Editorial

Coalition Building and Emerging Electoral Campaign Issues

Ignoring suggestions from allies in the conservative centrão, the sizeable agglomeration of political parties that lack clear distinguishing features but excel at maintaining power, President Jair Bolsonaro announced that General Walter Braga Netto will be his running mate in this year’s election. Bolsonaro had signaled this desire for months—he has had a tense relationship with his current vice president, General Hamilton Mourão, virtually since taking office—but had wavered in the face of pleas from the centrão to diversify his political appeal. The president’s partners argued that doubling down on a militaristic appeal in 2022 would not play the same way it did in 2018. Bolsonaro has a hard core of right-wing support, but he polls far behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva among women, for example. Bolsonaro’s former minister of agriculture Tereza Cristina had emerged as a serious contender for the number two position under the assumption that she could help the president reach out to female voters and shore up his standing with major agrarian producers. Instead, the president has gone with his first choice, adding to existing concerns that Bolsonaro wants a general at his side in the event that he refuses to accept electoral defeat.

Other important decisions were made this week as Brazil enters the election season. In São Paulo, former governor Márcio França is all but set to quit the governor’s race to support Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party (PT). França played a crucial role in bringing former governor Geraldo Alckmin to his Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) so that he could serve as Lula’s running mate. França reportedly hoped this gesture would lead to PT support for his gubernatorial run, which he insisted had a better chance of attracting moderate voters in a state that has never elected a PT governor. But Haddad, who governed the city of São Paulo after an acclaimed stint as minister of education under Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, has consistently polled ahead in the race to lead Brazil’s largest, richest state. As a once and future presidential contender, Haddad winning São Paulo would fuel his case for national leadership.

As the landscape of electoral coalitions takes shape, so do the issues that will likely define the race. Inflation, unemployment, the environment, and Brazil’s international standing will almost certainly dominate debate in the months ahead. Because of events both domestic and international, however, the issue of abortion has also become somewhat of an unexpected point of contention as well. Lula is on the record as saying he believes abortion, which is only legal in Brazil for cases of rape or incest, should be treated as a matter of public health rather than law and order. In making the case, Lula is drawing on the arguments of activists who for decades have pointed out that rich Brazilian women can get abortions by either traveling abroad or visiting clandestine clinics targeting the wealthy. Poor women, by contrast, often resort to dangerous procedures for lack of any other option. The case of an eleven-year-old girl who became pregnant as a result of rape and was then effectively coerced into maintaining the pregnancy by a judge in the state of Paraná prompted widespread outrage across Brazil. The Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in the United States, ending the constitutional right to abortion, has also brought the issue to the fore as Brazilians consider whether they want to be among the countries expanding or contracting rights afforded to women. Most pundits assume this issue is treacherous terrain for Lula in that it enables Bolsonaro to fire up the vast evangelical voting bloc that supported him in 2018. If anyone could shift the terms of this debate in Brazil, however, it would seem to be Lula.

Highlights

• DATAFOLHA POLL: A poll by the Datafolha institute released this Thursday (06/23) revealed the voting intentions for different scenarios in the 2022 presidential race. In the first-round, the poll showed Lula (Workers’ Party, PT) with 47% of the votes against Bolsonaro’s (Liberal Party, PL) 28%, while in a possible second-round, Lula is shown at 57% and Bolsonaro 34%. In a previous poll from May, Lula was shown at 58% and Bolsonaro 33%. Another poll by Datafolha revealed that among elected presidents since 1989, Bolsonaro has the highest rejection rate at 47%.

• PUBLIC FINANCING OF BOLSONARO’S CAMPAIGN? Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) forwarded a request presented by federal deputy Elias Vaz (Brazilian Socialist Party, PSB) to the Public Prosecutor’s Office demanding that President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party, PL) be investigated for the alleged spending of public funds on early election propaganda. The congressman is specifically concerned about Bolsonaro's sponsoring of two motorcycle rallies, one held on April 15 in São Paulo, and another sponsored by Bolsonaro on April 20 in Rio Verde.

