By JEAN MARC VON DER WEID*

It is an illusion to think that one can win elections with electoral strategies and govern with a radicalized “hidden” agenda.

1.

In the first months of 2023, I wrote a series of articles entitled “The Trap”, analyzing the threats to a good government by President Lula in his third term. One of these articles focused on the relationship between the executive and legislative branches and pointed out the challenge of governing with (or against) a Congress dominated by the Centrão and the far-right Bolsonaro supporters. Now, as the Lula III government approaches its final moments, less than a year before the start of the next presidential elections, it is worth examining how he faced this challenge.

The image that comes to mind to describe what I see is that of a fly (or butterfly or any other insect) trapped in a spider's web. Once captured, the fly becomes more entangled with every movement it makes to free itself from the spider that is preparing to devour it.

It was already known that the problem was gigantic. Congress, elected in the same election in which President Lula beat Bolsonaro by less than 1% of the valid votes, has the most right-wing composition in our history, comparable only to that at the end of the empire, when slave-owning landowners ruled.

The current Congress inherited from Jair Bolsonaro's term an unprecedented empowerment in Brazil's history. Fearful of being impeached, Bolsonaro surrendered to the Centrão, which took the reins of power and began to control the budget through the so-called mandatory amendments (individual, by bench, by committee and finally by Pix and secret amendments, controlled by the presidents of the Chamber and the Senate) which, by the way, were voted on at the end of Dilma Rousseff's government, another very weakened president.

Some people believe that this is not a new situation and that both Lula and Dilma Rousseff had to govern with an opposition majority. The difference with the current situation, however, is huge. In the first popular governments, the extreme right did not exist in Congress or in society as an articulated expression, although conservatism was rampant among parliamentarians. Among the elected representatives of the Centrão, patronage predominated, that is, the defense of each person's material and political-electoral interests.

Despite many problems, popular governments were able to control important votes through vote buying, first through the mechanism known as the “mensalão” and later through the so-called “petrolão”. As Lula’s Justice Minister said during his first term, “nothing that had not been done by all governments in Brazil, the so-called “slush fund””. The problem is that the justice system, always lenient with right-wing governments, used and abused its prerogatives to corner the governments of Lula and, above all, Dilma. Likewise, the mainstream media took advantage of the opportunity and slammed the presidents, the PT and the left without giving them a break.

The price paid by the two left-wing presidents and the PT was enormous. From defenders of ethics in politics, they became, in the eyes of the electorate, card-carrying corrupt individuals. Paradoxically, the corrupt deputies and senators from the Centrão were much less targeted, although some were also framed by the courts.

2.

In the current term, the situation has become much worse due to the aforementioned empowerment of Congress. Control of a significant and growing portion of the budget has fallen into the hands of those who in the past received favors (or allowances) from the government in exchange for votes. The power of the executive branch has been shared with the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, and currently, Hugo Motta and Davi Alcolumbre. Lira and Alcolumbre have shown themselves to be the most daring in blackmailing the executive branch, while Motta sharpens his claws and, compared to the others, Pacheco even seems like a republican gentleman.

With fewer resources and powers to buy votes at retail, the government surrendered to the Centrão and sought to co-opt the political parties (Republicans, Democratic Union, MDB, and others) by handing over Ministries to their appointees. It didn't work. The Centrão parties accepted the Ministries, but did not deliver the votes the government needed. In each vote, the majority of deputies and (to a lesser extent) senators from the government's base voted against the executive branch.

In a recent long interview, the president of one of these parties pointed out the reason for the infidelities. According to him, Lula only gave ministries of lesser importance (i.e., those with smaller budgets) to his allies and reserved the best for the PT. The complaint extended to the lack of autonomy for ministers to appoint whoever they wanted, having to live with PT nominations in second and third tiers.

The greedy leaders of the Centrão wanted large ministries with “closed doors.” And we cannot forget that even the so-called left-wing parties, such as the PDT and the PSB, never guaranteed all their votes for the government’s projects.

In these two and a half years, this difficult relationship has been further clouded by scandals: once again, the specter of corruption among allies (not only those from the Centrão, since the last and most resounding one was centered on the PDT) has come to haunt a PT government. For the average voter, the fact that the accusations do not incriminate the president or the PT ministers is of little interest. The reading is that the government is (or continues to be) corrupt, period, even more so with the history of Lava Jato still fresh in the collective memory.

