The attacks launched by candidate Geraldo Alckmin’s coalition, formed by the Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) and the Party of the Liberal Front (PFL), against the Workers Party (PT) seem like a re-run of what occurred at a certain moment of the 2002 campaign, during the run-off election opposing Lula and José Serra (the PSDB’s candidate in that election).


Fear marketing
The deconstruction of efficacy
Lula consolidates votes
Campaigning on the streets
Social movements with Lula
Ascending the social pyramid
The Bloodsuckers’ Congressional Investigation

Fear marketingThe attacks launched by candidate Geraldo Alckmin’s coalition, formed by the Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) and the Party of the Liberal Front (PFL), against the Workers Party (PT) seem like a re-run of what occurred at a certain moment of the 2002 campaign, during the run-off election opposing Lula and José Serra (the PSDB’s candidate in that election).

In October that year, actress Regina Duarte declared on the toucan’s (as PSDB supporters are known) electoral TV program that she was afraid of Lula’s being elected. This time, the toucans and pefelists make it to the newspaper headlines by spinning innuendos of an alleged involvement of the PT in the actions commanded by the criminal faction First Command of the Capital (PCC).

Early in July this year, public and private buildings, banks, stores, buses, and security guards were attacked by the PCC. Officially, the new attacks caused the deaths of a military police officer and his sister, of three private security guards, and one municipal police officer. In May the PCC had carried out the state of São Paulo’s worst series of attacks ever (see Periscope nº 3 of June 2006).

“The PT might be manipulating these actions”, said PFL’s national chairmen, Senator Jorge Bornhausen, commenting the attacks ordered by the PCC against police targets, buildings, and vehicles in São Paulo.
To vice-presidential candidate in Alckmin’s slate, José Jorge, “every time there is a poll favoring Alckmin, the PCC acts. Up to now I’m saying it’s a coincidence, but, who knows, in the future, if we won’t find out that it’s more than a coincidence”.

In face of these accusations, the PT filed a slander charge with the Higher Electoral Tribunal (TSE) against PFL senators Jorge Bornhausen, the party’s national chairman, and José Jorge, the vice-presidential candidate in the slate headed by Geraldo Alckmin.

The PT’s national chairman, Ricardo Berzoini, regrets “that a senator of the Republic should act in such an irresponsible and golpista (coup-fomenting) way, resorting to opportunism in an affair of such gravity as the crisis and the violence that is spreading throughout the state of São Paulo. In an irresponsible way, the senator tries to associate the image of a democratic party committed to the struggle of the Brazilian people with that of a criminal organization that is worrying all the population of the State”.

Alckmin endorsed Bornhausen’s statements by saying that “there are many strange things behind all this, but I won’t make any observation of a political nature. It is up to the police department to thoroughly investigate these facts and their origins”.

Another toucan who suggested a political motivation in the strikes waged by the criminal group was the PSDB’s gubernatorial candidate, José Serra. “It’s strange that the PCC attacks were to happen during the electoral campaign period”, said the toucan. Serra withdrew from this position a couple of days later saying that he had made no association between the PT and the PCC.

The ombudsman for the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Marcelo Beraba, criticized his paper’s decision of taking Bornhausen’s accusations to the headlines. “There is no fact, there is no evidence, they are just electorally-motivated statements that the newspaper was unable to assess”, said the journalist.

The toucans have also threatened to use tapes allegedly containing dialogs between members of the criminal group with threats against former governor Geraldo Alckmin and PSDB state representatives. According to newspaper Correio Braziliense, “sources in the police department revealed that the state government was in possession of the names of unionists close to the PT who would have friendship ties with at least one PCC leader. That would be Emivaldo Silva Santos, age 30, a.k.a. BH, pointed out as the “general” of the criminal gang for the greater São Paulo area, the ABC”.

The former CUT labor federation president and current Workers Party national labor secretary, João Felício, challenged the opposition to show the tapes and to point the names of the alleged unionists involved. “In order to make an accusation of such nature concrete proof is needed. Show the recording. Or don’t make such an accusation.” To Berzoini, “the top rung of the São Paulo State Police Department, who are unable to perform their institutional duties, seems to be willing to enter into the electoral contest”.

Fear tactics: this is the old modus operandi of the Brazilian right. In the 2002 campaign, representatives connected with toucan Alckmin also threatened to use another tape, the product of phone tapping, in which an alleged PCC leader said the group should work against the toucan‘s candidacy. This same practice had been adopted in 1989, during the presidential race between Collor and Lula, when criminals responsible for the kidnapping of entrepreneur Abílio Diniz were forced to wear Workers Party t-shirts after their capture.

