As was widely predicted, the centre-left Dilma Rousseff has won the second round of the Brazilian Presidential election with 56% of the vote. She will be sworn in at the Alvarado Palace in Brasilia on January 1st.
The Presidential election result will be profoundly disappointing to the centrist and centre-right “Brazil can do more” coalition led by the Brazilian Social Democrats, Labour Party and liberal Democratas who have also lost significant ground in the House of Representatives and Federal Senate. The result will be also personally devastating for former Jose Serra, previously the Governor of the country’s richest and most populous state Sao Paulo, who watched his twenty point poll lead at the start of the year evaporate after a poor and uninspiring campaign.
With all but a few votes left to be counted, there are a few initial observations one can draw from the outcome of the election.
Ideology mattered little. The ‘continuity narrative’ was king.
While the Lula administration has been far from a runaway success with corruption and paralysis plaguing all areas of government, it would be wrong to see it as a disaster. In economic terms, Brazil has never been in a better position than it is today, with its annual economic growth rate set to exceed 5.5% this year. Much of this growth can be put down to the reforming policies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s administration, yet the fact Lula was able to keep the worst leftist impulses of his party under control should rightly be praised.
In Brazilian politics, labels such as “centre-left” and “centre-right” are meaningless with the majority of the political parties being formed on the back of cults of personality and electoral convenience. Indeed, it is not out of the ordinary to see an individual politician change political party on multiple occasions throughout his career. Candidates for President, while being members of one political party, are usually supported by a coligação of numerous others.
In recent years, Lula has been hugely successful in consolidating his party’s powerbase on a regional level, actively endorsing candidates from across the political spectrum regardless of whether or not they shared his own leftist outlook. These figures, such as Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral, have immense personal loyalty to Lula despite coming from a very different political background. As such, he was able to hand Dilma a powerful and diverse group of powerful supporters; from wealthy industrialists to stalwarts of the Brazilian Communist Party.
What united Dilma's supporters was a sense of ensuring continuity - for the country as a whole but also for their own political survival. Ideological dividing lines played next to no role in this election.
The centre-right has a strong bench of future candidates. The left has relics.
Despite suffering painful losses in the race for control of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, Brazil’s centre-right can draw comfort from the election of several young, talented and educated candidates who are viable candidates for national office in the future.
In Sao Paulo state, the moderate Geraldo Alckmin rebounded from his loss to Lula in the 2006 Presidential election to capture the state’s influential gubernatorial office. He can be expected to use his office to pursue pro-business polices and infrastructure reforms designed to boost the state’s economy. The telegenic Aecio Neves, who many feel would have made a superior Presidential candidate to Serra this year, also cruised to victory in the Senate race for the strategically important state of Minas Gerais which straddles the borders of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia. Following a successful spell as Governor of his home state, his new position in the Senate will provide him with the national profile necessary to mount an expected campaign for the Presidency in 2014.
In contrast, many of the figures elected to federal office from the Brazilian left are relics of a different era. Far from encouraging a new generation of leadership, Brazil’s leftist political establishment continues to turn to leading lights in the anti-dictatorship resistance of the 1960s and 70s when selecting its candidates for federal office – or indeed those whose only qualification for office appears to have been repeated losses in elections for other posts.
Examining the state of Sao Paulo alone, this phenomenon is very clear to see. After multiple election losses in races for the Chamber of Deputies, Governor and Mayor, the 66 year old Marta Suplicy has finally made it to the Federal Senate. In the poll for the state’s congressional delegation, former Mayors Luiza Erundina and Paulo Maluf who are 76 and 79 years old respectively were the party’s best performers.
Experience matters – but do does renewal.
Brazil’s disparate leftist parties will struggle to work together without Lula’s Tito-like influence.
2010 was the first Presidential election for more than two decades that does not have Lula on the ballot paper. Before eventually winning the Presidency in 2002, he had previously fought close losing campaigns in 1990, 1994 and 1998.
In winning the Presidency, Lula was forced to pull together a coalition of fairly disparate political parties. Lula’s own party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores, is fairly orthodox in nature having been formed out of the trade union movement and resistance to the military dictatorship. The coalition, however, also includes the Communist Party, the pro-business Republic Party and the socially-conservative Brazilian Republic Party, an electoral tool used by the Universal Church of God to elect its bishops to political office. While there have been disagreements among members of Lula’s coalition, the allure of power has held it together.
Just as it took the powerful Tito to unite the very different states of Yugoslavia, it has taken the forceful Lula to unite the Brazilian left. While his leadership has been enough to ensure their support for his former Chief of Staff’s Presidential bid this year, it’s questionable as to whether his influence will endure in the future.
Global centre-right parties must do more to assist our Brazilian allies
Brazil centre-right is not without able and talented political strategists from who British operatives could learn a lot about effectively turning voters out to the polls in close races. There is a feeling, however, that global centre-right parties have been as forthcoming as those on the left in providing strategic advice to Brazilian campaigns.
Dilma Rousseff’s campaign blew Jose Serra’s out of the water. Her campaign television advertising, written materials and overall narrative were considerably more focussed and appealing than that of her rival. Some of the thanks for this must go to the French and Spanish Socialist Parties who have actively supported the Workers’ Party for years, as well as the several US Democratic strategists who offered their advice to her campaign.
Aside from simple presentational matters, the Serra campaign could have benefitted in particular from advice from both the British Conservatives and US Republicans in attuning their message to the Brazil’s large church-going community, as well as support in developing party polices towards the welfare state.
I hope that the European and American centre-right will take steps to better engage with our partners in Brazil in the years ahead.
