BRAZIL: Scandal Threatens Latin American Left, Say Analysts

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 8 2005 (IPS) - The shockwaves created by the corruption scandal that erupted a month ago in Brazil’s ruling left-wing Workers Party (PT) could provoke irreversible damage to the left in Latin America as a whole, according to some observers.

The fear that the crisis in the Brazilian left could spread to the rest of the region is shared by current and former PT members, activists and progressive analysts, who are nonetheless hopeful that some solution can be found.

The allegations of government corruption have already led to the Jun. 6 resignation of José Dirceu from his position as President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva’s chief of staff, and threaten to bring down a number of other lawmakers and leaders from the PT and allied parties.

While the possibility that the scandal could eventually topple Lula himself cannot be completely ruled out, it appears that not even the opposition is interested in seeing this happen.

If the crisis now facing the Brazilian government becomes even more acute, it would become "a tsunami not only for the PT, but for leftist forces in general," including other parties and groups that have split off from the PT, said Daniel Aarao Reis, a professor of contemporary history at the Fluminense Federal University, in an interview with IPS.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt a heavy blow to the left around the world, including leftist currents that were critical of or even hostile towards followers of the Soviet model, because it represented the "demoralisation" of the socialist model in general, commented Reis, who left the PT in March.

Lawmaker Fernando Gabeira, who left the PT last year to return to the Green Party, which he had helped to found in Brazil in the 1980s, said he does not need to wait and see how the current crisis evolves, because he is already convinced that it will end in the collapse of the PT and the "fragmentation of the left."

He has no doubt that lawmakers from parties allied with the PT were paid bribes by the ruling party in exchange for their support for government initiatives. It was this allegation, made by former Labour Party (PTB) leader Roberto Jefferson, that gave rise to the scandal currently engulfing the PT and, by extension, the Lula government itself.

These purported irregularities cast doubt on the decisions adopted by the Congress under PT leadership and do further damage to the already tarnished image of representative democracy, said Gabeira, who like Reis was a member of the armed guerrilla groups that fought against the 1964-1985 military dictatorship in Brazil.

Allegations of corruption in the Congress and public enterprises took on greater weight in recent weeks in light of testimony given before the ethics board of the Chamber of Deputies and the congressional inquiry commission established to look into a bribery scheme uncovered in the state-run post office (in which Jefferson and the PTB are implicated).

More fuel was added to the fire by recent press reports that a businessman suspected of paying bribes to lawmakers with "dirty" money had co-signed and paid off part of a bank loan taken out by the PT. These reports led to the resignation of two PT leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

Lawmaker Denise Frossard – a former judge widely known for having shut down an illegal lottery operation in Rio de Janeiro by sending the men who ran it to jail – commented that the corruption ring supposedly set up in state companies and agencies by party leaders and company directors has all the markings of an organised crime network.

Lula is facing "an enormous challenge" and he is not a leader know for daring decisions, of the type who "grow stronger in the face of adversity," such as Charles de Gaulle in France and Salvador Allende in Chile, remarked Reis.

Iván Valente, a legislator from the PT faction know as Popular Socialist Action, believes that the outcome of the crisis will become clear within a month, and that there are three possible scenarios for the future of the party, all of which will entail a certain weakening of its former power.

One is the continuity of the party’s current orientation, with the PT supporting the government’s conservative economic policies, and thereby losing its "transformational drive" and becoming a "purely electoral party."

If this is the path adopted by the PT, it will almost certainly lose its current ties with the country’s social movements, and depend instead on its own economic power and control of state and local governments, he predicted.

In the second scenario, the more leftist currents within the party would take over the helm when more than 800,000 PT members meet in September to elect the party’s leaders.

This is not likely to happen, and even if it did, the PT would still suffer a certain loss of popular support, although it would at least be in a better position to "regroup its forces and grow in the long term," Valente told IPS.

The third and final possible scenario is a party split, with the more leftist wing of the PT breaking away if it does not manage to wrest control from the current leadership.

Creating a viable alternative would take time, but could be speeded up considerably by merging with other parties and forging alliances with social movements, said Valente.

"The defeat of the PT’s historical political platform has already provoked enormous damage to the left as a whole," due to "frustrated expectations," he noted. As a result, "the government is headed for suicide" if Lula insists on maintaining his current economic policies and alliances with the right," he argued.

Moreover, the repercussions would extend to left wing forces throughout Latin America, because the PT seemed to be in a perfect position to promote true popular democracy, but it ultimately failed by choosing "the wrong paths," he added.

Positive examples, like Argentine President Néstor Kirchner’s renegotiation of the country’s foreign debt on more acceptable terms, or the social and political transformations in Venezuela headed up by President Hugo Chávez, are still largely unknown, Valente admitted.

The fallout of the current crisis in Brazil was evident at the 12th Sao Paulo Forum, a gathering of leftist political parties and social movements from throughout Latin America held on an almost annual basis, and initiated by the PT in 1990, in the city for which it is named.

This year’s forum, held Jul. 1-4, drew 364 representatives from 150 political parties and social organisations in 35 countries.

While the participants expressed their traditional solidarity with the PT and condemnation of imperialism and the right, many were clearly perplexed by the allegations of corruption against the PT and the Lula administration, whose unanimous support from the left wing forces of the region could be in very real danger of slipping.

In Gabeira’s view, Brazil’s progressive forces need to promote a process of "re-founding", with an emphasis on strengthening democracy and rejecting "the authoritarian left for whom the ends justify the means," as he describes the elements that currently control the PT.

The PT still has "critical mass" and there are many party leaders who could conceivably head up a "counter-offensive", ridding the PT of corrupt elements and pushing for a major reform of the current political system, which fosters corruption and fails to provide true representativity. The problem is that these individuals are essentially paralysed, and the party is greatly dependent on Lula, concluded Reis.