By LUIS FELIPE MIGUEL*
Democracy needs to be radicalized, with a more ambitious commitment to social justice
It is hard to look at Brazil today and not come to the conclusion that we are stuck. In Brazil, we elected a government that should have been democratic and progressive, but it has barely managed to do anything. Cornered by Faria Lima, the Centrão, the military, the landowners, the religious fundamentalists, and the bourgeois press, it lives from setback to setback, from concession to concession.
It approved a fiscal package that, once again, makes the poor pay the bill. To approve it, it released billions in payments for amendments by corrupt members of parliament. But even then the “market” was not satisfied. It does not accept any gesture of minimal independence, any crumb thrown in to satisfy the government’s social base: it wants total and absolute submission. Speculation against the real continues and the government sees no other way out than to bow down more and more.
After two years of complaining, with reason, about Roberto Campos Neto's management of the Central Bank, the Lula government finds itself forced to signal that its nominee, Gabriel Galípolo, will continue in the same vein.
And when Flávio Dino once again puts the brakes on the spree of parliamentary amendments, the government feels threatened because it knows that the reaction from the owners of Congress will be tremendous.
The Supreme Court, in turn, has acted in favor of the formal instruments of democracy (after having legitimized the 2016 coup, it is worth remembering). But it has already shown that it is not willing to save any of the measures to protect the working class that we have lost in recent years. When it fights with Congress, it is a dispute for space. And the priority is to maintain the many privileges of the Judiciary, the salaries inflated by a thousand perks, and the almost absolute impunity of its members.
The ministers of the Supreme Court travel around the world with perks paid for by big companies. Corrupt capitalists, corrupt politicians, murderous gambling bosses, it seems that everyone has a minister of the Supreme Court to call their own.
I mentioned bookmakers, but that’s not all. All sectors of organized crime – PCC, militiamen, etc. – have infiltrated the Legislative, Judiciary and Executive branches. They have their councilors and deputies, their judges and appellate court judges, their police chiefs and colonels.
We can see some relief in the fact that the military apparently accepted the arrest of one of their own, General Braga Netto, and know that others, such as Augusto Heleno, are already a done deal. But, apart from that, they do not accept any steps being taken to increase the civilian power's control over them. The recent episode, in which the Navy released a video of blatant insubordination against the legitimate government on social media, is revealing. Lula was angry and thought about firing the commander of the force, but was dissuaded and let it go.
I could talk about the Conanda meeting, in which, fearing the noise of religious fundamentalists, the government voted against the resolution that would guarantee raped girls access to their right to legal abortion.
I could talk about bridges that collapse without maintenance, even though reports accumulate year after year. I could talk about vaccination coverage that remains lacking, two years after the new government took office.
This country is so disheartening. The worst thing is knowing how limited our horizons are. We can dream of a new victory in 2026, to prevent the far right from returning to Planalto, but we cannot dream of a government that governs. Any government will be trapped.
The only hope for Brazil, as Leonel Brizola knew, was presidentialism. The possibility of electing a more left-wing president, who would implement some measures in favor of the majority.
What has been done since the 2016 coup was to empty the presidency of much of its power. With a clear plan; in the words of Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, written shortly after the overthrow of Dilma Rousseff, to impose an “order of domination (…) devoid of conciliatory purposes towards the dominated segments.”
This project remains in force – and now they are seeking to implement it even without having to reverse the results of the presidential elections, as they did eight and a half years ago.
It is difficult to imagine a change that would come about through this Congress, this Judiciary, this political elite. Without an increase in the capacity for pressure – that is, mobilization and organization – of the working class and the dominated in general, there is very little room for progress.
The revolution I'm talking about doesn't have to involve some storming of the Winter Palace.
But the democratic experiment that was fractured with the deposition of Dilma Rousseff was based on an unstable balance between democratic rules and deep social inequalities, identical to that which prevailed in the previous democratic period (1945-1964), which is unlikely to be reactivated.
A new balance will need to be achieved. Democracy needs to be radicalized, with a more ambitious commitment to social justice. This path, unfortunately unlikely in the short term, requires a revolutionary transformation of the historical pattern of the Brazilian State's relationship with the elites and the working classes.
Without this revolution, we cannot even maintain a minimally “civilized” liberal democracy.
* Luis Felipe Miguel He is a professor at the Institute of Political Science at UnB. Author, among other books, of Democracy in the capitalist periphery: impasses in Brazil (authentic). [https://amzn.to/45NRwS2].
Originally posted on the author's social media.
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