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In the 2003 elections Brazil's president - Lula - pledged to keep his country GM-free. For those who've been wondering how he moved from saying it would be insanity to release transgenics, to doing exactly that and with sufficient political support to pass Brazil's now notorious "Monsanto law", this article provides an answer.

EXCERPT: [revelations have emerged about] the depth of corruption all parties have been involved in, including the PT [Lula's party]. The rotten smell is still choking all Brazil with anger.

The most despicable revelation was that the mensalao was alive and well. Mensalao is the name given to a weekly bribe the government party pays to opposition parties in order to ensure the government can pass the legislation it wants. Lula apparently used mensalao to pass such anti-worker laws as his superannuation legislation, and allowing genetically modified food to be grown.

With this disclosure, the PT's image as a "clean" party was thrown out the door. Now, growing dissatisfaction with Lula's policies is threatening the government's stability.
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BRAZIL: Corruption and political crisis
Raul Bassi
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/636/636p14.htm

"The end of the last hope", was the way that a worker from Rio de Janeiro expressed her disillusionment with the Workers Party (PT) government of President Lucio Inacio - Lula - da Silva. "There is corruption, and the president is involved", she said. "Since 1980 I always voted PT, but now never again, and I am not the only one."

"Lula is still my hope", an old PT militant from

Mina Gerais told Folha de Sao Paolo. "He will find the way out of crisis with his common sense ... But there are rotten elements in the party, every human being can make mistakes, in politics, or other activities. Lula is not guilty of anything, but I cannot say the same about the rest."

He insisted, "The PT and other parties have to be cleaned, with the police, in the same way that the government attacks drug traffickers or other delinquents ... The PT is not God's party, it has lots of devils, it should leave the arrogance of power and come back to its roots, or I won't have any reason to stay anymore."

These views are reflective of most Brazilians today. In the final week of May, a Sensus poll showed that support for the government had dropped by 2%, to 39.8%. A Datafolha poll published in early June in Folha de Sao Paalo confirmed that more than 65% of PT members accept that there is corruption in the government.

The immediate cause of this crisis is the growing scandal over corruption in the government, including among PT members. However, the crisis has a deeper basis related to problems that Lula has been confronting since the PT did very badly in the 2004 council elections.

The crisis is important, because it raises the whole question of how the PT has developed. Corruption has always been a feature of Brazilian political life, but the PT was built on different "morals" and ethical principles that it appears to have forgotten now. As a consequence, its base has weakened and the government has been destabilised.

Corruption

When Lula won, he made alliances with opposition parties - from the left to the right. He explained that he needed the alliances to develop the PT's progressive reformist agenda because the PT was a minority in parliament and it had too many enemies in the big business and international organisations to stand alone.

So, as is common in Brazilian politics, Lula shared ministry positions with other parties and the president of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), Roberto Jefferson, became the manager of the Brazilian postal service.

In May, however, evidence of Jefferson and other PTB members' blatant corruption became public. Instead of going quiet and accepting responsibility, however, Jefferson defended himself by revealing some of the depth of corruption all parties have been involved in, including the PT. The rotten smell is still choking all Brazil with anger.

The most despicable revelation was that the mensalao was alive and well. Mensalao is the name given to a weekly bribe the government party pays to opposition parties in order to ensure the government can pass the legislation it wants. Lula apparently used mensalao to pass such anti-worker laws as his superannuation legislation, and allowing genetically modified food to be grown.

With this disclosure, the PT's image as a "clean" party was thrown out the door. Now, growing dissatisfaction with Lula's policies is threatening the government's stability. The disclosures have damaged the PT's image as a party that does things differently - exempt from many of the sins of the other parties - and have cost it support among left intellectuals and both the middle and working classes.

The crisis is not confined to the PT. It has revealed that the whole parliamentary system is full of corrupt politicians, and called this system into question.

The PT has failed to implement many of the changes it was expected to, instead applying a rigid monetary policy, with high interest rates and a "healthy" budget surplus, in order to satisfy the country's debtors, such as the International Monetary Fund.

Given the electoral disaster in the council elections, the slowing economy, and growing internal division, the PT's future looks very dark. With federal elections due next year, the party appears to have alienated many of its supporters.

In late June, a rumour emerged that a group of multinational corporations, backed by Washington, were organising a right-wing coup with the opposition Socialist Democratic Party of Brazil (PSDB). The alleged coup was vigorously denounced by 43 social organisations, led by the Landless Workers Movement (MST), the trade union federation CUT and the student union UNE. The organisations, however, also called for the government to change its neoliberal policies.

The rumour seems contradictory, given that the multinationals, and government of US President George Bush, have been reasonably supportive of the Lula government's economic policies.

Where next?

Lula has some breathing space. The Brazilian people, most of whom are not directly involved in mobilising or political activity, still look to Lula as the only alternative: the other parties that have been in government before are considered more corrupt and representative of the dominant, wealthy class.

Most of the left is still part of the PT, or is supporting it electorally. Those sections of the left outside it are too weak to pose a serious alternative. For example, the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) is more concerned with electoral registration than with responding to the current crisis. PSOL's Senator Heloisa Helena is probably the most popular left-wing parliamentarian.

However, Lula is redrawing his alliances in order to survive the crisis and ensure a PT victory in 2006. The only possible parliamentary alliances at this stage are right-wing ones. The government has offered four more ministries to the Party of the Democratic Movement of Brazil (PMDB). This is particularly damaging because this party has been associated with the brutal dictatorship that controlled Brazil for almost 30 years.

In response to the corruption, many politicians have called for a parliamentary investigation commission (CPI). However, most Brazilians are extremely cynical about such commissions. Despite hundreds of CPIs over the years, corruption has not been shifted.

The PT has also attempted to diffuse the pressure with the resignation of Lula's chief of staff, Jose Dirceu, PT president Jose Genoino and the chief of intelligence.

A real commission - independent, made up of union leaders, independent parliamentarians and social movement leaders, held in public sessions - would make a difference. But such an open commission is in no politician's interests, nor in Washington's or the IMF's.

It is not enough just to tackle the corruption. The movements must keep demanding an end to the attacks on working people by the Lula government, and demanding policies that respond to the needs of the unemployed, the low-waged and the landless.

In Latin America, political crisis can grow into social crisis quickly. Economic desperation, combined with the example of people's struggles in countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela ensure that. This is sure to influence the unfolding events in Brazil.

From Green Left Weekly, August 3, 2005.