By *

A collective assessment of what can be expected from electoral campaigns in the current Brazilian political context, international determinations included

 Political discourse is fertile ground for hyperbole that takes on the air of truth and produces effects of varying importance. The MPL (Free Fare Movement), when it instigated the June 2013 protests, was criticized for contributing heavily to the large right-wing demonstrations that culminated in the deposition of Dilma Rousseff. For a while, it was difficult for some active high school students.

I remembered this when I saw some criticisms of Guilherme Boulos’ performance in the recent electoral process. He would have lacked greater combativeness and political discernment, more productive use of the campaign’s financial resources (the largest in this election) and, in the end, not being imprisoned by the ideology of entrepreneurship nor contributing to naturalizing the political presence of “coach".

In terms of content and intensity, the criticisms are unevenly distributed, and I probably recognize myself in some of them. It makes no sense to try to disqualify this or that text. The objective here is different: to contribute to a collective assessment of what can be expected from electoral campaigns in the current Brazilian political context, international determinations included.

Semiproletarians in the streets

The reference to mid-2013 is not accidental. On the very night that the victory against the fare increase was to be celebrated, right-wing protesters, despite resistance, shut down the march that was to be led by MPL members and several left-wing activists, including PT activists.

The impact was strong and, in a very diverse meeting of left-wing activists, there was almost a consensus that the right won the battle in the streets. However, one of the coordinators of the session, Guilherme Boulos, calmly stated that the MTST, starting from peripheral regions, would hold demonstrations in the central areas of the city.

It wasn't bravado.

There have been several marches led by the MTST in bourgeois and upper-middle-class areas of the city of São Paulo. For example, in October 2017, there was a march to the state government palace, where an agreement was made on housing construction. Victory, some details, happy and peaceful withdrawal.

The MTST marches were important in popular resistance to the 2016 coup, as well as to strategic reforms against social security and labor rights. Expressions of political will and organization were the determined and joyful marches led by these working people towards Alto de Pinheiros, a place that many only visited individually and as servants.

The combative and civilized manner in which the Presidential Secretariat in São Paulo, on the corner of Paulista Avenue and Bela Cintra Avenue, was also impressive in June 2016 and February 2017. The agenda grew to include the fight against the spending cap law. During the second occupation, tents and collective kitchens were set up and there were numerous cultural activities. In the end, two marches converged on the site and the demonstration grew into a march on Paulista Avenue against rape. Following the two occupations, repression was severe, as can be seen by a quick look at the press.

Many protesters noted the contrast between the violence of the Military Police against them and the tolerance towards the people who, for about 70 days, camped on the sidewalk of Paulista Avenue, welcomed by the presidency of FIESP (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo), which defected to the coup forces. The difference between the two treatments is almost a drawing of Althusserin's distinction – still somewhat descriptive – between the repressive apparatus and the ideological apparatus of the State. An effect of invisibility contributes to the strong contrast between physical proximity and social distance. No matter how much they insist, homeless people do not exist; and, if they insist, they must be eradicated.

The MTST was repressed for speaking out openly about issues that are now and then brought up for (almost) public debate. So much insistence on the relationship between spending caps and social responsibility. Policies adopted by the Temer government, followed by the alleged autonomy of the Central Bank, continue to be highly praised by prominent intellectuals from the dominant parties, with a marked emphasis on those with more direct ties to the “market”. There was no shortage of those who boasted that, in the name of the common good, they had taught the importance of this autonomy to dignitaries from the so-called three branches of government.

Elections in the grip of a restricted bourgeois democracy

The statement that Guilherme Boulos' campaign had more resources deserves some consideration.

Pay attention to the formidable influence of the so-called social networks, where so much misinformation circulates, that it makes us think that they have inaugurated the trade. And they also circulate considerable resources. It is significant that the candidate most involved in this issue has been the most insistent expert in this right-wing version of “non-state public resources” and the most insistent in criticizing Guilherme Boulos for being the main beneficiary of the public campaign fund.

In general, anti-systemic candidacies do not have much money. The “Americanization” of politics, especially elections, requires expensive marketing operations conducted by experts in the task of fooling the people. In this short and dull campaign, the “big moments” were saved for the televised debates, true crushers of candidacies critical of the status quo.

Who believes in the seriousness of assigning, every four years, the task of explaining, in three minutes, how the “problem” of “education” or “housing” or “health” or “security” will be solved? Will the configurations and perceptions of these “problems” be the same for all social classes? Or is it a matter of standardizing them according to the interests of the dominant? How can we explain the strange phenomenon that, every year, three-year period, decade, etc., these “problems” accumulate despite the wisdom of the candidates of the moment? What is the relationship between sniffing or not sniffing a certain product and having the political, economic and scientific-technological conditions to direct the fight against endless social ills?