The deconstruction of efficacy Yet what strange things are really behind all this? The attempt to nationalize the crisis faced by the São Paulo State public safety bodies. The innuendoes intend to shift the focus of the issue and to transfer the responsibility for the PCC attacks in the state to the federal government, since public safety is Alckmin’s Achilles’ heel. The PSDB governed the state of São Paulo for nearly 12 years, five of which under Alckmin’s command.

The PCC appeared in 1993 as an organization of inmates of the São Paulo State penitentiary system, as a response to the violent policy implemented by the elites as a way to “stand up to” crime and the country’s social violence. The option maintained by successive PSDB administrations shows now its shortcomings with this endemic explosion of violence.

During his term of office, Alckmin imposed the rationale of incarceration in São Paulo, nearly tripling the number of prison inmates to 143,000 in 2006, up from 56,000 in 1994. Meanwhile, the competent administrator, as the former governor refers to himself on his campaign’s website, who pledges to deliver a “management shock” and an “efficient state”, brags about the creation of 107 new penal facilities and the acquisition of new weapons and bullet-proof vests.

What the repressive ideology failed to take note of were the investments needed to hire new penitentiary agents, improve their wages, and better train them. According to the president of the São Paulo State Prison Employees Union, João Rinaldo, today there is a shortage of some 5,000 workers inside the penitentiaries. Investments in medical and legal assistance, in occupying the inmate’s work force, and in educational programmes were deliberately ignored.

“What was done in São Paulo is a time bomb. You concentrate resources in the construction of new prison facilities, multiply the number of inmates throughout the state, and submit them to a policy that won’t lead to their recuperation. There, they are all put together in the same space, highly-dangerous criminals and first-time offenders. This is a criminogenic environment in itself”, said José Marcelo Zacchi, institutional coordinator for the National Public Safety Forum, in an interview to Carta Maior news agency.

The former governor opted not to use 615 million reais earmarked for the public safety area over the past five years just as the state announced a surplus of 18 billion reais as a great fiscal result.

A news story published in July’s edition of magazine Revista do Brasil highlights that, from 2001 to 2005, the São Paulo State Technical Police received only 0.9% of the investments made in the public safety area. In the 2004-2007 Multi-Annual Plan and in the Budgetary Guidelines Act of 2005 there were no actions and goals defined for police intelligence in the state of São Paulo. By allowing police intelligence to occupy a secondary role and exceeding in the focus on repression, some specialists say, costs with patrolling the streets rise without reducing risk in big cities.

In 2006 alone, according to data released by the Workers Party representation in the state of São Paulo’s Legislative Assembly, of a total state budget of 82 billion reais, 7.5 billion reais were allocated for Public Safety, 15% of which were withheld pending contingencies. For police intelligence operations only 67.5 million reais were indeed spent, against 261 million reais forecast for the first semester.

To sociologist Emir Sader, in an article entitled Small State of Safety, “management shocks” exhibit statistic achievements which, however, do not correspond to the concrete reality of the problems whose solution the numbers intend to demonstrate. “It’s the case of the data on an assumed quantitative reduction of crime in São Paulo, which the former governor came to compare with ‘European indices’. The mismatch between the statistics and concrete reality demoralizes the former, because it is the latter that imposes itself as the harsh reality of life”, he concludes.

Another aspect of the Alckmin administration also criticized by civil society organizations, according to information by Carta Maior news agency, is that since the late 1990s there has been a change in the state’s policy in that the government started making deals with leaders of criminal organizations – a fact denied by the executive– for the criminal organizations themselves to become responsible for enforcing discipline inside prison facilities.

In an interview to journalist Bia Barbosa, the state’s coordinator for the National Human Rights Movement, Ariel de Castro Alves, sustains that “rather than guaranteeing collective rights, it’s much easier for the state to indulge some of the criminal leaders with some perks, which quite often are even rights, yet inside a system where so much is lacking become perks. This way they establish a system of self-management, where the inmates keep their own self-government and the discipline of the remaining prisoners. And that’s how the government wound up strengthening the leadership of these criminal groups and structuring more and more organized crime inside prisons, precisely to keep this make-believe policy. An apparent quietude, kept through deals between the state administrations and the criminal leaders”.

According to Alves, “before 2000, those who mediated the dialogue between the government and prison inmates, and who targeted collective rights and the observance of the penal law, were the human rights entities, mainly the Prison Pastoral. After 2000, the government began to have meetings and discussions straight with the prisons’ leaders, thus recognizing and strengthening them, and also striking deals that ensured the discipline and self-management of the prisons”.

