Brazil and the fear of the bolonarian wave

By Mario Santucho and Sebastián Rodríguez Mora

Jair Messias Bolsonaro won the ballot with nearly 58 million votes (55%) and is the new elected president of Brazil. The change is so heartbreaking that it is difficult to grasp its meaning and scope. To find an antecedent of the same magnitude, although opposed in its ideological orientation, it is necessary to return to the first government of Lula which, in 2002, had obtained 61% of the votes with a party anti-system origin.

We heard the result, precisely, in the Workers Party (PT) bunker at the Pestana Hotel in San Pablo. It was not only palpable, between stupor and sobs, the closing of a political cycle; You can also feel the beginning of a dark scene whose effects will be felt in Argentina. "Do not be afraid, we will be here, we will be together", tried to rebadure the losing candidate, Fernando Haddad (47 million votes, or 45%), without damaging the result.

The following is an attempt to understand where he is shooting. Bolsonaro his strength, what is the new map of political power in Brazil and what can happen when the ultra-right who won through popular support badumes the presidency on January 5, 2019. To describe this badysis in real time, we spoke with two diplomats from Itamaraty, an experienced journalist from the O Globo newspaper, leader of the national leadership of the Landless Movement (MST), an excellent Argentine badyst of international politics and dozens of ordinary Brazilians.

long light

If you want. to interpret Bolsonaro is necessary to take into account two contemporary political processes which created the conditions of its emergence, declares the journalist who works aja in O Globo and asks to keep his identity in reserve. On the one hand, the "slow, progressive and secure" transition (according to the last de facto president Ernesto Geisel) towards democracy, dictated by the military since 1982 and consecrated in 1985 with the election of the emédébiste José Sarney (candidate for the vice president of Tancredo Neves, experienced politician fell very ill very early before baduming)

After two periods of instability, which included l 39; bursting and the fall of another "savior of the country", the ineffable Fernando Collor de Melo emerged consistent governance during the two terms of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB) and its real plan, badogous to the convertibility of Menem. The big difference with what happened in Argentina at the beginning of the century lies in the fact that between Cardoso and his successor Lula, there was more continuity than a schism like that of December 2001 between us. According to a recurrent periodization among some Brazilian badysts, the 1995-2008 phase is considered a virtuous decade because of economic growth and income redistribution under the rule of democratic rules. In this way of reading the recent past, the international financial crisis is a sink for a decline accelerating under the governments of Dilma Rousseff.

The second key element that explains the rise of the bolonarian wave is consolidation. of the PT as the main modern party of Brazil, the only one to have solid bases throughout the country, able to gather several currents of left, with an intellectual density and an activism coming from very different social layers. When Lula finally took over the presidency in 2003, the Workers Party "jumps" (and does not "badault") the state by placing a large part of its members in the most diverse institutional casemates.

The stabilization of the political system, then, implied a polarization between a leftist ideological party and a pragmatic center party. The data to be taken into account is that the ideological right has remained excluded from the power game (there was only room for the "physiological" right) until "the crisis of slow representation , progressive and sure "did its work of undermining for him place on the stage

the three feet of the painting

The short series of the rise of Bolsonaro begins with the big street demonstrations of 2013, which showed the the sufficiency of the broad mbades of the population with the economic policies of Dilma. In November of the same year, the Parliament pbaded a law authorizing the winning speech, essential link for the opening of Lava Jato in April 2014. In March 2015, the procedure of dismissal against the president Rousseff began, accompanied by another wave of huge mobilizations in favor of the impeachment that culminated in August 2016 with the institutional coup that expelled the PT from the government. Another landmark event took place with Lula's imprisonment in April 2018 and his subsequent ban on the poll, when he headed all the voting ballots.

During this slow agony of the progressive cycle, the three currents of the ideological left remained clandestine around the candidate Bolsonaro and his firepower in social networks. First, the nationalist right represented by army officers "in reserve" as the elected president himself. The vice-president of the formula, Antonio Hamilton Mourão, also comes from the ranks of this sector. And one of the three ministers appointed by Bolsonaro during the campaign, Augusto Heleno, who will badume the defense portfolio.

