It does not matter who assumes the Presidency on 1 January 2023. Once again, the Brazilian bourgeoisie will have won the elections. I am not referring only to the results it achieved in terms of the composition of the National Congress, nor even to the victories of the right (and the extreme right) in relation to the states of the federation. I mean that, be it Lula or Bolsonaro, Brazil will once again have a central government at the service of the interests of capital, to the detriment of the majority of the working population.
Although most polls pointed to a victory for the PT candidate already in the first round of the elections, the results showed that this was not the case. With a difference of just over 6 million votes, Lula will still need to “sweat it out” to try to win against the Bolsonaro ultra-right. However, despite this result, there was a winner in this first round and there will certainly be a winner in the second round: the Brazilian bourgeoisie. And all this because, increasingly to the right, the so-called progressive parties like the PT convinced the working population less and less that they deserve their vote.
The Lula-Alckmin alliance revealed, once again, that the PT does not represent the interests of the working class – in fact, it already demonstrated this in 2002 when it presented as its vice-president José Alencar, one of the biggest national businessmen and, therefore, representative of the interests of capital. The PT governments, both Lula’s and Dilma Rousseff’s, were not a little but very much aligned with neoliberal principles.
“Democratic and popular government”.
For example, in the PT’s first term, the then Minister of Labour Jacques Wagner, who was later elected governor of Bahia (2007/2014), withdrew the 40% rescissory fine on dismissals (placed in the 1988 Constitution as a counterpart to the freedom of dismissal instituted in Brazil by the civil-military dictatorship), demonstrating that he was attentive to the demands of capital, carrying out his first labour reform.
But the PT’s neoliberalism did not stop there. President Lula, who talked so much about protecting the poor, was the first to “throw them to the lions” when, for example, he instituted micro-credit programmes with discounts directly on workers’ wages. He boasted of reduced interest rates on these loans, but in fact, it was the bankers who won, as they had the guarantee of repayment of these loans either directly through payroll deductions, or even (surprisingly) through severance pay in case the borrower was fired.
The Lula government, also known as the “democratic and popular government”, in 2003 followed the indications of the IMF and the World Bank exactly when it changed expectations about the possibility of reversing the changes in social security rights implemented during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC).
The Social Security reform, approved through the Constitutional Reform Project 400/2003 (PEC 40/2003), reduced the payment of death pensions by 30%. In the event of the death of the public servant, the pension paid may not exceed the maximum value of 70% of the income received. Among other issues, this PEC also established that the executive branch (at federal, state and municipal levels) could institute and define the format of its social security system. This is what happened in the state of Bahia, for example, where the PT government increased the public service social security contribution, which today stands at 14%.
Privatisation and indebtedness of poor young people
It was Lula who also instituted the Student Financing Fund (FIES), an educational loan that indebted poor young people who, in their eagerness to obtain a university education, fell into this neoliberal “trap” that only served to transform small (and often mediocre) faculties into large educational enterprises, thanks to the public money that guaranteed the payment of monthly fees to these institutions.
Moreover, the PT president was the main driving force behind the penetration of international private educational institutions into Brazilian territory, which today dominate the private higher education market. Between 2010 and 2015 (this is where the two governors, Lula and Dilma, come in), the listed educational institutions “had a party”. According to a report by Exame magazine, in 2015 private education companies made a profit of 35 billion reais, five times what they made in 2010. The standout was the Kroton group, which became the largest company in the sector. During this period, according to Exame, the federal government disbursed more than 30 billion to pay the tuition of 1.5 million students, “money that went entirely to faculty funds”.
There is more evidence of the PT’s shift to the right since it took power in Brazil, such as the “party” that the automotive sector threw with public money, on account of tax exemptions and other benefits; not to mention the fact that Lula completely ignored the need for democratic regulation in the communications sector, as well as having promoted a real “privatisation party” of strategic sectors, such as ports and airports, roads…
It was this format of governance that indirectly removed it from the bottom of the “sewer” and placed Bolsonaro in the Presidency of the Republic. Because Lula (and the PT, for that matter) instead of creating measures to reduce or end poverty, only preferred to “put the poor in the Budget” without combating, with structural measures, the extreme situations of inequality.
Although hate speech, truculence and explicit violence are peculiar to Bolsonaro, it was the PT governments that doubled the Brazilian prison population. According to the Centre for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo (USP), between 2001 and 2010, Brazil registered a 112% increase in the number of detainees, from 233,000 to 496,000, respectively. Lula took office on 1 January 2003, was re-elected in 2006, and completed his second term on 31 December 2010. According to data from the Ministry of Justice, in 2010 the Brazilian prison population was 496.3 thousand people. In 2016, when Dilma Rousseff’s term ended, through impeachment, that number was 726,700. It is also good to remember that, for the most part, the prison population in Brazil is made up of black men and black women.
Alckmin is 2016’s Temer
While Lula and Dilma never made homophobic, transphobic, misogynist or racist speeches as Bolsonaro often does, their governments did not generate consistent public policies to socially integrate these groups in a dignified manner. Some will cite the introduction of racial quotas in universities, but it is worth noting that the biggest challenge for young Negroes, as well as indigenous people, is not getting into universities, but staying there and completing their studies. As a university lecturer, I see students from these groups dropping out on a daily basis due to the lack of conditions to remain there (another frustration for these historically excluded populations).
For all these reasons, I reiterate: whether with Lula or Bolsonaro, the bourgeoisie wins again. And for those who think that Brazil will be different with the victory of the PT candidate, just answer the following question: Do you really believe that if Lula presented any indication that he would work to reduce inequalities in this country, the bankers and the Federation of Industries, for example, would support him?
Moreover, we should not forget another important factor. Let’s imagine that Lula wins in the second round and assumes the Presidency of the country and, seeking to change his image a little in the eyes of the critical fraction of society, he decides to implement some measures that go against the interests of capital. If that happens, Alckmin will be in his shadow, reminding him of Michel Temer (an ally of Lula and the PT) and the year 2016. In fact, I have no doubt that the Brazilian bourgeoisie had exactly that in mind when it backed Lula by conditioning its support on Alckmin’s presence on the ballot; the same Alckmin, who like Temer, tried to become president, but never managed to be elected.
