1.- Acronmym FEBEM

2.- Malan and Celso Lafer

3.- IBADE

4.- Severino

5.- PMDB

Brazil: The bear hug of Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Emir Sader

ALAI-AMLATINA 05/07/2005, Río de Janeiro.– Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) advises Lula not to go for reelection.. He may be thinking of his own experience in his second mandate– even more of a disaster than the first –. But no. The only self-criticism was having given little importance to the subject of security. (His fellow party member, the governor of São Paulo, seems to have given more importance to punishing the FEBEM youth than to the massacres and the situation of public security in the State.

FHC offers Lula a poisoned cup. It was a political deal by which Lula publicly renounces being a candidate for a second mandate. The “tucanes| (1) would make the sacrifice of participating in a government of “national salvation”; the machinery of denunciation would lessen and the way would be free for a return of a PSDB-FPL coalition in government to maintain the economic policy they handed over to the Lula government – several persons would keep their posts – and a return to a process of privatizations that they had not completed. In addition, they would make a great service to the United States of America – to which FHC, Malan, Celso Lafer, among others are fierce devotees – and give conclusion to the independent foreign policy of Brazil promoting the broadest alliances of resistance to the imperial hegemony of the U.S. and that is why, also, they have the blessing and support of Washington.

Today, FHC is playing a similar role to that of Carlos Lacerda, in the attempted coup of 1954 and the coup of 1964. They no longer have to knock on the doors of garrisons, but as financial agents of contemporary coups. That current crow role – FHC – of stall seller of the Stock exchange.

They have managed to continue filing Lula’s nails, with the exit of José Dirceu from the ministry. The distancing and faults Lula charges against the PT, saves his image, in the short term – would have been betrayed by the confidence placed on his comrades – but in a mid and long term, weakens him even more if he is considering reelection where the PT may present the difference he needs.

They want to apply more brakes on Lula, pushing him to form a new cabinet that would tie him down more, as if it were necessary – with an economic team already fulfilling that role.

No personality of Brazilian politics can move more with great business persons, with Severino and with United States government agents as FHC. He has the confidence of the large business sector and Washington. He has a team of persons experienced in carrying out coups – in fact Olavo Setúbal is one of the business persons involved in the military coup of 1964, in the Brazilian Institute of Democratic Action, IBADE, where the young economist, Pedro S. Malan, also participated. He was the right arm of the FHC government making economic analyses at the time for the coup members, as explained by René Dreyffus in his book on the military coup, “1964 – Conquest of the State” (Editorial Voces).

If Lula accepts, he will not only by signing his political death sentence but that of his government and the PT as a party. The “tucanes” still fear Lula’s popular sympathy and his capacity to move those sectors.

If he accepts this Greek present, Lula will become a hostage to the “tucanes” in a countdown to return the government over to them. His would be an ephemeral passage through the presidency simply to demonstrate that the dominant elites accept alternating government, even allowing a former worker and union leader to sit in the highest political post of the country. Since nothing changes, whoever is the president, nor is their a change in political context, nor in unethical management of government and alliances. FHC and the “tucanes” count on members of the economic team of Lula’s government that could be found in one or another government. They have the great mass media and count on the incapacity of reaction of the government to accusations levied upon it. The nominal zero deficit would be included in the same package of “governance”: new form taken for primary surplus value. Aécio Neves has the role of messenger in this bear hug by which the “tucanes” aim to suffocate Lula and his government.

During a crisis, no one stays in the same place. If he wants to break the siege of the government, he needs to move, to recover the initiative, surmount the present situation He can do it turning around in the same place, in alliance with the PMDB that could be his means of survival at the moment but running the risk of letting the offensive of accusations run wild, unaware of where it will lead. The opposition is not interested in an impeachment that could give Lula the privileged condition of victim and allow him to mobilize the popular sectors that continue to support him. The opposition is interested in bleeding Lula to deal him the coup de grace in next year’s elections.

Or he could move to the right, accepting the poisoned cup offered by FHC. That would be suicidal.

Or he could say, “Remove the cup from my sight”. Reject the poison and recover as the only means of surmounting the negative political scenario of the government. Rely on the mobilization of mass social movements, of those who still believe that Brazil can change giving priority to the social issue. But you cannot scramble eggs without breaking the shell. The economic policy must be changed to conquer the indispensable spaces for economic development supported on the internal market of popular consumption, with a distribution of property, in the direction of the document the social movements took to Lula.

A great leader is revealed during crises and his capacity is revealed, above all, distinguishing between adversaries from allies. And moving to the right or to the left if he doesn’t want to stand in quicksand where the government finds itself. That would lead him to sink irreparably and prepare the field for his defeat in 2006.

(Translation ALAI, from Portuguese to Spanish)

(1) NDT – members of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), known as “tucanes”