Since Bolsonaro came to office, he scrapped the anti-corruption unit behind Operation Car Wash. This revealed the looting of billions of dollars from public coffers by officials at all levels of the state, with a clustering of activity around the Brazilian state oil giant, Petrobras. Bolsonaro said the agency was no longer needed because his state was "free of corruption". He also doled out billions to Congress like a sweet bowl to trick-or-treat'ers to buy allegiances, and just like this country Covid procurement was a means of funnelling more cash into the bulging pockets of Bolsonaro supporters. Corruption in state contracts became routinised to the point of being a cost of doing business. And most appalling of all was the criminal negligence with which Bolsonaro handled the pandemic, with things getting so bad that the police accused him of spreading disinformation. He systematically undermined coordination between national, regional, and local state responses, attacked official social media campaigns, and peddled quackery as solutions to the Covid crisis. It was no accident it disproportionately hit working class people and racialised minorities - those most unlikely to support his grotesque government.
Bolsonaro would not have won office without the backing of key layers of the Brazilian bourgeoisie. At the outset, he was very clear about whose interests his administration would be serving and, of all the guff he promised his gullible mass voter base, this was one pledge he faithfully delivered. Inequality, already extreme by Latin American standards, widened under Bolsonaro's watch. It's so bad that even he was forced to act, with a 50% bump in welfare payments conveniently landing just prior to the election. This was after cutting spending on social security for the previous 18 months. He also raised the retirement age, and in another quid pro quo for his wealthy backers, set about attacking the labour movement.
His defeat at the hands of Lula and the Workers' Party is a stunning achievement in the face of Bolsonaro's efforts at undermining confidence in the election process, police interference with voting in PT strongholds, and a refusal by the electoral court's top judge to extend voting following reports of widespread voter suppression. All of the incumbent's advantages couldn't save him. And, much to Bolsonaro's chagrin, his allies in Congress and in industry have mostly spoken about the need to respect the result. No Capitol-style insurrection is to be tolerated, a point underlined by Joe Biden in his communique quickly recognising Lula's victory - a signal to the coup-minded that they don't have Uncle Sam's permission.
Despite striking a mighty blow for the left, the reason why many centrists are happy about Lula's victory - his popular frontist strategy - could easily become the incoming administration's Achilles Heel. There's nothing wrong with dragging bourgeois layers in one's political train if front and centre is a programme for empowering our class and elevating our movement. In such circumstances, they've accepted your terms. But it's quite another to tack right and effectively give them a veto over the politics. Lula having right winger Geraldo Alckmin, the former governor of Sao Paulo and Lula's presidential opponent in 2006, as his running mate typifies this. Unveiling the alliance at the beginning of the month, the rhetoric on abortion rights and police corruption/violence was significantly toned down. Significant stress has been placed on Bolsonaro's attacks on institutional legitimacy, with Lula co-opting arguments about business confidence and the need to calm the markets. And riffing off this, several trade unions have designed a corporatist plan similar to post-war West European tripartism - a recipe, one might argue, for disciplining rather than empowering labour.
Also worrying is the surge in Bolsonaro's support over the course of the campaign. In September, Lula routinely enjoyed double digit leads. Which one might expect when his opponent is a disaster zone. Yet despite the record, and the incredible scandals - such as paedophilia allegations against Bolsonaro, which were sparked by his own comments, the margin of victory was far narrower than many were forecasting in the Summer. The unpalatable truth is there was something about Bolsonaro that appealed beyond the core constituencies of fascists and right wing populists traditionally enjoy. Obviously, Lula must show no quarter in clearing out Bolsonaro's people from the state, but the more difficult task is fashioning a programme that brings millions more into the PT camp without watering down existing commitments, nor making the working class pay for cleaning up the damage of the Bolsonaro years. One that is easier said than done, but has to be accomplished if Lula wants to be in power, not merely in office.
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5 comments:
I live in South Africa, which is rather similar to Brazil in a political sense (judicial partisanship, media propaganda, political parties beholden to foreign interests, a left existing in name only). It seems to me that the election of Lula may end up being little more than a political gesture and that, regrettably, the future of Brazil belongs much more to people like Bolsonaro than to Da Silva. The low participation by leftists in this election which should have been overwhelmingly important mirrors the way in which leftists more or less allowed the success of the PT to be taken away from them by the plutocrats and their propagandists and corrupt actors. The fact that the PT was defeated in the parliamentary polls by more right-wing, plutocrat-friendly parties with foreign support also suggests this. And our local mining oligarchs have already said, via the "Brenthurst Foundation" which is Anglo American's propaganda arm, that they are prepared to tolerate Lula so long as he does exactly as he's told by finance capital.