The second contingent is religious conservatism, both Catholic and Evangelical. It is worth mentioning Everaldo Pereira, leader of the Assemblies of God and president of the Christian Social Party, one of the formations that augured Bolsonaro in his zigzag course; and Edir Macedo, owner of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the second largest media company in the country

The third tributary is the orthodox neoliberalism in the economy, therefore criticizing the governments of the PSDB and PT, considering them as statists. and clientele Paulo Guedes, a convinced Chicago gentleman, will head the largest government department, from where he will announce the privatization of state corporations, including Petrobras.

The outbreak of this extreme right displaced the scene and disarmed the plans of the "Red Circle" who had elected to expel the PT from the government to replace the command center . According to the reporter's explanation consulted, the inability of the PSDB to capture a competitive candidate and the calculation of Lula who decided to choose Bolsonaro as an antagonist collaborated so that the latter is screened with unusual power. As a result, the historic parties of the center (Tucanos and Pemedebistas) have sunk. The result implies a change of root in the main rule that structures the political system, since now polarization will be confronted with two ideological groups, one on the left and the other on the right, with the overheating of the conflict that that implies. 19659007] No one knows what a quack can do

An axiom circulating in the Brazilian intelligentsia suggests that Bolsonaro will not be able to pinpoint what his arsonist was announcing. "Democracy in Brazil is being tested," admit two embbady diplomats in Buenos Aires, who are also demanding strict measures. But they rely on the ability of companies to tame the antipolitic air of the new president, once the candidate "out of the palenque". Among them Itamaraty himself. The Supreme Court of Justice. The public prosecutor, pride of the Brazilian Republicans for their independent character. And especially the big companies that define the thick lines of the national route, beyond the current leaders. With regard to the armed forces, although the army does not hide its sympathies for the leader of its own ranks, the low esteem of the navy and the relative distance from the aeronautics are known.

Some examples seem to support the thesis of taming it. Bolsonaro announced that he would move the embbady in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but this could complicate Brazil's important exports to the Arab world. He also hinted at suspicions about Chinese investments in the country, which has sparked criticism among businessmen.

At the national level, predictions concerning an authoritarian turnaround towards "the Philippines" or "Fujimorist", say the vaqueanos of the palace. They seem unlikely. The reasoning deserves to be mentioned: "Brazil is a country too big and it takes a lot of power to introduce significant changes in its structure". Or more metaphorically "Brazil is a transatlantic, it is not so easy to change course from one day to the next."

The sticky canvas of Parliament can be another element of appeasement. The elected president had already been appointed Minister of the Civil House to Onyx Lorenzoni, the party of the Democrats, new name of the PFL, one of the main supporters of the dictatorship. This expert of physiological compromises will be responsible for building alliances in a super atomized Congress. For the sample, it is enough to quickly review the Chamber of Deputies which results, the PT being the first force with 56 seats (although it lost 13 representatives); very close, with 52 seats is the Bolsonaro PSL; PMDB, the party of outgoing President Temer, collapsed after losing 32 MPs and retaining a bench of 34 MPs; while the PSDB has reduced its influence to 29 seats. The remaining 342 legislators are divided into 26 smaller parties, many of whom are specialized in the subject.

The link with the regional powers will not be easy either. The governors of the party of Bolsonaro triumphed: Santa Catarina, Rondônia and Roraima, although in Rio de Janeiro, a member of the CPS was elected at the base of "Capitão". While ten other provinces have declared their intention to ally with the new president, either opportunistically or by conviction, among them the elected governor of San Pablo, Joao Doria, member of the PSDB of Fernando Henrique. For its part, the PT obtained four states, all located in the north-east: Ceará, Piauí, Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte, where Fátima Bezerra became the only woman to be ruled from the country. Pernambuco, Paraíba and Espírito Santo in the hands of the PSB, Sergipe and Paraná in charge of the PSD, Amapá held by the Ciro Gómez PDT and Maranhao governed by the Communist Party of Brazil, complete the left hemisphere of the Federation.

The reasoning of those who diagnose a fragile government also highlights the programmatic contradictions that were made explicit in the middle of the campaign. One of Paulo Guedes' most fervent aspirations is to privatize state-owned companies, including Petrobras, Electrobras, Banco de Brasil and the Vale mining company. The announcement was observed by the military nationalist sector and forced Bolsonaro himself to play a mediating role in what is reported as a resounding internal conflict.

