When Brazil’s Left-labor Workers
Party (PT) swept 35 mayoralties in
November, Sao Paulo-South Amer-
ica’s largest city–came to be gov-
erned by a radical 54-year-old single
woman. Luiza Erundina de Souza is a
longtime grass-roots activist and for-
mer social worker who helped found
the PT in 1980. More striking to her
constituents is the fact that she is an
immigrant from the rural famine-
stricken Northeast, and thus a member
of southern Brazil’s underclass that
faces discrimination similar to what
Latin American migrants endure in the
United States.
Bill Hinchberger is the editor of Third
World, a bimonthly magazine
published in Brazil.
The sixth of ten children, Mayor
Erundina taught school to support her
younger brothers and sisters while her
father worked a parched 25-hectare
plot of land and her mother sold hand-
made leather goods. She put herself
through college, moving to Sdo Paulo
to get her masters degree in social
work. There she entered the labor
movement and political life, and was
elected to the city council and state
legislature on the PT slate.
In last year’s campaign, Erundina
had to overcome the opposition of
even her own party’s leadership, mus-
tering rank-and-file support to gain the
PT nomination. She then trailed in the
polls for months, surging ahead only
in the final days to win the election
with 30% of the vote over her princi-
pal rival, Paulo Maluf, a supporter of
the former military government. Many
attribute her victory to widespread
frustration with the economy and out-
rage at the violent suppression of a
Sdo Paulo teachers strike and the Volta
Redonda steelworkers strike just days
before the vote. [See Report on the
Americas, March 1989]
Her victory-and that of the other
Left candidates throughout the
country-has upgraded the candidacy
of the leader of the PT, Luis Inicio
“Lula” da Silva, in the November
presidential elections.
The new mayor inherited a set of
problems that seem insurmountable.
Her right-wing predecessor, Janio
Quadros, left a debt equal to one-third
of the city budget, as well as several
unfinished public works projects. Jobs,
housing, health care and schools are
all in short supply in this city of 11
million where more migrants stream
in every day. And the conservative
politicians who control the state and
federal governments-and a large part
of the city’s pursestrings-are loathe
to cooperate with a Marxist mayor.
Some observers have said that your
victory was the greatest electoral ad-
vance for the Latin American Left since
Salvador Allende became president of
Chile in 1970.
I agree. First, it was a victory that
involved the popular movement-the
workers, the organized sectors and the
labor movement. It was also a victory
of a socialist party with a history of
struggle in opposition to the New Re-
public.* And it was a candidacy of a
woman, a northeasterner, a worker. I
ran a poverty-stricken campaign: I may
not have spent in my entire campaign
what other candidates spent in a single
day. But the voters did not let them-
selves be dominated by the political
machine of the state, city and federal
governments which backed other can-
didates.
There seemed to be a change in atti-
tude among many people after you
* The New Republic refers to the civilian
government that has emerged out of the
military dictatorship.
REPORT ON THE AMER S
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4
———— ———won. Before, pessimism reigned. After
the elections there was a ray of hope.
It is true that the climate changed
just prior to the elections and after-
wards, and that climate still exists.
Normally voters wait for the person
elected to solve their problems. But
now voters are demonstrating
personally-by telephone, letter,
telegram-that they support this ad-
ministration and have confidence in it.
They are offering their services, offer-
ing to do volunteer work. So there’s a
great deal of hope in this administra-
tion and popular support to help it suc-
ceed.
Your background is different than that
of most politicians. How did you first
get involved in politics?
I’m a social worker, and I always
worked in close contact with the popu-
lar movement, with the
workers-organizing for change,
struggling for people’s rights. Since I
was young, I have been conscious of
the need to struggle to guarantee the
rights of the people. I became active in
the labor movement at a time when
workers, unions and grass-roots or-
ganizations were reacting to the mili-
tary government, resisting the dicta-
torship, mobilizing and pressing for
the democratization of the country.
The first strikes since the beginning of
the military dictatorship were being
organized. Labor activists were ex-
pressing themselves politically, and I
participated in this. During this period,
in 1980, I worked with Lula and other
comrades linked to the labor move-
ment who were proposing the creation
of a political party, which resulted in
the founding of the PT. I was a part of
this process.
In 1982, there were municipal elec-
tions and the party nominated me for
city council. I was elected and served
as party leader on the Slo Paulo city
council for four years. In 1986, the
party nominated me for state deputy,
and I was elected with the largest
number of votes of any PT candidate. I
served as party leader in the legisla-
ture during the year and a half that I
was there. Then there was a dispute
for the nomination for mayor. I won in
a contest between myself and the fed-
eral deputy, Plinio de Arruda Sampaio.
And here I am.
Some people have said that the real
winner in the elections was the church,
that the progressive church has an ex-
traordinary level of influence and par-
ticipation in the PT. Leonel Brizola,
the ex-governor of Rio de Janeiro and
presidential candidate for the Demo-
cratic Labor Party (PDT), has criti-
cized this participation. What is the
role of the progressive church in the
PT?