In parentheses, the left, and the PT in particular, consider that the annulment of the Lava Jato convictions (led by the nefarious Sérgio Moro and his ilk) by the Supreme Court has cleaned up their image in the eyes of the electorate. How wrong they are. The vast majority continue to believe in the truth of the convictions and ignore the PT narrative that blames the abuses of the courts and the press for the accusations.

The materiality of many of the evidence and confessions makes the PT narrative fragile and not very credible. The electorate prefers to believe that, “as always in Brazil, the corrupt always get away with it.” And they seem to care little about the fact that Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters have shamelessly taken part in countless scandals during their government. At best, the most widespread attitude among voters seems to be that all politicians (left and right) are the same when it comes to corruption, “tarred with the same brush,” which would make the issue electorally neutral in an election.

I have read many analyses indicating that Lula has no alternative but to do what he is doing, something like giving up his rings so as not to lose his fingers. This tactic of making endless concessions to the right-wing Congress, including with left-wing parties voting with the right on several projects (“so that the government is not defeated”), is explained by the strategy of seeking to promote vigorous economic growth, with income distribution and full employment, along with more and more social programs benefiting more and more voters.

In theory, this strategy would allow us to cross the arid desert of this government and reach the 2026 elections with enough popularity to reelect Lula and gain strength in Congress and state governments for Lula IV to govern in better conditions.

3.

That is not how the band is playing. To begin with, we have to assess what development is being promoted and then look at the political and electoral impact of the results. To sum up, there is not really a government program, but rather a sequence of measures that perpetuate policies that already existed and that essentially aim to achieve an electoral result.

One of the rare proposals for structural change, tax reform, was nothing more than a simplification of the system, even with such a large number of privileges and exemptions that the simplified tax system maintained the highest taxation in the world. And the attempt to charge more taxes to rentiers has been dismantled by Congress.

The executive branch seems mired in its internal contradictions and tied down by the extremely unfavorable correlation of forces in Congress. And this government does not show even a pale semblance of the pressure that civil society and social movements were able to exert on the opposition during the years of Sarney, Collor, Itamar and FHC. Lula III faces the right-wingers in Congress with his meager parliamentary forces and constant negotiations with the Centrão, without the counterweight that President Petrus can provide in Colombian society.

How did we get to this situation? We need to review the path our left has taken over time and how it has transformed from revolutionary to reformist, from reformist to populist, and from populist to electoral.

The left has always set as its goal the seizure of power through a political revolution that would bring representation of the oppressed classes to a government whose mission would be the social revolution. The historical models of the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions pointed to the need for violence to come to power, using democratic (so-called “bourgeois”) freedoms only as a tactic. In all cases, the changes were made with the creation of dictatorial regimes and with great sacrifices for the popular masses, especially in the regimes of dictatorship “of the proletariat”).

My generation grew up in the cult of revolutionary processes of taking power. With the defeat of the populist reformism of João Goulart's government and the advent of the military regime for 21 years, the fight for freedom and democracy prevailed over the fight for social revolution. With the defeat of the guerrilla opposition, which had a narrow social base in the city and countryside, the survivors abandoned the quest to take power through armed struggle and space opened up for a mass political struggle for redemocratization.

This struggle was victorious, including peaceful movements by workers, students, intellectuals and artists (with little support from the peasantry) and sectors of the bourgeoisie who were breaking with a military regime that had become inconvenient. It all culminated in the largest mass movement in our history, the Direct now, which brought millions of people to the streets across the country and sealed the departure of the military from power. It was a victory for nonviolence, but what was at stake was the form of government and not the predominance of a class and an economic and social system, capitalism.

All this political momentum ended up being channeled into the Constituent Assembly electoral process, but the conservative vote showed its resilience, helped by the electoral legislation inherited from the military regime, and the Centrão ended up limiting progress in the new Constitution. This made a lot of progress in terms of political guarantees of freedom and democracy, but much less in terms of social rights.

All the controversy surrounding the issue of Agrarian Reform ended up, in essence, reaffirming the right to property. The inclusion of the concept of the social right to land was considered a great step forward, but it was never properly regulated.