• CAMPAIGN SAFETY: Pro-Bolsonaro protesters invaded a hotel in the Jardins neighborhood of São Paulo, where the launching of the electoral program of the ticket of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party, PT) and Geraldo Alckmin (Brazilian Socialist Party, PSB) was taking place on Tuesday (06/21). Protesters hurled insults at both candidates, calling the former president corrupt and telling Alckmin to "return to the scene of the crime," alluding to a speech by the former governor about the PT when he was still an adversary of the party. The protestors were taken to the police station, and the man who shouted at the two politicians was identified as a former member of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). After repeated scares, including the recent drone attack at an event with Lula and electoral ally and former Belo Horizonte mayor Alexandre Kalil event, who is running for the governor of Minas Gerais, Lula's team plans to strengthen its security.

• BOLSONARO & BRICS: The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa met virtually this week for a summit of the BRICS nations. In his speech at the opening of the 14th BRICS summit, President Jair Bolsonaro affirmed the need for reform in international organizations, in particular, the United Nations Security Council. According to him, Brazil will deepen economic integration with the bloc, reiterating his staunch commitment to the "reciprocal gains" that developing countries offer one another.

• REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: President Jair Bolsonaro spoke out on Thursday night (06/23) against terminating the pregnancy of an 11-year-old rape victim. On social media, the President remarked that taking the life of an “innocent” would be “inadmissible,” arguing that “there should be no discussion” on the “way” that the baby was “generated” and whether it is “supported or not by the law,” even though the termination of a pregnancy of a rape victim is legally permissible in Brazil. Following the monumental overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States, President Bolsonaro went as far as mentioning his daughter, Laura Bolsonaro, age 11, in his comments: “My position: I have an 11-year-old daughter. I hope nothing happens to her. But if it did, I want the child to stay alive."

• BOLSONARO’S VICE: President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Sunday night (06/26) that he will soon name retired Army General Walter Braga Netto as his vice presidential running mate in this year's elections. Citing Braga Netto's performance in the Armed Forces as an important factor in his decision, the President made the statement during an appearance on the 4x4 program on YouTube. Also affiliated with the Liberal Party (PL), Braga Netto was the Minister of Defense under Bolsonaro’s government. He left office at the end of March because, under electoral law, he is prohibited from holding public office while running in the October elections.

• REBRANDING CIRO GOMES: Ciro Gomes (Democratic Labor Party, PDT) has reoriented his campaign strategy to bolster the idea that he is the most suitable person to bring the necessary “disruptions” to the current state of affairs. Arguing that he is “the only candidate against the system,” Gomes attempted to prove his desire for change through some more controversial proposals, such as preaching the overthrow of the “macroeconomic tripod.” To that end, Gomes has announced that he will demand on day one the resignation of Roberto Campos Neto, president of the Central Bank, whose term does not end until 2024. These adjustments to his campaign rhetoric are a clear attempt to influence the polls as the former governor of Ceará has stagnated in third place with only 8% support among voters. According to the DataFolha poll, he has little room for improvement as 80% of those who have already opted for Lula or Bolsonaro are steadfast in their decision.

• PSB/PT ALLIANCE. In an interview on Monday (06/27), Carlos Siqueira, the president of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), said that the negotiations for an alliance with the Workers’ Party (PT) in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul should be concluded by July 10th (a self-imposed deadline). In both states, the potential pre-candidates refuse to waive their own candidacy in favor of an alliance. In São Paulo, the standoff is between the ex-governor Márcio França (PSB) and ex-mayor of São Paulo Fernando Haddad (PT). In Rio Grande do Sul, the impasse is led by former deputy Beto Albuquerque (PSB) and state deputy Edegar Pretto (PT). During the interview, Siqueira rejected the possibility of an alliance between PSB and Ciro Gomes’s Democratic Labor Party (PDT).

Feature Article

Challenges to Democracy in Brazil, the Northeast and Paraíba: The Country Back to the Future

Global conditions have once again brought to the fore the issue of defending democracy as a condition for the emancipation, development, security, and prosperity of peoples around the world. The prolonged crisis of post-Cold War hegemony has escalated tensions, particularly through the emergence and expansion of extreme right-wing currents. Recent advances achieved through multilateralism, the innovative and emancipatory force of progressive social movements, environmental agendas in defense of sustainability, life and the planet all face innumerable setbacks.