The party was born in the labor
unions, the factories, the poor neigh-
borhoods on the outskirts of town, in
the struggle of landless peasants, in
groups that wanted better health care,
in the struggle for freedom of speech
and expression. When the party was
born, the church had an important pres-
ence in these struggles, and many PT
activists are leaders of these move-
ments. As a democratic, heterogene-
ous and mass-based party, the PT in-
cludes different lines of thought, tac-
tics and conceptions of reality which
are joined by a common goal, the con-
struction of socialism. I think it is natu-
ral for a party, one born out of the
popular movement, to have an impor-
tant presence of the church.
Brizola’s position is one of despair
because he feels threatened by the PT’s
candidacy, which has the support not
only of the church but also of large
segments of society. The polls show
Lula in first place in Sao Paulo. So
Brizola’s strategy is to try to discredit
the PT candidate and consequently
deny him the right to have the support
of the church. Brizola is being forced
to the Right at a time when it is clear
from the November elections that Bra-
zilian voters want an option on the
Left, one of opposition. So his com-
ments are a way to attack a candidacy
that is explicitly leftist.
Until the November elections, Brizola
seemed to feel that he had the support
of the Left sewn up.
He doesn’t really have a political
party. It is centralized in him. This
makes him more fragile in relation to
Lula who has a party with a clear ideo-
logical position, with a structure, with
activists. The PDT isn’t even a party.
It is a label that can be used for any-
thing at any time. The PDT supported
my campaign at the very end, in the
final days, while in other states it was
linked to the PDS.* It doesn’t have a
clear ideology or program. It includes
people from the upper classes, capital-
ists, as well as workers. The PT also
has business people but they are busi-
ness people from the middle class who
had to renounce their class interests to
join together with the working classes.
How does the PT differ from the com-
munist parties: the Brazilian Commu-
nist Party (PCB), which comes out of
the Soviet-line tradition, and the Com-
munist Party of Brazil (PC do B),
which split off from the PCB and is
identified with the Albanian line?
The PT has a clear class perspec-
tive; it doesn’t make concessions on
this point. Last year and this year the
PCB and PC do B supported the PT,
and this was important. But in other
contexts the PCB and PC do B have
made concessions, to the point of even
supporting the Sarney government.
These parties made compromises with
other class interests. The PCB and PC
do B are Leninist parties of the most
orthodox type. The PT is not. It is a
novelty on the Left in Latin
America-a party built from the bot-
tom up, a party where the rank-and-
file plays a fundamental role in politi-
cal decision-making. My nomination
for mayor was an imposition of the
rank-and-file. I won the nomination
even though the party leadership sup-
ported the other candidate. This dem-
onstrates the difference.
A PT intellectual said after the elec-
tions, “We were afraid of the disaster
represented by a candidacy in Sdo
Paulo of a northeasterner from the
state of Paraiba, a woman, a Shi’ite**
and, principally, a single woman.”
Even inside what you call a democratic
party, there is discrimination.
* The Social Democratic Party consists
mainly of former supporters of the military
regime.
** “Shi’ite” is the term used for those who
are considered radicals within the PT.
VOLUME XXIII, NO. I (MAY 1989)
5I understand that even while the
party struggles to end all types of dis-
crimination, we as individuals are still
greatly influenced by the dominant
ideology and culture. So it is not so
simple for a man from the Northeast, a
Brazilian man, to behave without any
trace of sexism and prejudice. I under-
stand this. I also catch myself some-
times displaying sexist attitudes to-
wards other women. I think these
changes are part of an internal and
external process, a permanent compe-
tition.
There is discrimination, sexism,
etc., in my party. But there is an ex-
plicit determination to struggle against
discrimination. And that’s why I am
where I am. With all the different types
of discrimination, limitations and
prejudice inside the PT, it’s the only
party that allowed room for a woman
with my profile, my characteristics. In
another party this would never hap-
pen.
Thinking not only in terms of the party,
but in society in general, have you suf-
fered more discrimination as a woman
or as a northeasterner?
As a northeasterner.
Why do you say that?
Because we have always been seen
in the South as second class citizens,
as intruders, as people who mess up
the life of the city, as people who cause
problems. We are never thought of as
the ones who produce wealth, who take
the most difficult jobs, who are the
most exploited. The northeasterner is
always considered to be a marginal
character, a delinquent, a criminal, a
shantytown dweller.
You have said several times that you
consider armed struggle to be a legiti-
mate means to attain power to trans-
form society. At the same time, you
entered the electoral process and be-
came mayor of Brazil’s largest city
and your party’s candidate has a good
chance of being elected president.
How do you think social struggles
should be carried out?
