original, remarkably negative campaign, which is likely to severely hurt him in a one-on-one contest
against the charismatic Lula if left unchanged, but he will have to contend with the hostility of powerful pro-Lula
Brazilian politicos such as the Bahian Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhães along with the fact that Ciro Gomes already has
switched to supporting Lula and hopefully will bring with him his 4th place tally of nearly 12% of the presidential
vote.
Speculation is rife that Lula, in order to politically survive, will wheel and deal and break Brazil's heart just as
all of his predecessors have done. While some members of the financial community are apprehensive over the possibility
that his expansionist policies will open the door to inflation and instability, many of his supporters fear that he will
sell out to the vested interests, just as Cardoso had done. But it is much more likely that Lula will do both: he will
moderate and conciliate but not turn his back on his entire spiritual, cultural, ideological and psychological heritage
as a man of the left. Lula will likely stand fast, seeking a mixed economy, an FTAA that will hold the door open for
Cuba's eventual adhesion, a warm abrazo for Castro and Chavez, a prideful independence from the U.S., and the creation
of a mixed economy that doesn't automatically assume that private is superior to public and that an entirely open market
economy is intrinsically superior to other possible forms.
Changing rules of the game
Lula's likely victory on October 27, and the toppling of the country's traditional power elite from the peaks of
national political power, is a manifestation of a wider political phenomenon taking place in Brazilian political
discourse, which has been accompanied by a series of law-and-order and judicial moves which would have been unthinkable
in the recent past. While several political dynasties have emerged victorious in this election - most notably Antonio
Carlos Magalhães (ACM), the Senator from Bahia who resigned his seat last year to avoid expulsion from Congress - others
have either lost or suffered significant setbacks.
In the state of Alagoas, Fernando Collor (Brazil's former president, who resigned in disgrace in the face of proceedings
to impeach him for corruption and malfeasance) was soundly defeated in the first round of his bid for the governorship.
In the state of Maranhão, Roseana Sarney (Liberal Party), the daughter of the former president, resigned the
governorship early in 2001 to seek the presidency, but had to content herself with a Senate seat after a March raid by
federal police discovered an undeclared 1.34 million reals in 50 real notes in her campaign offices. Sarney's appointed
successor for governor, José Reinaldo Tavares, managed to barely make it into the second round contest after the
revelation, just days before the vote, that one of his chief advisors had been arrested while traveling in a small plane
with an unexplained 371,000 reals bundled into packages marked for specific polling districts.
While such episodes have not been conclusively proven as bona fide attempts to buy votes, in the state of Acre a court
order mandated that banks record the identity of any individual withdrawing more than 10,000 reals during the week
before the vote. Perhaps the most remarkable electoral reversal took place in the Federal District, where sitting
governor Joaquim Roriz went from a commanding lead and a forecasted first round victory to capturing just 2% more of the
vote than the Worker's Party candidate. At the root of Roriz's campaign implosion were a series of tapes that
graphically captured the abundant corruption swirling around the governor's office. While the tapes have not been
publicly broadcast because of a gag order obtained by Roriz, the governor's running battle with the press on the issue
has likely torpedoed his chances for reelection.
New political reality
The prospect of a new political era, one marked by a great yearning for change from past traditional practices of
cronyism politics, the swapping of government offices and arrant favoritism in contract letting, is not causing the
panic it would have brought about only slightly more than a decade ago, when Lula first ran for office. At issue is not
the core of the best of contemporary Brazilian public policy - fiscal responsibility, development of export markets,
alleviation of poverty and inequity - but the tainted political practices that usually won the day over sound public
policy and civic rectitude. The most telling indication of this new, stable reality in Brazilian politics came over the
O Globo national TV network, during its election night coverage of the Lula victory. A succession of past and current
presidents and officials of the powerful São Paulo Industrial federation FIESP were paraded before the cameras to offer
their view on the election. While they all expressed a desire to see Serra win, they pointed out that it was only
because they felt the Pernambucan was the best prepared to lead the country. The then very real prospect of a first
round victory for Lula did not strike fear in them. One past president went so far as to express his personal admiration
for the Worker's Party candidate, both as a decent human being and as an exceptionally able negotiator.
Given the almost non-existent nature of party loyalty in the Brazilian congress, it is this last mentioned quality
which may prove to be the most important factor for Lula in building a majority coalition in the legislature. Despite
the concerns by the international press over Lula's lack of a clear legislative majority in either house of Congress,
such analyses significantly overestimate the strength of party loyalty in both the upper and lower chambers. Indeed, the
strongest sense of party discipline in contemporary Brazil is found within Lula's Worker's Party (PT), with other
parties' ties bearing a greater resemblance to political cliques such as the one surrounding the dean of the Liberal
Party (PL), rather than fully institutionalized political movements.