Very, Very, sadly, the poster, 'Anonymous' above is 100% correct. Lula will be a total prisoner of a Right dominated legislature. His partnership with a relatively Right wing running mate was merely part of this very weak position for Lula and the Brazilian Left from the start. Trapped in a huge economic crisis in Brazil, Lula will be a puppet of the capitalist class - and fail to deliver to his support base. The weakness and delusion of Left reformism writ large I'm afraid.
Likewise, in the UK, given how the money markets and hedge funds shredded Liz Truss and Kwarteng within a week of their daft uber neoliberal budget, how long does anyone really think a Corbyn/McDonnell Labour administration would have lasted ? A week at most if it stuck to the 2017 Manifesto promises - but obviously longer if, like Francoise Mitterand in his 1980's French government, he quickly dropped all his Left promises and became the administrator of money market-imposed austerity.
In a situation of global capitalist crisis , of which the current Brazilian economic crisis is merely a part, the opportunities for real Left reformism are hugely constrained. In the UK, Starmer appointing the very right wing turncoat ex Tory Bury South MP , Christian Wakefield, as a Labour WHIP, is just yet another demonstration that the establishment 'Left' parties across the globe have increasingly become mere participants in the pure theatre of umpteen now mere facade democracies across the supposed 'democratic' capitalist societies.
It is a long shot, but if Rishi Sunak had any sense, then he would appoint Jeremy Corbyn as Trade Envoy to Brazil. Business would rightly be delighted. No one else outside Latin America has Corbyn's access there, and in many other places besides.
If Corbyn cannot have a whip that is enforced by Christian Wakeford, then he'll live. To rapturous crowds on every continent, and to packed houses everywhere in Britain, he'll live. Nobody on the Left really cares about the Labour Party anymore, and fewer by the day even pretend to. From outside any party, Mick Lynch can bring the country to a standstill while drawing crowds of thousands.
The Left has unique links, routinely very strong ones indeed, to the vast potential markets of Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Right, by contrast, has been cast into the wilderness for at least 50 years after a six-week stint in 10 and 11 Downing Street that would have lasted only three weeks if the old Queen had not died.
The same people who would relish Corbyn's and his circle's role in relation to Brazil and numerous other countries had to stage a coup to rescue the British economy from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. When the Braverman detail has been addressed, then that will be the end of the Right for the rest of her, Truss's and Kwarteng's lives. The Left, on the other hand, is only just getting started. With absolutely no reference to the Labour Party.
After all, Labour opportunistically pretended to oppose the abolition of the 45p rate of income tax, the only mini-Budget measure than had not been in Truss's prospectus to her party's membership, but it supported everything else that even Jeremy Hunt, of all people, has felt the need to reverse. Had the mini-Budget ever been put to a Commons Division, then Labour's whipped abstention would have saved Truss and Kwarteng from Hunt, Sunak, and all the rest of them. Labour is going into the next General Election as the only party that still thought that Trussonomics was broadly, and often very specifically, a good idea.
Starmer versus Truss could have resulted in a Labour overall majority, but Starmer versus Sunak will result in a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
The dilemma for progressive parties is that the strings of power are controlled by the existing financialised global establishment. This means that access to office is dependent on balancing the wishes of a large element of their support for radical change (but not a majority of the population, for a variety of reasons) against the imperatives of the establishment to maintain their positions. There are two main approaches. The first is to promise change, but once elected reluctantly explain how their hands are tied by the "markets", and / or the situation they have inherited. The second is to offer little other than a slight more people friendly approach than the incumbents, on the grounds that anything more would be irresponsible, and/or would jeopardise their chances of office.
Corbyn went for the first approach, but because the establishment actually believed he meant to introduce the policies he campaigned on, they ensured his downfall. Starmer has gone for the second. This is as much due to his temperament as to the example set by Corbyn of trying the first.
Is it possible for a genuine radical to achieve office and power? Highly unlikely, but there is a tiny possibility if they are sufficiently charismatic and politically astute. Small changes can have profound long term effects, so looking for those little changes that won't scare anyone, but will move towards a goal and be difficult to reverse, is crucial. Rather than courting popularity, they need to persuade people that what they propose will work, and will improve their lives. That is, become popular by creating a vision that people buy in to, and that can be delivered. The danger is that this then pushes the forces that stand to lose into uniting against you - as happened to JC. But, if you are astute, popular, and credible, you still may be able to overcome that opposition. But it's a big if.
Zoltan gives a good summary - it is a big 'if'. I am still cheered that Bolsonaro is out even if Lula does not create paradise.
[Phil: I am keeping off Twitter for a while for my personal sanity, but missing you on there]
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