Approaching four decades after the 1988 Constitution, which region of Brazil has had its “problems” resolved by elected officials? Neither by elected officials nor by appointed officials, since the “solutions” are independent of mere individual qualities, including consumer habits, and are produced in the heat of profound social contradictions.

In these municipal elections, Guilherme Boulos was at the forefront of the difficult task of politicizing the expression of popular interests, including those of the urban sub-proletariat. To go further than what was done, it would be necessary to have a different composition of the ticket, a different (dis)organization of the debates and, most likely, no commitment to victory at the polls.

If those who run the major media outlets value the debate so much, why is Pablo Marçal present, with the right to totally reprehensible expedients, such as childish mockery of candidates' names, truculence, serious accusation based on a homonym, confusion of the electorate about Guilherme Boulos' candidacy number and a falsified medical certificate? When he seriously referred to the mayor of São Paulo? All an incredible distraction by the organizers? It was really Guilherme Boulos who gave national projection to the "coach"?!

The second round arrives, Ricardo Nunes did not attend the CBN debate, Globo-Valor interviewed Boulos! Two sweet treats for those who remember issues related to the management of the São Paulo city hall. And Boulos insisted.

The highlight of the electoral process was the statement made by the state governor, already in the voting process, that a “criminal faction” had directed people to vote for Guilherme Boulos. It should be noted that the mainstream media, without questioning its veracity, published the “news” and I can’t even imagine the furor it caused on social media.

And let's face it, we, critical intellectuals, have done little or nothing to protest against the most regrettable coverage of elections in Brazil by the mainstream media, since the canonization process of Fernando Collor in the year of Grace 1989. It is likely that, once again, we have reduced the seriousness of the voting process (which is great) to that of the electoral process. And even with the so-called quality of democracy.

Yes, there was a heavy electoral defeat that raises serious concerns about broader disputes in which progressive forces have fared less badly. However, as important as the defeat in São Paulo was (and for that very reason), it is necessary to avoid the 2013 syndrome and broaden the focus of the analysis.

Picking up the pieces

Firstly, the results of the elections in all Brazilian capitals, to limit ourselves to these, were catastrophic for the democratic forces. I will limit myself to the most dramatic example, that of Porto Alegre, where the mayor whose administration has very recent links to the intensification of the climate tragedy was reelected.

At the beginning of the century, the city hosted the first and most intense meetings of the World Social Forum, whose motto, “Another world is possible”, was a direct counterpoint to Thatcher’s prophecy “There is no alternative”. At the opening of the first of these meetings, around 70 thousand people marched against the FTAA and for Peace. It was the first time that I had participated in a major internationalist march in Brazil, both in terms of its objectives and its impressive composition. All this was amid countless tours and conferences, including João Pedro Stédile and peasant leader José Bové visiting the Monsanto farm and pulling up genetically modified soybean seedlings.

Throughout the current (restricted) democratic regime in Brazil, the history of municipal elections has not been the best, even if we only consider state capitals. However, during the same regime, the Workers' Party went to the second round of the race for the country's presidency on all eight occasions and emerged victorious in five of them. With one detail: the defeat in 2018, under the coup offensive that deposed Dilma Rousseff and sent Lula to prison, blocked a possible cycle of victories in all presidential elections held here throughout the XNUMXst century.

Also in this case, the size of the victory in 2022 contracted to the point that the democratic field was the most voted thanks to the results of the significant majorities in the eleven states of the Northeast, in three of the North with a small increase in the small difference in Minas Gerais.

Two years later, with the extraordinary offensive to frame the Lula government and the formidable participation of the right in the transfer of funds without any control, the permanent work of the major media outlets to destroy Lula's image, the uncomfortable position in Congress, expressions of the spread of conservatism (including neo-fascism) and the decline of popular mobilizations, including those of the intellectualized middle class, it would be worth examining what led to the candidacy of Guilherme Boulos with the mission of winning.

Hard times

Finland, Sweden, Norway! In all the paradisiacal showcases of what remains of the welfare state, the far right is reaching (or approaching) government. So far, little Denmark has been saved. Germany, under pressure from the US, is entering a very serious economic crisis and is competing with France, also in crisis, to be on the front line of a Western European clash with Russia. In both, neo-fascism is growing, with the difference that in France the left is reconstituting itself. The United Kingdom continues to drift and belligerent. The Netherlands and Belgium are getting involved.

