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 The
Brazilian 2002 Elections:
A Stacked Deck?
While our own congressional
elections are so very important, another set of elections
must not be ignored.
On October 6, Brazil will hold its presidential
elections. It is not just another election since the results
could well determine the course of the entire continent. We
need to pay attention.
Brazil is, after all, the world’s eighth
largest economy. It is the Latin American powerhouse and our
trade with Latin America and the Caribbean exceeds our trade
with the European Union. Moreover, our own security rests
on the stability of our southern neighbors.
However, we must not think of this as only
a matter of economics and self-interest. Brazil is also our
valued ally and friend. We cannot wish for our friends a leftist
plague that we ourselves abhor.
We live at a time when the left is discredited
and demoralized the world over. European and especially French
socialists are in disarray. Communist and socialist parties
worldwide are recasting themselves and rethinking their unpopular
ways.
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The hopes of the international left now appear
to turn to Latin America. In Brazil, for example, these hopes
are highlighted by the fact that there are no centrist or
rightist candidates in the running. All four candidates belong
to clearly defined socialist or communist parties. José
Serra of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party is linked with
the Socialist International. Ciro Gomes represents the People’s
Socialist Party, the former Brazilian Communist Party. Anthony
Garotinho is from the Socialist Party of Brazil.
Finally, the current front-runner is "Lula," Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT). This
former head of the Metalworkers’ Union and three-time
presidential losing candidate is a personal friend and comrade
of Fidel Castro, Latin America’s only dictator, and Venezuela’s
unpopular caudillo Hugo Chavez.
This is an election where the deck is stacked. By law Brazilians
must vote and are fined if they do not. This means they cannot
even abstain in protest. Americans must come to realize that
October’s results will not mean the triumph of the left
in Brazil but merely the inevitable victory of one of four
leftist parties.
Telltale in this regard are the consistently
low levels of enthusiasm Brazilians show for the way democracy
is working for them, as registered by Latinobarometro's annual
polls. This discontent raises disturbing questions about the
very survival of the democratic regime.1
A second conclusion we must take from the
elections is the fact that the left will use their Brazilian
“victory” as a mandate to oppose American policies
and to create friction between our two giant nations.
Even American “progressives” see
the Brazilian elections as a watershed “for those who
worry about the growing divide between rich and poor, for
those who oppose unfettered corporate trade”2
The end result is that the United States
could have in South America a large country systematically
opposing its policies and a willing leader of so-called developing
nations in a North-South dialectic now brewing.
Brazil was already the stage for two sessions
of the World Social Forum, a hodge-podge of leftist movements,
guerrilla groups, social activists and anarchists from all
over the world, which oppose globalism, capitalism and “neoliberalism.”
Lula is a regular at these gatherings where it is customary
to burn American flags and brandish Cuban ones.
Moreover, statements by Lula last week at
Brazil's Air Force Club rattled both sabers and nerves when
he criticized as "unfair" Brazil's status under
the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
since it leaves "developing nations holding a slingshot
while [developed nations] have atomic bombs." He further
railed against American hegemony at the expense of developing
nations. "That's why we had to watch Bush's speech on
TV yesterday trying to find a reason to invade Iraq,"
he complained.3
After October 6, American foreign policy
must navigate in these hostile waters. We must have the courage
to take strong and controversial stands but the wisdom to
avoid pretexts, which will serve as a platform for the left
to mobilize against us.
Finally, the left will take advantage of
its assured victory to introduce illegitimate social and political
reforms inside that vast Christian nation.
Social family issues such as abortion, homosexual
civil unions and legalized prostitution are on the agenda.
Extremely stringent gun control laws, outlawing most private
guns, are proposed at a time when crime has thrown some cities
into a state of siege and individuals are left defenseless.
Socialist and confiscatory land reform and
widespread squatter activism will seriously undermine the
right of private property and threaten financial stability.
America must encourage the voiceless Brazilians
whose Catholic consciences oppose these measures. These wide-ranging
reforms will place Brazil on a disastrous leftist path similar
to so many other wrongheaded socialist experiments.
The disenfranchised centrist and conservative
Brazilian must see America as a friend. He will take heart
if we adopt clear principled policies that do not help the
left in Latin America. He will rejoice if we refuse to read
the socialist script that casts us as an “oppressor”
nation.
A weak-willed America will do little to stabilize a continent
seething with guerrilla activity, narco-traffic and crime.
At stake is more than the future of this youthful and dynamic
nation of 180 million people. This election could change the
direction of the whole Western hemisphere.
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