A new political force in Brazil?

A new political force in Brazil? NorLARNet analysis, 3 May 2010 Torkjell Leira* (Translated from Norwegian) Five months from now there will be presidential elections in Brazil. The battle will stand between Dilma Rouseff from the Workers Party (PT) and José Serra from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB). But the most exciting is what happens around a candidate that has no chance to win the elections, Marina Silva from The Green Party (PV). Are we witnessing the emergence of a new political force in Brazil? First a little oddity: The October elections will be the first direct presidential elections in Brazil since the mid 1960s in which Lula will not run. During the military dictatorship (1964-1985) there were no elections. Lula was a candidate in 1989, 1994 and 1998, and was close to winning several times. But finally, at the fourth attempt in 2002, he and his Workers Party (PT) won. A battle between two candidates President Lula was reelected in 2006 and is prohibited from seeking a third period. If he could have done that, he would have won a landslide victory. His personal popularity in Brazil is enormous, and under his government the country has made seminal leaps towards a more egalitarian society and achieving employment for all. Also at the macroeconomic level things have worked out well, and the country was less hit by the financial crisis than most others. But the PT has one problem: There is no natural heir to Lula. A large corruption scandal in 2005 forced several of the potential crown princes to resign. Lula, and thus also the PT, are therefore putting their bets on Dilma Rouseff. She is the chief of staff of the president and his personal favorite, and Lula puts all his prestige behind her candidacy. However, where Lula is charismatic and lively with an impressing political CV, Rouseff has up until now been a grey and boring career bureaucrat who never previously has participated in elections. The opposition s candidate is José Serra from the Social Democratic Party (PSDB), the same man who lost to Lula in 2002. Like Rouseff he does not play in the same league as Lula regarding charisma, but he has a long political history. He is a previous minister of health, and the last four years he has been

governor in São Paulo, the country s richest and most powerful state. That is normally a good starting point when aiming to take over the presidential palace. He does lead the last polls with 35-40 percent of the votes. Dilma Rouseff follows on the second place with 25-30 percent. The last six months Serra has experienced a downwards trend, while Rouseff is on the rise. This will probably continue when the real election campaign starts in a few months. Still it is very unlikely that one of the two will achieve more than 50 percent of the votes the 3 rd of October. Thus, we are probably heading towards run-off elections with Rouseff and Serra as participants. And it is this scenario that might bring something completely new into Brazilian politics. Room for change The last 15 years PT and PSDB have fought each other at all presidential elections. PSDB has traditionally allied with the centre and the right, and PT with the centre and the left. There has never been any other real alternative. At all ends of the political scale, people are getting tired of this. Maybe one could compare it with the situation in Britain where the Liberal Democrats are now rushing forwards on a wave of discontent with Labour, the Tories and the traditional two-party model. President Lula is as popular as before, but for PT and the government coalition, the wear and tear after 8 years in power is obvious. Many voters want a change. Moreover, many Brazilians are disappointed about both PT and PSDB. Both parties are associated with corruption scandals and power abuse, and the issue of ethics, in politics as well as society in general, may easily become a key issue in the election campaign. At the same time, environmental and climate issues are higher on the agenda in Brazil than ever before. Neither PT nor PSDB have much credibility in these areas. This situation creates a space where previous environmental minister Marina Silva emerges. A new political force? Marina Silva may become a joker in the election campaign. She leads a movement for sustainability and ethics, which in a short period of time has achieved a surprisingly strong support. Marina Silva is maybe the only politician in Brazil today with a personal history that may match that of President Lula. She grew up in a poor family of rubber tappers in the Amazon rainforest, and she was an illiterate until her teens. She got sick and had to move to the city, worked as a maid, learned to read and got an education as a teacher. She got her first political experience in the struggle for workers rights together with Chico Mendes - the rubber tapper, unionist and environmental activist that was killed by ranchers in 1988 due to his struggle for human rights and the environment and was a key person in the development of PT in her home state Acre. In 1994 she was elected as the youngest female senator in Brazil with record voter support. She was minister of the environment under Lula in the years 2003-2008. Under her rule the pace of deforestation of Amazon was significantly reduced, and much of the environmental profile of the government was attached to her person. Personally and as a politician she is known for being true to her principles and ethics. It was precisely these virtues that contributed to her withdrawal from the government in 2008, as a protest against the sidelining of the environmental interests. In 2009, she resigned from PT and became a member of The Green Party (PV). Today she is the declared presidential candidate.