The far right is also growing in Spain, where the PSOE won the elections by a whisker and its prime minister warmly welcomed Edmundo González, the recently defeated Venezuelan presidential candidate, and has just been roundly booed, along with the monarch, for his delay in helping the victims of a devastating climate tragedy. In Portugal, under the rubble of the friendly “geringonça”, the center-left government has given way to the center-right; and the far right is advancing. The latter, openly fascist, is consolidating itself in the Italian government and implementing a novelty in terms of international transactions: in exchange for payment to Albania, it exports to that country unwanted immigrants who were produced by centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism of the so-called West.

In times of crisis of a not-so-ultra imperialism (sorry, Karl Kaustky) that is entering a new phase of delinquency, pay attention to the innovations, for example, demographic ones, to be produced by the new government of democracy in America, tirelessly “observing” elections and elected officials all over the world. Including to destroy popular-based democracies.

Approaching four decades after the 1988 Constitution, which region of Brazil has had its “problems” resolved by the elected officials? Neither by the elected officials nor by those elected. Their origin and “solutions” are independent of mere individual qualities, including consumer habits, and are produced in the heat of profound social contradictions. But, assuming that such “problems” are real and solvable in our society, why haven’t the debate coordinators focused on them? How harsh! These electoral campaigns are increasingly similar to those in the United States.

Guilherme Boulos had extraordinary patience in dealing with this situation without providing elements for the large and mediocre media to present him as a politician or even as having some inclination towards terrorism, unprepared or extremist.

I believe that Guilherme Boulos only had time to reach out to the broad segments that his candidacy intended to mobilize in the last week of the campaign. For those who think about social transformation and increasing popular participation in politics, this is essential. But achieving this is extremely difficult, even more so with a qualitatively different electoral campaign. It was moving to see how, even in small ways, the barriers that make the vast majority of poor people invisible were broken.

Clumsy, intelligent, visibly articulate people, homeless and homeless, young, proud, were able to talk about their torments, hopes, willingness to participate in solving their own problems or simply speak and be seen and heard. Guilherme Boulos' campaign was, in these São Paulo elections, the only one to venture down this path, in sharp contrast to the blatantly hierarchical touch that marked the incursions with a strong militia-like appearance carried out by another candidate.

Even so, in addition to the very short period, Guilherme Boulos' campaign lacked greater emphasis on the importance of popular struggles for the implementation of politics, which, even within a system of domination, can result in significant victories and pave the way for more far-reaching undertakings. However, once again, this was incompatible with the nature of the alliances in question, starting with the composition of the ticket.

If there is no talk of the struggle of the dominated and exploited, the candidate is left with the discourse of competence that ends up being linked to paternalism.

There is no doubt that Guilherme Boulos showed himself to be much more knowledgeable about the reality of São Paulo than the other candidates, including the one running for reelection. However, since he could not talk about popular struggles, an issue with which he is quite familiar, he insisted on stating, for example, that during his term there would be no occupations of properties because everyone would have access to housing. No matter how competent a mayor is, these measures cannot be limited to the will of an individual; the situation is unpredictable and, most likely, even if everything went well, it would take longer than a four-year term.

Furthermore, it is not up to political leaders to decide what popular movements will or will not do. And, despite the importance of PT administrations in several municipalities across the country, there have been several initiatives by leaders to suppress workers' struggles.

Without a doubt, there was a certain line of continuity with aspects of Guilherme Boulos' speech in the previous phases of the campaign.

As an entire tradition of organizations involved in the fight against the order has experienced, co-optation devices are extremely effective in neutralizing the combativeness of those who act in the institutional sphere. It is even worse in this context of the advance of fascism throughout the so-called Western world and the extreme difficulty of the current Brazilian government in freeing itself from the siege on several fronts imposed on it by the most backward sectors of the Brazilian social formation. Alliances cannot be copies of strategic principles. But giving up on them is the first step towards subordination.

In order to avoid losing our way and our fighting spirit in this deeply adverse situation, dialogue and practical initiatives are essential. Especially because worrying clouds are hovering over the international situation and heading south.

Here, the head of government, perhaps the most important active popular leader on the planet, has been forced to capitulate several times. The risk of an articulation of internal fascist forces activating contact between the liberal right-wing coup-plotters (including the major media outlets) and the right-wing government in the world's largest power, which is in dangerous decline, is increasing. These are times of deepening imperialist crisis of vast dimensions.

Facing the new contradictions that are emerging requires frank and fraternal dialogue with all forces focused on unifying a front in which the working classes have a voice and a say.

* Lucio Flávio Rodrigues de Almeida is a professor at the Department of Social Sciences at PUC-SP.

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