The deep discontent of the population with the government and the political regime, as well as the rupture of the workers with the PT, was expressed in the municipal elections that took place on October 2.
By PSTU National Leadership – Brazil.
Passed the first round, the results showed a record abstention, which added to the blank and invalid ballot highly exceeded the votes reached by the most voted candidates in most capitals and biggest cities in the country.
This year, many parties reduced the number of votes for Prefect in comparison with 2012. But the PT went downhill: from the second most voted [in 2012] to the 9th position, it lost over 10 million votes.
The PT lost São Paulo’s Prefecture, plus other 373 cities. Also, candidates supported by Dilma (PT), like Jandira Feghali, by PCdoB in Rio de Janeiro, sank completely. But the numbers show no party got to channel electorally the rupture with the PT, either.
The polls were also cruel with Temer and the PMDB, which had to face the sinking of Marta Suplicy, candidate to São Paulo’s Prefecture, together with Pedro Paulo, Eduardo Paes’ candidate in Rio de Janeiro.
The PSDB was the party most benefited electorally with the massive rupture with the PT, the increase of abstentions and blank and null ballot, and even got part of the punishment votes against the PT; so it got a higher number of Prefectures. It also had an increase of votes at a national level, even when going through an important internal crisis. This capital will certainly be used against the workers.
The municipal elections that took place while in the middle of a change of the political situation opened in June 2013, and also in the middle of a deep economic and political crisis fed by the corruption scandals, were signed by the major mistrust of the population against the government and all the politicians. The elections also confirmed the rupture of the workers with the PT, which featured the greatest electoral fraud in history during the last election [2012]. These two processes were distortedly combined in this election [2016].
To our opinion, on the contrary of what other leftist sectors defend, what we saw is not a “conservative wave” but a deep disappointment of the workers and the poor people with the political regime, plus a feeling of betrayal regarding the PT.
Vote in “nobody” boosts and wins elections in ten capitals
The great victor of the municipal elections on the first round was the “vote in nobody”. According the TSE [Superior Electoral Court], the sum of abstentions and blank and null ballots was higher than the first and/or second elected in 22 capitals, and higher than the first most voted candidate in ten capitals: Porto Alegre (RS), Porto Velho (RO), Curitiba (PR), São Paulo (SP), Campo Grande (MS), Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Belo Horizonte (MG), Cuiabá (MT), Aracaju (SE) and Belém (PA).
In Rio, the capital of “vote in nobody”, the abstentions rose to 24.28%, the blank vote to 5.5%, and the null votes were 12.75% (totalizing 42.54%, or 1,866,621 votes). This number is higher than the total votes obtained by 1st and 2nd most voted candidates, Marcelo Crivella (PRB) and Marcelo Freixo (PSOL), who got respectively 842,201 (27.78%) and 553,424 (18.26%) votes. In 2012, the rates of abstentions, blank and null votes were, respectively, 20.45%, 5% and 8% (totalizing 33.45%). In other words, the capital Fluminense had a rate of 4 null/blank votes or abstentions for every 10 voters.
In São Paulo, João Dória (PSDB), who benefited from the high abstention and the null votes in the periphery, as well as from part of the punishment votes to the PT, got 53.29% of the valid votes. He won in the first round, something that did not happen in São Paulo since 1992. Yet, he had fewer votes than the abstentions (21.84%), blank (5.39) and null (11.35%) votes [of the total population], which reached 38.48%. So the “vote in nobody” represented 3,096,304 voters, while the “toucan” [of PSDB] votes represented 3,085,187; a result also superior to the abstentions and null votes of 2012 (28.89%). To have an idea, in Guaianazes, periphery of São Paulo, the blank and null votes were 21.4%, while in Jardins, traditional rich neighborhood, were 6.9%.
The message “they do not represent us” that echoed in June 2013 and along the wave of strikes and struggles since then, continues to grow. It was present in the last election and the administrations chosen will be more politically fragile. It is good to remember that, despite the lies and fake promises, the elected Prefects will have to implement a very strong adjustment in their respective municipalities, so they will have to confront the workers and the youth.
There is no “conservative wave”
Without a doubt, Dória’s election and the general result of the PSDB, benefiting out of the “vacuum” generated by the unbalance between the progressive rupture with the PT and the lack of a workers’ revolutionary alternative, allows this party to have an electoral victory, super-structural and conjunctural, that strengthens its project. It also strengthens the government’s base in the Congress and helps to give moral to the bourgeoisie to implement the attacks to the working class.