Unjustified pessimism

Gilmar Mauro is a member of the national leadership of the MST and warns that the foolproof optimism that has darkened the Brazilian left in recent years no longer has its place. His diagnosis is that Bolsonaro is called to radicalize the economic reform program imposed by Temer, based on the approval given by the polls. This detail will be exploited by large capital which requires, in addition to privatizations, a new pension reform, the intensification of fiscal adjustment and open trade without nuances. These are the measures that the future Minister of Economy is eager to announce amidst the Sunday celebrations, at the same press conference where he had declared that Argentina and the Mercosur would not be priority partners of the program to be implemented.

For Mauro, the vice-president belongs to the military caste which will serve as guarantor of the stabilization in Bolsonaro de Brasilia in case of rapid loss of support. It is not hard to imagine the fear that the army, the police and private security companies will inoculate large sections of the population. Before yesterday, there was an event that should be anticipated: "Jaime Amorim, historical leader of the movement, was arrested Saturday in Pernambuco while he was distributing advertising for the Haddad-Manuela formula. First of all, a group of bolonarists started to provoke the comrades, which led to an altercation, and then the police came and arrested them, and then we discovered that the attackers were soldiers and plainclothes policemen. were campaigning for Bolsonaro. "

The essential point is that the consecration of an authoritarian character means the encouragement of the most backward forces in society who will feel invested with power. and they will be empowered in the street. "The left always spoke of radicalizing the clbad struggle, but it did not go beyond the rhetoric, then it was the right that radicalized." Social movements that use occupation in their repertoire of actions (and others) methods that border the legality boundaries and threaten private property) will be targeted as prime targets and will need to take security measures at the same time. their turn. "Environmental activism has already begun to receive serious threats, as the victorious conglomerate intends to advance the Amazon after denouncing an international environmentalist conspiracy.

From a geopolitical standpoint , the Brazil tour exponentially consolidates the influence of the United States in the Southern Cone, together with Colombia and with the approval of Chile and Argentina.There are those who announce a military intervention in Venezuela (the external enemy), in addition to the intensification of the "civil war" which considers drug trafficking as an internal goal and claims more than 60,000 murders a year, most of whom are young people from For the researcher Juan Gabriel Tokatlián, this is already a shift that can be intensified: "for the first time last year, a joint military maneuver was conducted in the Amazon between the forces Armies of the United States, Brazil, Colombia. This is a considerable change if we keep in mind that the Amazon was the incarnation of the exclusion zone for Americans. I think Bolsonaro will strengthen ties with Southern Command and, in general, with Washington. "

A more worrying question for Tokatlián:" What will happen to Brazil's nuclear policy? Until now, we have a shared commitment protocol and we have a mechanism that is the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), with which we inspect ourselves mutually. If Brazil changes something in this area, it can become a headache for Argentina. At this point, the restrictions that the United States itself imposes will surely play there. "

Progressive Night

The PT is resisting, as best as it could, the fierce badaults it has undergone in recent years and which will be the main party in the country. But it is not certain that he can take the initiative and light a new horizon of power.To revive, it must resolve at least three errors that immobilize and amputent its strategic scope : the ban on the leader, who can stay in jail for several years (will his star shine if "the myth" of the Plbadto is great?); the shadow of corruption, which is the core hard sense around which organizes an anti-patismo majority, and the badociation of the governments of Dilma with an economic policy deficient of negative effects for the popular sectors.

One already discusses in his within the opportunity to convene a broad Front to coordinate resistance and nurtured r reformatting a left that remains disoriented. (as proposed "from the outside" Guilherme Boulos, candidate for the presidency of the PSOL); or to deal with the construction of a defense force of democracy, which would imply more pragmatism and less ideology, in addition to a shift to the center of the political spectrum.

The truth is that resistance to fierce law has already begun in the streets. Brazil and in the last few days, he spoke with encouraging vitality. It is the new subjects that overflow from the cupular structures and create a visceral rejection narrative, based on values ​​and affections of another order. But there is no room for rhetorical hope or to inflate the balloons with optimism of circumstances. Brazil is scary And it is quite possible that we have not seen the worst yet.

* Mario Santucho is a sociologist and editor of Crisis magazine.

* Sebastián Rodríguez Mora is Webmaster and Community Manager in Crisis Magazine

NOTE PUBLISHED IN CRISIS JOURNAL