POLITICS-BRAZIL: Workers Party Wrestles with Ideology

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Carlos Castilho

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 23 1999 (IPS) - Brazil’s Workers Party (PT) opens its second National Congress Wednesday with two major agenda items: Decide whether or not to modify its ideological foundations, and choose a candidate for the 2002 presidential elections.

The nearly 500 delegates of the PT, the largest political opposition force in the country, will debate through Sunday, deciding whether or not the Congress will end with a radical PT or a party that adopts a moderate stance on issues such as neo- liberalism and electoral alliances.

The PT is going through difficult times due to an occasionally violent battle between moderates and radicals in Rio de Janeiro state, where the party is the minor partner in the centre-left government led by Anthony Garotinho, of the Democratic Labour Party (PDT).

In Rio, the PT’s radical faction broke ties with governor Garotinho while the moderates continue working in their appointed posts in the state administration.

The tension in Rio has infected the party at the national level and inevitably means heated debates for the party congress to begin tommorow in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais state.

In the ideological arena, the principal argument will be between those who see socialism as the only option and those who propose a “third way,” something between Marxism-Leninism and neo- liberalism.

The PT’s major promoters of ideological change are José Genoino, parliamentarian and former guerrilla leader, Cristovam Buarque, former governor of the Federal District and former president of the University of Brasilia, senator Eduardo Suplicy, and former Porto Alegre mayor Tarso Genro.

The most outspoken personalities who favour maintaining a strong socialist foundation include parliamentarian Milton Temer, Movimento dos Sem Terra (Landless Movement) leader Joao Pedro Stedile, and governor of Rio Grande do Sul state, Olivio Dutra.

The PT’s eminent leader, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (‘Lula’), has avoided taking sides in the party’s internal disputes, which involve five large factions.

But the labour leader, who has been defeated in three presidential elections, leans toward the moderates, but without jeopardising the perception among most party activists that he is the only leader capable of maintaining party unity.

Representative José Genoino and former governor Cristovam Buarque affirm that both classic socialism and neo-liberalism are outdated.

“No longer can we have one unique philosophical framework,” Genoino told IPS, “The market must be democratised, not eliminated. Some privatisations are necessary and others are unnecessary.”

Parliamentarian Milton Temer, a former journalist from Rio de Janeiro who leads the party’s ‘Refazendo’ (Rebuilding) faction, had a stern response to Genoino and Buarque’s proposals.

“The two want to abandon the ideas that made the party what it is today. If we become social-democrats, the labour and peasant movements will abandon us. Young people will look for a different party. It is a betrayal of our ideals,” Temer asserted.

According to the daily Folha de Sao Paulo, the PT moderates already have 56 percent of the Congress participants’ votes assured, and the possibility of winning as much as 70 percent, depending on the play of alliances between the five internal factions.

These numbers practically assure that the term “socialism” will be eliminated from the party congress’s final document.

But political analysts are convinced that the PT’s official line will continue to harshly criticise Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The PT is already focussing on the electoral race for 2002 and its political potential depends on its ability to capitalise on the middle-class voter’s frustration and discontent with the Cardoso government.

“The current social and economic moment is immensely favourable for the PT, but the problem is the selection of a candidate,” stated political analyst Marcio Moreira Alves in the conservative Rio de Janeiro daily, ‘O Globo.’

In the three previous elections, Lula was the obvious candidate for all PT activists, but the party came up against serious doubts among middle class and urban voters.

But there has been an important political shift. The middle class is frustrated with president Cardoso and could vote for Lula without fear of radical political changes, but the sector does not seem to believe that a PT candidate can win.

Despite his role in the PT, Lula can no longer count on the unanimous support of his party, and some sectors – including the moderates – believe that another electoral defeat is inevitable if the veteran leader and former metal-worker is chosen as the PT’s presidential candidate for a fourth run.

The names Genoino and Buarque are most often mentioned as Lula’s possible replacements for the race to succeed Cardoso. But the political future of the two depends on the PT National Congress results in Belo Horizonte.