But there are mistaking those who think that, by benefiting out of the punishment vote to the PT and the abstention and null ballot in the periphery, the Toucan received a blank check or a vote-support to the PSDB neoliberal program. It is enough to check the rates of rejection to Alckmin [PSDB] in the capital.
The elections are always a distorted expression of the class struggle. Dória and the other Prefects of PSDB, DEM and other bourgeois parties, will implement the same program that took the masses to break with Dilma and the PT. Against those measures, the metal workers stopped the production on September 29, showing there is no “apathy” among the working class.
The workers do not feel defeated. The relationship of forces will be decided in struggle. The electoral result has a certain similarity with the results in Spain in 2011, after the mobilization of the Indignados and the fall of the PSOE (party similar to the PT). The difference is these are municipal elections, less important, and took place under a highly unpopular buffer government.
The myth of the bourgeois democracy of “change through the vote” starts being questioned by masses’ sectors. Those are symptoms of a deeper process of social and political polarization, of instability, opening tendencies to the left and to the right. The working class’ field is not the bourgeois election but the direct mass struggle. More than ever it is necessary to rely on this process and move forward in the organization and unification of struggles towards a General Strike, to defeat Temer’s reforms and open the way to overthrow this government, finally overcome the PT and say “enough” to this regime and system.
The price of betrayal: the punishment vote to the PT
The major defeat suffered by the PT in these elections starts with the loss of 10 million votes in relation to 2012; also, through its defeat in São Paulo, and the loss of more than 370 Prefectures along the country. This result is the product of a deep discontent of the workers with the PT and with Dilma’s tax adjustment.
The rupture with the PT comes from before; it started with the workers’ revolts in the PAC [Program Acceleration of Growth] works, and with the strikes of 2012. It continued with the June Journeys, completely off control to the PT and the CUT. It made a leap with Dilma’a second turn, when she implemented tax adjustment measures against the workers. Finally, it exploded with the corruption scandals involving PT leaders.
The PT crisis is the defeat of a political project of “administrating capitalism through the distribution of rent”, in alliance with other bourgeois sectors, with a policy and a program to rule for bankers and contractors. It is the crisis of a party model that gives priority to the institutional action over the workers’ mobilization, because it acts inside the limits of the democratic bourgeois regime and the system.
To not repeat the mistakes of the PT: the PSOL goes to second round in Rio and Belém
The PSOL, despite having fewer votes than in 2012, strengthens as an electoral alternative, by electing more councilors, and with Freixo (Rio de Janeiro) and Edmilson Rodrigues (Belém de Pará) getting to the second round.
By channeling part of the PT wearing process, the PSOL strengthens electorally in the dispute of the space to the left of the PT. These results increase the PSOL’s responsibilities. However, it is necessary to take lessons out of the experience with the PT to not make the same mistakes.
For example, the idea that “another city is possible” will only be true if the Prefecture breaks relations with the banks and contractors, does not implement the Fiscal Responsibility Bill and annuls the contracts with Social Organizations to guarantee public health.
It is no good to present a program that does not break with the big companies and with the corrupt system repeating the tragedy of the PT. Without confronting the great businesses of the constructors and the mafia of transportation, relying for it on the workers and the people mobilization, there will be no changes.
To our opinion, the PSOL presents a program that does not confront the capital, and defends small reforms inside the limits of the system, thus it tends to make the same mistakes as the PT.
In São Paulo, the party launched the candidature of Erundina, while in 2004 she led a ticket for the Prefecture by the PSB, with Michel Temer [PMDB] as vice-president. In Rio, Freixo affirmed during an interview to the Globo Network that “we should not demonize the private initiative”.
The extension of the policy of alliances, like implemented for the first round in Belém, and now for the second round in Rio, is a mistake, because it leads to governments of collaboration with the businessmen, as it happened with the PT governments. Besides the agreement signed with the PCdoB and Rede (Net) before the first round, in Rio Freixo announced he will talk with the PSDB and the PSD.
The PSOL never ruled, and in this second round in Rio, there is an important expectation among important sectors of workers that want to vote for Freixo to defeat Marcelo Crivella electorally. The same thing seems to happen in Belém. Facing this scenario, the National PSTU and PSTU from Rio de Janeiro decided to critically support the campaign of Freixo. Along the next days, the National PSTU and PSTU from Belém will define a position regarding the second round in this city.
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Translation: Sofia Ballack.