The reformed left, united in the PT, took with it the survivors of the armed struggle and the clandestine struggle, and many continued to seek to radicalize social transformations through mass movements. This vision of a party centered on social mobilization and class struggle prevailed in the 80s. However, even during this period, the PT was divided between reformism and the revolutionary dream. The party never opened the debate on how to come to power, whether through elections or through armed means.

4.

This lack of definition led the PT to initially use the electoral space more as an opportunity to promote its ideas and proposals, with little regard for electoral success or, at least, not having this as its main objective. However, the intention to advance in the electoral space was evident from the beginning. In 1982, the PT refused to form an electoral alliance with Brizola, which was facilitated by the so-called linked vote, which prevented coalitions.

But the PT sought a candidate for governor within the PDT, former congressman Lisâneas Maciel, trying to present itself with a less radical and more electorally “broad” profile. The rest of the PT ticket had a more PTist, radical and sectarian face.

This ambivalence regarding electoral processes and their role in a strategy to come to power was reflected in the 1989 presidential election. Lula went to the second round against Collor (with 0,5% more votes than Brizola and 1% more than Covas), but the PT did not adopt the reformist strategy that called for a pragmatic alliance with the forces symbolized by the populist, reformist and centrist candidates defeated in the first round (Brizola, Covas and Ulisses). The PT preferred to maintain a “pure blood”, more radicalized government proposal and ended up being defeated by Fernando Collor.

The movement that overthrew Fernando Collor was led by the PT, but all the reformist forces joined forces in the demonstrations, as had happened in the Diretas Já campaign. However, Itamar Franco's invitation to form a reformist-populist government including the PT, PSB, PSDB and PMDB was rejected by the PT, the main left-wing force in the country. Without alternative support to govern, Itamar formed a centrist alliance, where the PSB marked the limit to the left and the PFL the limit to the right, including the PSDB (then in the center left) and the PMDB (then in the center right).

The PT was looking ahead to the 1994 election, which was approaching, and preferred to remain in the opposition, counting on the worsening economic crisis left by the Collor period to win the election with a more radical reformist candidate. The Plano Real and inflation control changed the situation and the PSDB won by a landslide in the first round, that year and in 1998.

Throughout the 1990s, the PT began the shift towards the center that led the left-wing front (PT, PSB, PDT and PCdoB) to victory in 2002. On the other hand, the PSDB, despite maintaining some reformist proposals (beginning of agrarian reform, social programs), moved towards the right, adopting a neoliberal economic program in government.

In these years, the PT formulated programs based on committees that involved civil society organizations, social movements and activists. The programs were, in general, quite in-depth and as radical as the reality of the most varied issues required. However, the presidential campaigns filtered out many of the most radical elements of the proposals, frustrating both the experts who formulated them and the activists who identified with them.

Little by little, the party leadership's orientation began to be to convert the proposals into content that was more palatable to the electorate. The division between the grassroots activists, who were part of the social movements and sought to radicalize the mobilizations, and the electoral strategies predominant in the leadership, aiming to win deputies, senators, councilors, mayors, governors and, above all, the presidency of the Republic, was widening, with the latter becoming increasingly predominant.

The transformation of the PT into a classic populist party, with successive concessions to the ruling classes in its programs, allowed it to come to government (but not to power), especially after Lula launched the Letter to Brazilians in the second round of 2002, a document that indicated the maintenance of FHC's economic policy. However, the result of the congressional elections indicated that the right wing remained powerful and Lula had to govern in a minority.

This dichotomy could have been resolved if the PT had a coherent reformist populist vision. Lula and the PT did not take the consequences of the election results, where the party's vote for the Chamber of Deputies was 25%, while the left as a whole was around 30%. Lula won by a margin of around 3,5% over Serra, a vote marked more by rejection of FHC's second government than by Lula's own, much less by the PT's support.

If the PT had adopted a reformist strategy, it would have formed a government in alliance with the centrist forces, particularly the PSDB and the PMDB. To manage as it did, full of concessions to conservative and even right-wing forces, such as agribusiness, it did not need a pure left-wing government; quite the opposite. But the PT preferred a constant guerrilla war with the media and Congress, insisting on testing more radical proposals, generally to satisfy the party's base. It lost in almost every case and, little by little, it abandoned these more left-wing "gestures" and governed increasingly to the right.

5.