Whether to establish a climate of fear or to evade their responsibility, the PSDB-PFL strategy of associating the PCC with the PT reinforces the certainty that the Brazilian election of 2006 will be marked by enormous aggressiveness. Which will grow bigger with each new round of electoral polls.

Lula consolidates votesAn Ibope poll released on July 26th shows that, despite the intense attacks from the right, should the election be held today, Lula would win in the first round. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appears with 44% of the voting intentions against 38% of his adversaries. Another 9% of respondents would leave their ballots blank or void them and 9% said they were undecided.

The PSDB candidate, toucan Geraldo Alckmin, appears in the Ibope poll with 27%. Heloísa Helena (PSOL) has 8% of the votes. The remaining candidates’ results are quite insignificant: Cristovam Buarque (PDT), José Maria Eymael (PSDC) and Rui Costa Pimenta (PCO) have 1% each. Luciano Bivar (PSL) got less than 1%.

The results of two other polls by Datafolha and Vox Populi, also published in July, brought a new feature to the previous scenario: the growth of Senator Heloísa Helena’s PSOL candidacy. This growth was celebrated by the Alckmin camp and a great part of the press, having been presented as a determining factor to the holding of a run-off election in October.

According to Datafolha, Lula continues to lead the contest and his advantage over the runner-up, Geraldo Alckmin, has stabilized. Pro-Lula voting intentions ticked down from 46% in late June to 44% today. Alckmin also slid down, going from 29% to 28% of voting intentions. Hence, the difference between the first and the second candidates went from 17 percentage points in June to 16 points in July. The only candidate to see her voting intention rate grow more than the margin of error, which is two percentage points, up or down, was Heloísa Helena, who rose from 6% to 10% of the respondents.

Lula would obtain 52% of all valid votes, that is, discounting blank and void votes, and the undecided electors. On account of the margin of error, this rate may range from a minimum of 50% to a maximum of 54%. For the contest to be decided without the need of a run-off election, a candidate must obtain 50% plus one vote of total votes.

A Vox Populi poll, while still pointing to a Lula victory in the first round, considers that possibility only within the poll’s margin of error, which is 2.2 percentage points. If the electoral race ended today, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with 42% of voting intentions, would win by photo finish. The sum of all of his adversaries is 40%: Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) reached 32%, Heloísa Helena (PSOL), 7%, and Cristovam Buarque (PDT) would keep his 1%. The remaining candidates (José Maria Eymael, of the PSDC; Luciano Bivar, of the PSL; and Rui Pimenta, of the PCO) together would add up to less than 0.5%.

According to Datafolha opinion poll director, Alessandro Janoni, Heloisa “invaded” part of Alckmin’s more educated electorate, especially in the South and Southeastern regions, heavy-weight electoral colleges, which together represent almost 59% of the electorate.

Among the Southern and Southeastern constituents with upper schooling, Heloísa Helena rose eight percentage points (from 11% to 19%), technically tied with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (who went from 20% to 17%). The toucan candidate, on the other hand, lost nine points in this segment, and fell from 54% to 45%.

A part of the militant base of the PSOL’s candidate is composed of people who are discontent with the Lula administration, who are located in the better educated stratum, and who are mostly concentrated in the civil service and sectors of the university.

The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) was created by parliamentarians banned from the PT in December 2003. At a second moment, it was reinforced by congressmen who broke up with the PT, in October 2005, after the first round of the party elections that renewed the presiding boards of the Workers Party.

The first wave of adhesions to the PSOL was motivated by divergences with the course of the PT and the Lula administration. The second wave incorporated those who, apart from sharing the same divergences, were impacted by the avalanche of denunciations made by the right against the Workers Party. Both themes are present in Heloísa Helena’s rhetoric, with an emphasis on corruption and ethics.

The successive attacks by Heloísa Helena against Lula and the PT have brought her dividends from part of the Brazilian right. Her candidacy, over the latest period, has been inflated by those who see in its growth the possibility of forging a second round in the presidential elections.

To the Workers Party international relations secretary, Valter Pomar, “the right’s enthusiasm over Heloísa Helena’s growth and a possible second round is a bit faked and doubly premature”.