I think it can be done through the
vote. It can be done through social
“Who knows, maybe now there is
an alternative.”
struggle. It can be done through the
independent and autonomous organi-
zation of the workers. And it can also
be done through armed struggle. These
are instruments which at a certain point
the working classes decide to use. But
it shouldn’t be a party that decides. I
don’t discard the concept [of armed
struggle], as long as it is a decision not
just of a party but of the majority of
the population.
Like it or not, your administration is
perceived as a kind of preview of how
Lula would run his administration as
president. How do you feel about this?
I think Lula’s candidacy, the PT’s
candidacy, has potential in and of it-
self, independently. This year will be
very difficult given the way in which
we found the municipal govern-
ment-in debt, with deteriorated serv-
ices. But if we do a minimal amount of
things correctly, we will pass an im-
portant test, disproving the prejudice
that the Left only knows how to be in
opposition, that it does not offer any
alternatives to solve problems. This
will help Lula’s candidacy. It will
make things easier. It will increase his
chances.
I understand that this responsibility
presents us with an additional chal-
lenge. The major challenge for me is
to prove that the Left is capable, that a
woman is capable, that the people were
right when they made their choice. In
this way you help the [poorer] sectors
of society believe in themselves. The
greatest contribution of this electoral
victory was to rescue the majority of
the Brazilian people, particularly in
Sgo Paulo, from the feeling of discour-
agement, frustration, immobilization,
nihilism. Nobody believed in anything
or anybody. And now, who knows?
Maybe there is an alternative now.
Speaking of the problems you face in
Sdo Paulo, the list is long: buses
stalled for lack of spare parts, some
200,000 children without schools,
thousands of people living in shanty-
towns or substandard housing. How
do you intend to address these prob-
lems? And with what resources, espe-
cially since the city is in debt?
I have to administer this debt. I’m
not going to be able to pay bills for
public works that were initiated but
which are unnecessary; for example,
debts that have accumulated since May
1988 with construction companies on
projects that are 20% finished. I’m
talking to the construction companies,
negotiating payment periods, recom-
missioning projects and establishing a
payment plan within our means. I live
with a constant problem of finding
funds to supply food to schools and
day care centers, as well as medicine
to health centers and hospitals. Some
30% of the city’s hospital beds are out
of service for lack of personnel, lack
of equipment, lack of everything.
When I took office, 30% of the bus
fleet was paralyzed. By the end of
February I had already put 300 buses
on the road, which meant 200,000
more spaces per day for passengers.
But a large number are still awaiting
repairs. I have 55 schools being re-
paired. We are repairing 300 school
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 5desks a day. The budget hardly allows
us to maintain services, to pay some-
thing on the debt and pay for the things
that we order. We are beginning to be
able to pay on time what we are buy-
ing. We’re not building public works,
obviously, except for repairing
schools.
A problem related to the budgetary
situation is that our public employees
are poorly paid. We have about
140,000 employees, and their salaries
are below market levels. [As a result
of low salaries,] there are problems
with the quality of work, so we have to
make an effort to develop resources, to
motivate, to improve the salary situ-
ation so that these people will feel
motivated and involved. The 14 to 16
hours a day that I spend in the office
are taken up by administering this daily
inferno, besides the political war on
top of it all.
Before you became mayor, you sup-
ported the homeless who invaded va-
cant land and were even photographed
being dragged away by police during
one occupation. Now, as mayor, you
are faced with the problem from a dif-
ferent perspective. How do you feel
about this?
I never incited land invasions, but I
always understood that a public offi-
cial should be an instrument for those
who elected him or her. When I was
on the city council and in the state
legislature, I was always sought out by
people who decided to occupy a va-
cant lot. They had exhausted all means
of negotiation with the government.
Our presence in these struggles was to
a large extent to avert police repres-
sion and try to find a negotiated
solution-and many times we were
successful. These people know the
risks of an occupation-including the
risks to one’s life. There have been
victims in this struggle. The decision
to occupy land is not simple or easy. I
recognize the legitimacy of this
struggle because I agree with the
clause in our constitution that defends
the social function of property. When
there is vacant land in an urban center
where half of the population is living
in poor housing, in shantytowns or
slums, the social function of property
is not being respected. The new
constitution is not being respected.
Productive property is legitimate; non-
productive property is not; [it] denies
the basic rights of human beings.
So as mayor of SAo Paulo, I recog-
nize the legitimacy of these occupa-
tions. I do not use repression. If I order
people out who have occupied build-
ings, I do so because I want to respect
the rights of those who signed up many
years ago and who have been waiting
their turns. The administrators and
politicians who preceded me did not
respect the waiting list. Today this
waiting list is rigorously respected. It
is not fair to those who have been wait-
ing for years for others who are not on
the list to be given priority. But even
as I force them out of the apartments, I
do not deny the need to search with
them for a solution. I think this is the
difference. There is coherence between
my behavior today and as a city coun-
til person and state legislator.
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