In Latin America, defined by a history of dispossession and resilience against colonial and imperial powers, while systematically devastated by political coups and economic submission, crises mount and are made worse by the perverse effects of hybrid warfare. At the same time, however, progressive resistance endures even amid the instability created by exhausted liberal democracies.

The impact of regressive forces on social disputes follows an old and seemingly renewed pattern of interventions on the continent: external planning and financing for an internal conspiracy, destabilization, and institutional disruption. Recent events have more or less followed this pattern, for example, in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, countries still marked by tense uncertainties and threats of democratic ruptures.

Due to its geopolitical relevance and, in particular, the leading role the country achieved under progressive governments between 2003 and 2016, Brazil is not only key to understanding the factors, interests, and forces at play in Latin America’s current struggles, but also for the knowledge and appreciation of innovative experiences in public policies, democratic governance, social empowerment, and emancipation.

From an influential nation in the global order to an international pariah, Brazil has been suffering the disastrous effects of the parliamentary-legal-media-business coup that, in 2016, deposed the country’s first female president, creating the conditions for the rise of far-right forces.

Between 2003 and 2016, by any standard, Brazilians experienced the longest continuous period of social and economic prosperity in their young republic. It was also the first moment in its history in which the alternation of power broke the vicious circle dominated by similar fractions of the elites and saw a genuine representative of the popular classes ascend to power. Among other notable advances, the new strategic agenda favored and promoted developmental leaps in the peripheral regions of the country, with profound impacts on social and political conditions and local culture, hitherto dominated by ultra-conservative oligarchies descended from the country’s patrimonial colonization.

It was in this new democratic environment that the Northeast Region of Brazil experienced what economist and intellectual Celso Furtado called “the intense dream of development.” With 18.3% of the territory and 27.2% of the Brazilian population, the Northeast is the third largest and second most inhabited region in the country. Social advances achieved there were numerous and formidable. For example, the number of people from the Northeast who lived in poverty in the region fell from 21.4 million to 9.6 million. More than 35 million people benefited from the “Bolsa Família” income transfer program. Infant mortality and illiteracy dropped drastically, and there was a sharp increase in the number of university students (from 413,709 in 2000 to 1,434,825 in 2012), a leap that made the region with the second highest number of college students (20% of the total), just behind the Southeast.

Of the nine states that make up the northeast region, Paraíba gained importance and strategic value in the context of the period’s social transformations, both for the forcefulness and depth of the ruptures with the dominance of the oligarchic paradigms and for the successes obtained during eight consecutive years (2011 to 2018) of a popular, democratically-elected and reelected administration. New forms of governance based on structuring public policies and on local empowerment and social control of governance produced unprecedented results, ranging, for example, from a 40% reduction in the illiteracy rate to the definitive solution of the state's centuries-old water crisis.

Just as the persecutory instruments of the 2016 coup have wreaked havoc at the national level, Paraíba has also been suffering the effects of legal and administrative procedures used maliciously by public agents against political leaders whose policies and conduct challenged the hegemony of ultraconservative forces and sectors. The folly of the parliamentary-business-legal-media coup of 2016, through the perverse instruments of “hybrid warfare” and “lawfare,” not only shifted Brazil away from a progressive and democratic state, but it also imposed with interventionist brutality a regressive agenda on all levels: institutional, economic, political, ideological, cultural, and civilizational.

The systematic discrediting of progressive and democratic institutions, agendas, and leaders through conspiracies, clandestine actions at the shadowy margins of structures and social life constitutes, once again, the instrument of interventionism in the service of decadent exclusionary interests. However, it is unquestionable that democracy is a sine qua non condition for equitable progress and peaceful, sovereign, and sustainable social harmony.

Ricardo Vieira Coutinho Governor of the State of Paraíba (PB), for two consecutive terms, between 2011 and 2018.Mayor of João Pessoa, (state capital), for two consecutive terms, from 2005 to 2010.

ricovc@terra.com.br

Amanda Rodrigues Post Graduate in Management, Finance, Auditing and Controlling. Former Secretary of Finance of the State of Paraíba (2016 to 2019).

amandaraujo1984@gmail.com

Joao Eduardo Fonseca Master in Brazilian Education.

jenf2011@gmail.com

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.