In the article “They all love HH”, Pomar states that the enthusiasm “is faked because a second round was always more likely. It was like that in 1989 and 2002. In 1994 and 1998, FHC only won in the first round thanks to the massive support of big capital, the mass media, and the appeal of the Real”. According to the PT leader, “in the 2006 elections, while Lula is very much known and has practically reached his voting’ ceiling, our opponents are still little known; as the campaign divulges their candidacies, their voting potential grows. And, facing difficulties in making Alckmin’s candidacy take off, the TV news program Jornal Nacional and the media at large have been extremely generous with HH”.

Pomar argues that the “enthusiasm of the right is premature because, in order to guarantee a second round, it will be necessary for HH to maintain a good electoral performance until the first Sunday of October. Analysts known for not nurturing any sympathy for the PT believe this might happen, but warn to the possibility of HH just being “smoke in the wind”, which will dissipate when the free television electoral campaign begins. For it does not suffice that Heloísa Helena be well voted. It is also necessary, simultaneously, for Alckmin to grow and for Lula to lose votes. Otherwise, even with HH’s good prospects, Lula might still win in the first round”.

Still according to Pomar, “only in October will it be possible to analyze the electoral performance of Heloísa Helena, when the candidate herself will have to choose between Alckmin and Lula. That will be the moment of truth, which will also decide the immediate future of the PSOL, the PSTU, and the PCB”.

Campaigning on the streetsThe Strength of the People coalition (PT/PCdoB/PRB) launched their electoral campaign with several activities in the month of July. Among them, a huge pro-Lula pamphleteering held in 21 capital cities and tens of other towns, Lula’s first rally in Recife, and the opening of his national committee in Brasília.

The rally that opened the campaign was attended by more than 20 thousand people, and was held in the district of Brasília Teimosa in the city of Recife, the venue where Lula carried out one of his first public activities after being sworn in as president. On 10 January 2003, he took several ministers to visit what, at the time, was an extremely poor stilted housing complex. According to the campaign’s site, during the rally Lula recalled: “I wanted my ministers to see how a greater part of the Brazilian population lived”. Today, after having received federal investments, Brasília Teimosa has become an urbanized neighborhood. To Lula, this fact demonstrates that “it is worth fighting, it is worth investing” to ensure a better life for the dispossessed population.

The committee’s inauguration was followed by an address by Lula hailing the militancy of the parties that compose the base of the Strength of the People coalition. “Brazil has paved its road to growth and over the next four years the country has everything to grow with more jobs, education, and social inclusion”, said Lula, in the company of Workers Party, PCdoB, PRB, and PSB leaders to an estimated audience of over 2000 people.

To the press these events lacked excitement. Yet, what they were unable to see is that once again the rallies went back to being strictly political and not a musical happening anymore. The so-called showmícios (a mix of political rally and concert), which used to attract throngs of people without any ideological commitment to the candidacies, were prohibited by the Higher Electoral Tribunal.

Starting with these elections, political rallies recuperate their political character, in which voters attend them for the sole purpose of getting to know the candidates’ ideas and projects. What changed was the motivation, not the excitement.

Social movements with LulaDuring the pamphleteering organized by the social movements that support the continuity of the democratic and popular project of the current government, more than one million letters in support of President Lula’s reelection were distributed all over the country.

The activity took place in at least 21 capital cities and tens of other Brazilian cities. “This first action had the merit of putting the militants in the streets defending a project, debating ideas, and talking with the population”, stated João Felício, former president of the CUT and the campaign’s mobilizing coordinator.

The document “Social movements take to the streets again. For Lula and for Brazil”, distributed to the population, defends the social programs and public policies implemented by the Lula administration. “We’re back to the streets and squares of all the country to defend the reelection of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. And the reason is simple. In the Lula administration, Brazil is experiencing one of the biggest transformations of its history. Some 3.2 million Brazilians surfaced above the line of poverty. Another seven million joined the middle class. And six million jobs were created, four million of them with working contracts”, says the text.

The entities pointed out the recovery of the real by more than 20%; an increase in family farming investments which have quadrupled, while over 266 thousand landless rural workers were settled; the increase of the population’s purchasing power; the transfer of wealth with the Family Allowance program; the creation of special ministries to defend racial equality, and women’s and youths’ rights; the creation of the ProUni, which ensured to 203 thousand low-income students scholarships for them to attend private universities.

Seven other large events have been scheduled to take place in the main Brazilian capital cities in the months of August and September.

Ascending the social pyramidA poll by Instituto Target released by newspaper O Globo states that in 2005 and 2006, approximately seven million Brazilians ascended the social pyramid and entered the middle class –representing an addition of 7.9% and an expected extra consumption of about 31 billion reais.

