What is behind Marina, the Folha and Renan’s defense of “general elections”?
Diego Cruz – PSTU – Brazil
The deepening of the political crisis over the last period caused an inflexion inside the bourgeoisie. If, at the beginning of the year, the possibility of impeachment was getting behind and Dilma’s government was catching her breath to retake the fiscal adjustment measures, including a new reform of Pensions, the advance on Lava Jato and the perspective of a long-term recession, that gets worst each day, put the matter back on the table.
The political instability and Dilma’s impossibility of ruling forced the bourgeoisie to do what they hesitated so much about: supporting impeachment as a solution for the crisis.
They were hesitating because, although the possibility of impeachments is perfectly enshrined in the Constitution, it is always bold to break the electoral calendar. Besides, it is true we can see how an impeachment process begins but not how or where it will end.
The bourgeoisie, on the contrary, needs stability to run their businesses, impose the fiscal adjustment in the country, and charge the crisis weight over the workers’ backs. If it turned to support the impeachment, it was not because Dilma’s government has opposed interests, even less because she threats their ones. On the contrary, PT’s government is making an each time harder effort to inspire trust to the bourgeoisie and the international bankers. To opt for impeachment was merely because they did not see a way out of this crisis with Dilma still in the Planalto. The fact this option gained weight, with the Fiesp, the CNA and other bosses’ sectors militating for impeachment only shows how deep this crisis is.
The Temer Factor
The vicinity of the outcome of the impeachment on the National Congress, whose process is hurried by the corrupt Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), has produced an interesting effect. Suddenly, even more sectors have gone on to defend new elections. Marina Silva is not exactly news, since she has for some time defended the repeal of the Dilma-Temer list by the Superior Electoral Tribunal, which would bring about a new presidential election (run by Cunha, by the way). It is not difficult to understand why she does that, since in theory Marina would benefit from that due to her good standing in vote intention (which shifts between 21% and 24% depending on the background). On March 5th the REDE (“Network”, Marina’s party) has launched a slogan: “Neither Dilma nor Temer, New Election is the Solution”.
Now the Folha de São Paulo Journal published an editorial in its edition of Sunday the 3rd, with a title very similar to “Neither Dilma nor Temer”. The newspaper stands on forecasts that are hard to refute: if Dilma winning the impeachment battle does not mean she will recover governability; if Temer takes place, he will not be able to guarantee any stability either, as he does not have “support enough among the society”. So, they call Dilma and Temer to resign. STF minister, Marco Aurélio de Melo, had already taken position in favor of this way out [to the crisis].
The president of Bank Itaú, Roberto Setúbal, in turn, had already made a proposal for elections last month. To this position have been flocking politicians of the strain of Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL) and such.
What is behind the sudden “democratic enthusiasm” that gathers a bourgeois newspaper, one of the main PMDB leaders, and a first row allied of PT’s government banker? There is only one answer: the attempt of enclosure of this political crisis as soon as possible, to guarantee the minimum possible level of stability to continue implementing the adjustment. The same thing the defenders of impeachment want, or even the PT itself: as Lula already stated, he will call for a government of “national unity” in case Dilma continues her turn. This means: they will continue ruling with and for the bourgeoisie.
The novelty here is that each time more sectors are seeing a possible government of Temer will be an even weaker government, more instable, with no legitimacy whatsoever, and with few chances of finishing his turn. The support of general elections by these bourgeois sectors expresses, like this, a growing crisis, and the lack of an alternative to ensure the minimum political stability.
On the other hand, it is evident a good part of this call to general elections is only a bluff. Or someone actually thinks Eduardo Cunha or Renan Calheiros are capable of resigning their own charges to dispute another one, with no guarantee of being elected? This is why Dilma was sarcastic by stating she would only resign if the other parliamentarians also do it. So, what we are hearing around as “general elections” are actually proposals that contemplate only presidential elections, like in the case of Marina and the Folha, or are nothing more than a shameless bluff, like in Renan Calheiros’ case.
General strike to kick them all out and have general elections
PSTU has been affirming the necessity of throwing down this government that only attacks the working class, through the mobilization. This will be possible through a strong general strike. At the same time, changing Dilma for Temer makes no difference. The population and the workers now that. In front of this, what to do? Who to put in their place? The only way of ending the attacks to the working class and make the rich pay for the crisis, is through a workers’ government, without the bourgeoisie and the corrupts of always, supported on popular councils, where the workers and the people are the ones to actually govern.
What would those popular councils be? It is a way of workers to organize, in their places of work as in their neighborhoods. The councils would have the powers of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial, constituting a kind of direct democracy, unlike the charade of democracy we live today, were people vote but everything is decided by half a dozen bankers. On the contrary of being an utopian proposal, as many might say, those councils existed several times already along history, under the most varied forms, from the Soviets from the URSS to the industrial belts in Chile.
The problem is, the workers’ struggles in Brazil have not yet been able to develop these dual-power organisms. This is why the PSTU has been proposing to call for general elections, following the “Out with all of them”, that means to throw the government and the National Congress down through the action of the masses and a general strike. Differently from what the Folha, Marina, Setúbal or Renan propose, the PSTU defends general elections for all positions, and with rules completely different than the ones of current elections’ system. To start, we call for elections with no banks, enterprises or any other companies’ funds. We propose modest public funding, equally distributed to all candidates. No millionaire, pharaonic campaigns sustained by enterprises and banks’ money.
Second, we propose equal radio and television electoral campaign time for all parties. No candidates with 20 minutes while others, usually left-winged, have only a few seconds. The population has the right of knowing all candidates and proposals, something today does not happen. The PSTU also defends for politician involved in corruption to not be able to dispute elections. We defend revocability of any position at any moment, and for the salaries of politicians to be the same as the one of a qualified worker.
These are democratic proposals that would not be accepted by the National Congress unless the mobilization forces it to. It means, it will only happen if the workers and the people take this government and Congress down, on the streets and through a general strike. Part of the left that calls for “general elections” but stays on the side of the government “against impeachment” ignores this fact. This is why the PSTU states “out with all of them”. General Elections presumes to take them all out.
Would Setubal, Renan or Marina agree with this?
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Translation: Sofía Ballack