O modus operandi The PT's strategy has also been changing over this period, as its practices have become increasingly focused on winning elections and less on strengthening social movements. Electoral campaigns are no longer led by political figures, but by increasingly unavoidable marketing experts. The message becomes less important than the way it is conveyed. Priority issues are now defined by opinion polls, as is the behavior of candidates. As a result, the PT and the rest of the parliamentary left are dissolving into the general mess of electoralism.

The party's internal life is also becoming increasingly similar to that of parties in general, with manipulation of internal elections, distribution of positions, creation of true "captaincies" under the control of irremovable leaders. The grassroots militants have grown old and retired or have become disillusioned and moved away.

Of course, grassroots activists active in their movements continue to be present in the PT's ranks, but as an internal political force they have lost the fight and, today, the features that define the party are different: the fight for reelection at all levels, which guarantees a space of privileges for a few and the increasingly blatant abandonment of a vision of social transformation.

Since then, history has repeated itself. The balance of political forces limited the government's reformism, which ended up maintaining the broad economic guidelines inherited from the PSDB's neoliberalism, seasoned with important social programs to address the needs of the poorest, but without addressing essential issues, in particular the emphasis on supporting the rapidly expanding agribusiness sector while family farming was losing ground.

With the PT in government, social movements (an essential basis for its electoral victories) were being demobilized, either by calling on many leaders to form part of the State bureaucracy, or by the mechanism of co-optation through the participation of their representatives in the numerous (consultative) councils created by the government.

The struggles for demands were replaced by negotiations in the offices and the movements disarmed themselves throughout the 14 years of the left in government. The visible result was the near indifference to Dilma's impeachment and to Lula's imprisonment, reduced to the passionate demonstrations of the few thousand who witnessed the dramatic outcome at the union in São Bernardo.

The PT and the left in general did not realize the trap left by the electoral system inherited from the military regime, which gave disproportionate weight to the vote of the “corners”, politically more backward, creating a mismatch between the vote for president and the vote for Congress, a problem that persists to this day.

However, the dependence of the poorest on social programs has led to a change in the electoral support of the PT and Lula himself, with loyal backlands (until recently) and urban voters, including those from working-class bases, being lost. And with the entry of Pentecostalism into politics, attracting the poorest sectors of the population to a conservative vote.

Returning to the subject of the Lula III government's proposal, we must conclude that we do not have a program of economic and social reforms being implemented. The government's initiatives are completely focused on the search for popularity and votes, and any and all strategic considerations about the country's direction have already been sacrificed.

On the other hand, the development proposal adopted by popular governments remained essentially untouched. The left continues to seek economic growth as it has always been, only aiming, in good reformism, at a better distribution of income. This crude developmentalism ignored the new global reality that has imposed the need to reorient the economy to face the new challenges of sustainability. The environmental issue, in particular, continued to be seen as an obstacle to development and was left aside at each impasse.

To neutralize enemies or attract allies, the government forgets everything: the environmental crises that afflict us and announce catastrophic threats, the deindustrialization of the economy, the weakening of social rights, and the uberization of work, the gradual and inescapable depletion of fossil energy sources, among others.

The government's focus is on increasing GDP, income and employment, no matter what. And the statistics seem to indicate that it is winning. This success, however, is not being converted into increased support for the government. GDP is increasing (against the wishes of the opposition, the mainstream media and social networks) moderately, but the increase in this index does not in itself mean better living conditions for the population, but rather more profits for the rentiers and capitalists, especially those in agribusiness.

The favorable indexes have depended on the growth of agricultural and mineral exports, with no effect on the population. Employment is growing, especially in the informal economy (commerce and services) and income, including that which depends on social programs, is being eroded by food inflation (for which the government has no proposal) and by spending on BETs, which already leaves 75% of Brazilian adults in debt. On the other hand, public education and health services are dilapidated, the INSS waiting list has doubled since the advent of Lula III and the security problem is getting worse every day, and the population wrongly believes that the federal government is to blame.

6.

The attempt to treat the loss of popularity as a communication problem is a serious mistake. As brilliant as the messages of some deputies defending unsustainable narratives were, the result was poor, from the case of the blouses, the Pix, the retirements and the IOF.

To close the coffin, all that remains is to remember that the government bet on international environmental leadership, which will be capitalized on at COP30. However, it is seeing the narrative of reduced deforestation being refuted with the recent announcement of an exponential increase in fires in 2024, with even more harmful effects.

