Brazil Political and Business Comment - Lula Wins and Takes on a Tough Adversary

Lula Wins and Takes on a Tough Adversary – Hunger

01 November 2002

by John Fitzpatrick

The beaming, benevolent face of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has been plastered across front pages of newspapers, magazine covers, television screens and street hoardings since his presidential victory and he is right to smile. A year ago he had been virtually written off by most observers (including your correspondent) who thought he would gradually lose his lead in opinion polls and end up as a four-time loser heading for the history books.

However, Lula consolidated this early lead and was never seriously challenged. He won 61% of the votes and took every state bar one, Alagoas. His strength was built on the left-wing PT, which he founded 20 years ago, plus an odd combination of old-style leftists and nationalists, evangelicals, influential politicians from the centre and right, some with questionable backgrounds, Roman Catholics, trade unionists and even members of the PMDB which, along with the PSDB, formed the base of his rival Jose Serra. The result was that for the last three months or so the outcome was never in doubt.

Although Lula faced some criticism for cuddling up to such disparate allies, the voters obviously never held it against him. The reason is clear – people voted for Lula the man, not Lula the PT candidate. Lula is a familiar face and represents change but not radical change. People want the economy to grow but they do not want the return of high inflation. They also want jobs and a better social system and a crackdown on crime. They are not interested in waving the red flag or the kind of populism which swept Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to victory but has divided that country ever since. Nor, despite the views of a number of uninformed Americans, do they want a Castroite regime. I know several middle-class people, whom I would have thought to be natural Serra voters, who voted for Lula. They saw nothing odd in voting for Lula as president and the PSDB´s Geraldo Alckmin as São Paulo state governor instead of the PT´s Jose Genoino, who is extremely close to Lula.

Chance to Throw Off PT Mantle

One Brazilian observer said “Lula-ism” rather than “PT-ism” had won the day. By winning by such a huge majority Lula now has the chance to become his own man. He has a duty to cast off the PT´s old mantle and live up to the trust voters have placed in him. He knows they voted for the “light” version of Lula and he even referred to his “peace and love” approach several times so he cannot ethically go back to the “old” Lula. Brazil does not need a Jeckyll and Hyde president.

Immediately after Serra conceded defeat on Sunday evening, Lula said he would be the president of all Brazilians and not just PT supporters. This, of course, is standard talk from any winning candidate but the people will expect him to abide by this pledge, even though a couple of days later he told his supporters he would not let them down. Lula had already shown that he is bigger than the party by choosing as his running mate, a millionaire businessman from the evangelical PL party, against the wishes of PT stalwarts. Like the UK’s Tony Blair, Lula can now embody the beliefs of the party and voters without being bound by them. Should anyone think this is a betrayal of one´s party and supporters let us recall the remark by Edmund Burke that he could only do his duty to his electorate if they allowed him to exercise his own conscience on the right way to tackle problems, rather than forcing him to obey their dictates.

In his first public policy statement Lula made two important announcements - on ways to increase employment and a campaign to try and end hunger within a year. These allowed him to show his social credentials and tackle two major problems. However, job creation will require precisely the policies which the PT is against, such as amending the current labour law which makes it difficult to dismiss employees and discourages hiring new staff, especially for part-time work. The pension system which assures a comfortable pension for millions of former public service employees, some of them only in their 40s and 50s, is a scandal and huge burden on the taxpayer. None of the presidential candidates dared address this running sore during the campaign. Tax reform is also vital in lifting the burden on companies and individuals, leaving companies with more of their revenues to invest in new plant and employees with more of their pay cheques or buy goods.

The fact that Fernando Henrique Cardoso´s administrations have only been able to nibble at these reforms during eight years shows how difficult it will be to tackle them. Interest rates are among the highest in the world and credit, even at these astronomic rates, is scarce so firms do not have the resources to invest. Let us hope Lula will tackle these stubborn problems as a way of creating new jobs rather than coming up with non-productive phony job creation schemes at the taxpayer´s expense.

When was Lula Last Hungry?

No-one could dispute his other priority, ending hunger but, at the same time, one cannot help but wonder if this project is not a little naive. Lula may have been born in the poverty-stricken Northeast and forced to migrate to São Paulo when he was just a skinny, little boy but one look at his stocky frame tells you that it is a long time since he personally has been hungry. What does he know about hunger and what does he mean by it?

I am not trying to be obtuse here, but how does one define hunger and how many people are actually hungry in Brazil? Figures ranging from 60 million, based on those who are said to exist on an income of less than one Real a day, to 8.8 million have appeared. How will this campaign operate? Will it be based on the number of calories of food a person needs or a balanced, nourishing meal? Will it, on the other hand, encourage employment opportunities so people can earn more than one Real a day? Will it take the form of food shelters where anyone who claims to be hungry people can go and get fed? Will restaurants be set up offering nourishing meals for free or at subsidised prices? Will the campaign involve existing state and private charity organisations?

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and others, including PT members, have voiced concern that a new layer of bureaucracy may be created. Finally, how will the results be measured? How can you state that hunger has ended? You can be sure of one thing - one year after the campaign starts the newspapers and television will be presenting articles about families which are still hungry and have not benefited from the campaign.

Based in a huge city like São Paulo, full of supermarkets, restaurants and street stands selling cheap food like pasteis, pao de queixo, kibes etc it is difficult to believe that people are really hungry in Brazil. Helpings are enormous and mountains of food are wasted.

However, outside the big cities it is a very different story as I learned some years ago when I spent a couple of weeks in the Pantanal, an area in the mid-west bordering Bolivia and Paraguay, about half the size of France. The Pantanal is basically a vast swamp which floods at certain times of the year. It is a far more interesting area for the naturalist than the better-known Amazon forest which is so dense that you can hardly see the birds and animals. The Pantanal is a delight. It has light and greenery, streams and ox-bow lakes, alligators, capibari, storks and eagles, living in harmony with locally bred cattle which can spend six months of the year up to their bellies in mud and water with no ill effects.

I was based in a small town called Corumba, which had a run-down, faded charm, a bit like Lisbon. I loved the area and although there was obvious poverty, overall it seemed a healthy, pleasant place to live. One morning as I was sitting on the veranda of my hotel, over a generous breakfast spread of tropical fruits, ham, cheese and bread I was astonished to read in the local paper that some children had died of malnutrition on a farm only a few miles from the city. It seemed quite unbelievable that, in the midst of this natural abundance, people could be dying of malnutrition. Perhaps the fact that it was a news item meant it was an unusual occurrence but who knows what goes on in the remote interior. Even today one hears of labourers being held in conditions akin to slavery in some farms.

Less Idealism and More Realism
Trying to end hunger is a serious issue and Lula will have to serious about it. A campaign with a more realistic aim might have been a better idea to kick off his presidency. This one sounds a little like the proposal put forward a couple of years ago by PFL senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes to introduce a tax to end poverty. If poverty and hunger could be ended by legislation then they would have been outlawed a long time ago. You don´t have to be a socialist to want to end hunger, poverty and misery.
Lula has never held any senior administrative position. During his time as a federal deputy he was impatient and unproductive. Politics, as a former British cabinet minister once said is “the art of the possible”. Lula now stands on the threshold of assuming the highest office in the land. He should not promise the impossible and he should remember that, just as Scottish monarchs were never the kings of Scotland but the kings of Scots, that he is president of all the Brazilians and not just Brazil.

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