The most important characteristic of a Brazilian president in this era could be his ability to negotiate and to achieve
consensus, characteristics which some observers of national politics do not naturally attribute to José Serra. Indeed,
Lula's choice of a running mate is suggestive of a desire to actively seek consensus; José Alcancar, his selection, is
president of the conservative National Liberal party. Perhaps even more important are the noises coming from the Lula
camp that they do not wish to wait for their candidate's investiture before they attempt to wield influence. Rather,
they intend to use the transition period, and the office facilities that will be graciously provided by the current
administration, as a base from which to encourage Congress to address and enact a number of Cardoso initiatives, which
are currently stalled in Congress and which Lula would like to see made law before assuming office.
As Marcos Coimbra, head of the polling company Vox Populi, told the publication Correia Braziliense, there has been a
fundamental shift in the attitude Brazilians have towards their politicians. They are no longer looking for people with
grand schemes and a slick image. Instead, people are looking for a candidate who is honest, who is serious and who is
going to be conscientious about addressing the nation's problems one by one and then be held accountable. Lula's
political resurgence is a natural reflection of this desire as well as a rejection of some of the more cynical movements
and the questionable personalities known for the kind of political deal-making so in evidence during the Cardoso
administration. The one aspect of Lula's campaign which has not been fully transmitted to the outside world is the
seriousness with which he addresses his country's challenges. After 12 years of campaigning for presidential office,
Lula has an unparalleled appreciation of the problems afflicting Brazil, an understanding which appears to be matched by
his willingness to listen to others and seek out the expertise needed to adhere to the national motto, 'order and
progress.'
Brazil likely to replace Mexico as regional interlocutor
A major concern for foreign onlookers has been the effect that Lula's victory may have on some of the major hemispheric
issues of the day. Brazil almost unquestionably will play an increasingly important role in inter-hemispheric affairs as
Mexico becomes increasingly "NAFTA-ized" and more inclined to relate to Washington's agenda than that of the rest of
Latin America. The sad decline of Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda as a credible figure, whose political
positions were once characterized by dignity and ethics, and whose views before joining the Fox presidency, had to be
noted. Once admired as an inventive and innovative thinker who was the object of attempts to marginalize him during the
Reagan-Bush administrations, his appalling recent conduct has robbed him of his respectability, with his fall creating a
foreign policy vacuum that Brazil will be quick to fill. The sad fact is that, rather than being a strong interlocutor
representing Latin American interests and sensibilities to the U.S., Castañeda has become little more than a booster for
U.S. regional interests, in fact, he has become Mexico's Iago. He has authored a series of intensely controversial
initiatives, which were so appallingly disfunctional in their impact, and so un-Mexican in their nature, that some of
his legion of critics say that the extraordinary sea change that he has undergone would have made him a candidate to
hold a comparable office under the slavishly pro-U.S. ex-president Carlos Salinas, rather than in the Fox
administration. Further investigation must be conducted in order to address questions arising over the strong rumors
that Mexico, under Fox and Castañeda, may have authorized or was used as a pass-through for funds earmarked for the
Toledo race for the Peruvian presidency, as well as to those Cuban human rights activists who accept foreign funds, and
whether Fox, in contravention of Mexican electoral law, took funds from right wing Miami Cuban sources for his own race.
This might help provide a lead to explain Castañeda's bizarre anti-Castro antics, which are at total variance to his
recently stated views as an academic and pundit. Also of deep distress to his once admirers, is why Castañeda at first
charged the highly regarded former Mexican ambassador to Havana, Ricardo Pascoe, with financial irregularities, a charge
that was quickly withdrawn, and then promptly fired him, producing a wave of revulsion against Castañeda within the
foreign ministry, Mexico, and now throughout Latin America, including Lula, who is known to view him with contempt and
as no friend of Brazil.
A Lula victory will allow Brazil, now the main advocate for the interests of the region, in alliance with some of the
U.S's adversaries, to replace a discredited Fox government with a genuine Latin American thrust as to the region's main
spokesperson. Lula has shared left-wing roots that will to some extent align him with Cuba's Fidel Castro and
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. He most certainly will extend a level of protection to the Venezuelan president, which will
help buffer him from Washington's minatory gestures, thus making any overthrow of Chavez as a result of the general
strike at the end of the month far less likely. In fact, any U.S. meddling in the affairs of leftist leaders will most
certainly cause a Lula-led Brazil to take a strong stand in the Organization of American States and jeopardize the
formation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, one of Washington's major hemispheric initiatives.
It is Lula's apparent conversion from dogmatic ideological rhetoric to a more consensual, consultative approach to
public policy that has earned him the growing trust of the Brazilian public. Meanwhile, voters have ignored
international interpretation that suggests drastic economic decline and political isolation if he is elected. It is
Lula's ability to manage to keep to this new approach, which holds the key to eventually gaining the confidence of
Brazilians of various ideological convictions, as well as the international community, thus challenging the doomsayer's
false prophecy of default and economic collapse in South America's most important nation.
This analysis was prepared by Sean Burges, lead scholar for COHA in Brasilia, Brazil and Kerry Ezard, Research Associate
at COHA in Washington.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research
and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "One of the nation's most respected
bodies of scholars and policymakers."
Council on Hemispheric Affairs 1444 I St, NW, Suite 211, Washington DC 20005 Tel: (202) 216-9261 coha@coha.org
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