Also going down badly among environmentalists here and around the world is the brutal pressure from the government, Petrobras and Lula himself on Ibama and Minister Marina Silva, with the aim of authorizing oil exploration in the Equatorial Margin. The announcement of Brazil's accession to the denialist bloc OPEC+ left Lula's admirers everywhere open-mouthed and disappointed.

And, although it was not a government proposal, it is clear that the government and the PT negotiated with Davi Alcolumbre to approve the so-called “devastation” bill, which practically overturns all environmental licensing. After leaving Marina exposed in the Senate’s hyena den, several members of the government and the PT, including the president himself, expressed solidarity with Marina, repudiating the misogynistic and racist attacks, but without explaining how they left her in this situation, fighting alone against barbarity. And the solidarity is limited to the way the senators clashed with the minister, without a word about the substantive elements of the dispute.

And last but not least, COP30 may have to be moved to another country due to the precarious infrastructure conditions in Belém to accommodate 50 people for the event. Or, even worse, the event may be held without the necessary conditions and succumb to an organizational disaster under the gaze of the national and international press.

The sham coalition government has the majority of its base preparing to disembark and form a right-wing or far-right ticket, with or without the Bolsonaro family at the helm. Every move the government makes is being criticized in Congress, on social media, and in the mainstream media. All of this without any reaction from society, where demobilization and discouragement are rife.

Meanwhile, left-wing parties are focusing on next year's elections, without a program to present that will mobilize society. What is taking up space are the disputes over candidates for governor or senator. And if Lula decides to quit and go home, the left will be torn apart when choosing a replacement candidate.

The “fly” is struggling, including with a lot of “friendly fire” hitting Janja or Fernando Haddad, and with each jerk it gets more tangled in the web.

In the current scenario, we are reduced to a sterile debate within the left about the inconvenience (sometimes described as a tactical error or even betrayal) of criticizing Lula or the government, “giving strength to Bolsonarism.” And if the left in government no longer has a proposal or program for the country, neither does the left outside it, except in a fragmented way.

Identity movements have their own specific programs, as do environmentalists. However, they lack an overall vision of the demands of the current historical moment, of humanity and of our own. And without a clear vision of the future that threatens us and of the urgent proposals to be implemented to mitigate the catastrophes in perspective, the electorate will vote for whoever is most skilled at promising heaven once in the federal executive and whoever is smartest at promising any municipal project, with resources from parliamentary amendments.

And finally, what could Lula have done in his government? Ignore Congress and mobilize the masses to pressure him? I don't believe that, with such a stance, Lula would have lasted long without being impeached, but the alternative put into practice in this government also leads to disaster and loss of the elections. However, it would make a big difference to fall defending important and clear policies for the people or to fall tangled up like a fly in a spider's web, discredited and alone.

In this calamitous situation, there are no solutions, especially if they are centered exclusively on the axis of an electoral victory. Without a political party capable of polarizing the process of formulating a proposal for sustainable development, with the participation of civil society, the only possibility is the autonomous mobilization of this civil society.

One of the most important political events of the present day is the formation of thousands of interest groups, covering all aspects of economic, social, cultural and political life in recent decades, spread throughout the country. Proposals that are in-depth and well-developed abound, although they are still fragmented. It is time to seek to bring together all these fragmented groups in the construction of a national project, starting with the adoption of a development program that abandons the dominant model and responds to the challenges of the crises that plague us and grow with each passing year. A program of this type implies seeking to break with the capitalist system, aiming for a socialist and democratic regime. This entire process, even if it manages to organize itself, will hardly be able to win the 2026 elections, but we need to break the impasse in which we find ourselves today, trapped in the web of fighting to maintain a so-called left-wing government, but which perpetuates the dominant social and economic model, with all its chorus of disastrous impacts.

We need to learn that it is not enough to just run for government; we need to have the political support needed to do what is necessary. It is an illusion to think that we can win elections with electoral strategies and govern with a radicalized “hidden” agenda.

As Pepe Mujica said, “convincing is more important than winning”.

*Jean Marc von der Weid is a former president of the UNE (1969-71). Founder of the non-governmental organization Family Agriculture and Agroecology (ASTA).

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