The rise of large contingents from classes D and E into class C was detected by Instituto Target, based on data collected by the Brazilian National Statistics Office (IBGE) and confirmed by two other institutions: the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and the LatinPanel, associated to the Ibope polling agency.

Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo also came to similar conclusions in a research by its Datafolha polling agency: six million voters left classes D and E as from 2003. The majority migrated to class C. While covering Lula’s entire term in office, Folha‘s survey only considers the social ascension of Brazilian electors, that is, those aged 16 over.

The policies adopted by the Lula administration were determinant to the expansion of the intermediary sectors of the population. According to pundits heard by newspaper O Globo, the evolution is due to the growth in the number of formal jobs, a recovery of the purchasing power of wages, and to an expansion in the offer of credit in the country.

“There is a clear trend of social ascension. Class D households rose in the pyramid. They bought more durable goods, and since the classification also takes into account the possession of goods, there was a movement toward the middle class”, Target’s director Marcos Pazzini told the newspaper.

To FGV economist Marcelo Neri, also interviewed for the newspaper reportage, this improved living condition of the poorest ones is here to stay. “Companies are confident, for there are costs involved in the hiring process. From that side, the expansion seems sustainable. As for credit, the advance might be smaller, but is bound to continue”, he stated.

According to newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, the improved income stems from a combination of a positive economic context and a robust increase of public spending targeted for the poorest population. The story states that, since 1994, the percentage of Brazilians complaining about their insufficient purchasing power has never been so low. “Today, 28% believe what the household earns is ‘very little’. They amounted to 45% before Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration”, the text states.

Still according to Datafolha, one of the main findings of the survey, the story continues, is that the total percentage of electors in classes D/E dropped from 46% to 38% from October until now. Class C went up from 32% to 40%. Class A, in turn, only varied from 20% to 22% –within the poll’s margin of error of two percentage points up or down.

The social class structure prevailing in Brazil entails other elements besides income and consumption. Therefore, one should not accept the findings above as precise from a sociological point of view. Yet it is correct to say that the Lula administration policies were crucial in determining the expansion of income in important sectors of the population.

Lula’s lead in the polls has, therefore, a quite clear social justification: an improvement in the living conditions of the popular strata. In face of that, the PSDB-PFL coalition needs, in order to alter the electoral scenario, wage an intense political fight, resorting for that purpose to the support it receives from the media and the manipulation of corruption cases as, for instance, the so-called “bloodsuckers’ scandal”.

The Bloodsuckers’ Congressional Investigation

The Bloodsuckers’ Congressional Investigation Committee has already implicated more than one hundred congressmen. The Committee was set up as a result of an operation by the Federal Police that unveiled the scheme in early May. According to investigations conducted by the Federal Police and the Federal Attorney’s Office, a ring headed by a company named Planam rigged tenders in order to sell overpriced ambulances to city governments. The money for the procurements came from amendments made by federal representatives and senators to the Union’s budget.

The Supreme Federal Court has already authorized formal investigations against 56 federal representatives and one senator. The deposition of Planam partner Luiz Antonio Trevisan Vedoin, pointed out by the Federal Police as the ringleader, involves the names of tens of other incumbent or former congressmen.

The Bloodsuckers’ Investigation released the names of 116 congressmen. On that list, those currently holding offices amount to 87 federal representatives and three senators, which represent 15% of National Congress. Among them are the names of two Workers Party parliamentarians.

All the Workers Party members accused deny their involvement. One of those cited by the press, former Lula administration minister of health, Humberto Costa, accused by magazine Veja of authorizing the resources for the overpriced ambulance buying scheme, has decided to file civil and criminal suits against the magazine and the authors of the story. Humberto Costa obtained information that lawyer Otto Medeiros, who is defending businessmen Darcy and Luiz Antônio Vedoin – the scheme’s masterminds -, denied that the former minister had been denounced for having obtained illicit advantages in the depositions made by the Vedoins at the Federal Police.

The Workers Party national chairman suggested that the Bloodsuckers congressional investigation should also include the years in which PSDB’s José Serra was the minister of health. According to Berzoini, the fraud in the procurement of overpriced ambulances started in the administration of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo informed that Vedoin expected José Serra, the toucan’s presidential candidate in 2002, would come out victorious in that race. “That way, he said, he wouldn’t have problems to receive 8 million reais owed to his companies, as used to happen in the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration”, says the paper.

Still according to the paper, the Federal Justice’s document, based on the entrepreneur’s deposition, says that the indicted believed that candidate José Serra would win the elections in the year of 2002 and that the amendments would be paid normally, as occurred during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration”.