Let it be clear right away that she has absolutely no chance to win the elections in October. But that was never really the purpose. She and her allies hope primarily that her candidacy can move Brazilian politics in a more environmental friendly direction. There are signs that she might have achieved that. When Marina Silva withdrew from PT, it caused a political stir, and a number of political decisions made in the months that followed were viewed as direct consequences of the withdrawal. Not all analysts agree with this, but it is no coincidence that it suddenly was Dilma Rouseff that led the press conference in August 2009 where the last, spectacularly good numbers for reduced deforestation were announced. Traditionally it is the environmental minister that presents those numbers, but now Rouseff should get her environmental profile polished. In the same way it was neither natural nor coincidental that Rouseff led the Brazilian delegation to the climate summit in Copenhagen. Lula was there, but this time Rouseff was to be the main public face. At home the Brazilian government made strong declarations about emission reductions, even through passing laws. Marina Silva s supporters interpret this as a direct result of her candidacy; in Dilma Rouseff s camp this is plainly rejected. Supporters and strategy Behind Marina Silva there is a complex group of people and interests. Of course she attracts the environmentally concerned voters. You find them in all layers of the population, but mainly in the middle classes. In addition, she has strong support in a sector of Brazilian business that is concerned with sustainability and low-carbon development. A possible candidate for the vice-presidency is Guilherme Leal, the head of the largest cosmetics company in Brazil and Latin America. Many of the political forces left of PT are backing Marina Silva. Among others, Heloisa Helena from the socialist party PSOL, a former presidential candidate from the radical left, has withdrawn from the race in order to pave the way for Silva s candidacy. Furthermore, groups that are tired of the current government, but that still don t want to vote for Serra or the right wing, give their support to Silva. So do many among those who are tired of politics and corruption generally. Also many of those who are tired of the two-party politics nationally view Marina Silva as a solution. Marina Silva does indeed speak to both political camps. In the first TV-commercials she honors Lula as well as his predecessor in the presidential chair, Cardoso from PSDB, for what they have achieved. She states openly that if she is elected she will collaborate with the good forces of PT as well as PSDB. This is the dream for many a politically interested Brazilian, but it has never been political reality. Maybe the main reason is deep historical and political conflicts between leading figures in the two parties. Ideologically the distance is not abyssal. Silva s invitation could of course have been discarded by both parties, but due to strategic concerns, they don t. The reason is that they might need her support. Marina Silva in a pivotal position? As of today the outcome of the October election that seems most likely is actually the scenario of Marina Silva s dreams. The two top candidates Rouseff and Serra are ahead of the rest. According to the last polls Silva comes in fourth with approximately 10 percent of the votes. Ciro Gomes from the small center party PSB occupies the third position, but he was only a few days forced to withdraw his candidature by his own party (!). PSB is a part of Lula s governing coalition, and PT s analysis is that

Ciro Gomes as a candidate may steal votes from Dilma Rouseff. Thus, the leaders of the PSB have been under a strong pressure from PT to prevent Gomes to participate. Thus, the stage is set for an election campaign focusing on the struggle between Serra and Rouseff, with Marina Silva as an outsider. The elections will probably not be decided in the first round, so there will be a run-off between Serra and Rouseff. Marina Silva s votes may thus be decisive. She might end up in a pivotal position in the second ballot, and will thus be in a very favorable position to negotiate her campaign issues with the new government: low carbon development, sustainability and ethics. But what is Marina Silva s political program? It is being constructed. In addition to the issues just mentioned, Silva has emphasized education as a main issue. Further she has said that economically she will stress stability in the same way as Cardoso s and Lula s governments. That will mean an economic policy based on the three elements: budget surplus, floating currency, and a low-inflation goal. But in addition to a lack of economic resources, the following will be her main challenges: Few know who she is, and even less people know what she wants. When the election campaign really takes off Marina Silva s 10 percent support today is actually surprisingly high. She has never been a presidential candidate before, and she represents a badly organized mini-party. Almost half of the voters say they don t recognize her name. Thus, her strategy up until now has been to be as public as possible, particularly on TV. That has produced results. When the election campaign really takes off, she will be sidelined. The main reasons are a small party organization with few resources, as well as the Brazilian system with free TV-airtime for the parties. The business leaders that support Marina Silva s candidature will of course step in with resources for the election campaigns, but she will still play in a different league than Rouseff and Serra. And the TV-time is distributed based on current congress representation. There Silva s PV is miniscule compared with the coalitions behind Rouseff and Serra. Internet and the social media are one of the hopes for Marina Silva and her allied. They try to copy Obama s success from the US in 2008, but as also The Green Party s presidential candidate in Colombia, Antanas Mockus has had a similar success. Mockus has risen from 5 to 30 percents voter turnout in the polls over the last months. However, Dilma Rouseff and José Serra are doing the same with considerable force, and it is unclear how much Marina Silva has to gain here. (To take one example, I myself have received 12 twitter messages from José Serra the last half hour. And the last tweet from Dilma Rouseff draws attention to a new article about 1 st of May on her new homepage, where no less than six social media networks have their own buttons). Marina Silva will never come as far in Brazil as Mockus in Colombia. Her strategists are now aiming for a 15 percent support before the election campaign really starts, in order to stay at that level until the run-off elections. In Brazil, one percent support is approximately the same as one million votes. If Marina Silva ends up in a pivotal position with 15 million votes to her name, she will get a substantial influence. A long term project

Lula was elected president at his fourth attempt. Marina Silva and her supporters also think long term. These elections mostly serve to give her publicity and strengthen her candidature for the 2014 elections, and perhaps also 2018. In parallel, they attempt to build a broad movement for sustainability in Brazil. Movimento Marina Silva (the Marina Silva movement) is now represented in all the 27 states, and in more than 100 municipalities. The Green Party is reorganizing in the period leading up to the elections. The think-tank Instituto Sustentabilidade e Democracia (the Institute for Sustainability and Democracy) is soon to be publicly launched. The mobilization within business continues. Maybe this is the start of a new political movement in Brazil for the next decade. And Lula? He will be the most important person in this election. He puts all his bets on Dilma Rouseff, and my prediction is that he will pull this off. Dilma Rouseff from PT will be Brazil s next president. But then what? Will Lula opt for an international career in the UN or something along those lines? Or is the stage set for a comeback in the presidential elections in Brazil in 2014? * Torkjell Leira is a human geographer. He has studied, worked and travelled in Brazil since 1990 and is currently working for Rainforest Foundation Norway with responsibility for projects in the Amazon. E-mail: torkjell@rainforest.no Twitter.com/TorkjellLeira