RIO DE JANEIRO-Ever since Jan-
uary 25, when a quarter of a million
protesters converged on Sio Paulo’s
Praoa da S6, Brazil has tumbled ir-
revocably toward a break with military
rule. President Jodo Baptista Figueire-
do–the fifth consecutive Army gen-
eral to rule the country since the 1964
coup-seems resigned to having lost
control of his celebrated abertura (or
political opening) through which the
Army was to have perpetuated its polit-
ical power with nominally democratic
institutions.
Now, with the economic model lying
in pieces and the country’s social fabric
stripped threadbare, Figueiredo has en-
tered into negotiations with the mod-
erate opposition. And, barring a vio-
lent takeover by Army hardliners-the
so-called duros-about the best deal
the military can hope for is a safe
passage back to the barracks.
The current regime has acknowl-
edged the inevitability of open presi-
dential elections, but insists that the
time is not ripe, that “the country is not
ready for elections.” They insist on
keeping the currently instituted “elec-
toral college” as the proper vehicle for
choosing Brazil’s first civilian presi-
dent in 20 years, when Figueiredo’s
term ends in 1985. But they have al-
ready agreed to move the election date
from 1991 to 1988, and current nego-
tiations-proceeding in fits and starts
without true definition–could further
advance the date to 1986.
Additional proposals could bring to
power a transitional president-or
mandato-tampto–chosen by consen-
sus of party leadership of the ruling
Democratic Social Party (PDS), the
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party
(PMDB) (the predominant opposition
party which comprises a broad ideolog-
ical spectrum), and other significant
Mitchell Torton, a free-lance writer
living in Brooklyn, NY, spent three
months in Brazil last spring.
Vice President Aureliano Chavez
opposition parties. A 1985 constitu-
tional assembly could also become part
of an ultimate settlement.
90% Favor Direct Elections
Until late May, many within the op-
position believed that four to five mil-
lion Brazilians demonstrating in the
streets over the course of three months
indicated a non-negotiable imperative
for diretas jd-direct elections now.
With 90% of the population supporting
direct elections, according to polls, as
well as virtually the entire business
community and large sectors of the
military itself, democratization seemed
nearly inevitable. But the duros within
the Administration stood fast, eventu-
ally forcing even the most implacable
sectors of the opposition to a gradualist
approach. A number of recent events
also indicate that the neo-fascist Right,
never far from the nerve centers of
Brazilian military rule, remains active.
The most startling episode recalled
images of the brutally repressive 1970s,
and continues to stir controversy. No
one was surprised to find Congressman
Paulo Salim Maluf, a son of Lebanese
immigrants and former (appointed)
governor of Sdo Paulo, at the center of
it. In the months before the campaign
for diretas jd destroyed beyond repair
the credibility of the electoral college, Maluf was running neck-and-neck to
become Brazil’s first civilian president
since the so-called Revolution of 1964.
The leading candidate was Interior
Minister Mario Andreazza, an old
friend of President Figueiredo, much
tainted by the charges of mismanage-
ment and corruption.
Though momentarily outflanked by
the president’s personal favorite, Ma-
luf–brash, aggressive, free-spending-
seemed confident of his ability to pre-
vail within the backrooms of the PDS
nominating convention. From there, it
would have been relatively easy to con-
quer the electoral college, heavily rigged
to favor the PDS candidate. This was
the same route he had followed, in
1978, to overcome the official govern-
ment candidate and become a bionico,
or appointed, state governor–before
gubernatorial elections were reinstated
in 1982.
Figueiredo is widely viewed as an
indecisive and non-committal president,
the more so since both his health and
popularity experienced a precipitous
decline in the midst of economic crisis.
And so Figueiredo’s support of An-
dreazza was never well-defined. But
the diretas jd movement was threaten-
ing the underpinnings of his govern-
ment-eventually winning converts
within his own party, including Vice
President Aureliano Chaves. Figueiredo
then dropped his support for Andreazza,
instead negotiating the issue of presi-
dential succession with Gov. Tancredo
Neves, a moderate opposition gover-
nor from the interior state of Minas
Gerais.
The decline of Andreazza’s fortunes
did not, however, signal a rise in
Maluf’s. To the contrary, by opening
participation in the presidential succes-
sion to the opposition, Figueiredo criti-
cally jeopardized the chances of both
leading PDS candidates. As the politi-
cian whom Senhor magazine (an op-
position, business-oriented news weekly)
called “one of the most hated men in
the country,” Maluf could in no way
JULY/AUGUST 17prosper from even the most limited
opening of the presidential succession.
Brizola Named a “Bandit”
And so, the third week in May, this
man who long epitomized the most
aggressive sector of the military’s civil-
ian power base, traveled south to Porto
Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do
Sul, the Gaucho State. There he called
on ex-President General Emilio Gar-
rastazu Medici, 78, who presided over
perhaps the worst era of state terrorism
since the founding of the republic.
Medici had guarded a stony silence
since the end of his term (1969-1974),
as first President General Ernesto Geisel
and then Figueiredo ceded greater and
greater freedoms.
But following the meeting, Medici
appeared before the cameras at Muluf’s
side and, in a startling move, submitted
himself to the press for 20 minutes–
the longest interview of his life. He
denounced negotiations with the opposi-
tion, criticized the records of his suc-
cessors, hectored reporters, derided the
1979 political amnesty of “bandits”
like Rio Governor Leonel Brizola (a
populist governor of Rio Grande do Sul
in the pre-coup period who exists as a
symbolic nemesis of military rule) and
labeled diretas jii “a joke.” Afterward,
Maluf said, “I admit a deep longing for
the Medici era.”
The public was reminded of that era
when, within days of the Medici in-
terview, two offices were firebombed:
the Sdio Paulo headquarters of Amnesty
International and the offices of leading
opposition industrialist Ermirio de
Moraes. Also, still fresh in the public
mind was the duro in President Figueire-
do’s own heart.
Just before Easter, the president had
placed Brasilia, the nation’s capital,
and 10 surrounding communities, un-
der a modified state of emergency, as
Congress prepared to take its long-
awaited vote on the Dante de Oliveira
constitutional amendment re-establish-
ing direct presidential elections. The
principal mobilizing point for the di-
retas jd demonstrations, the amend-
ment is perhaps the most popular single
piece of legislation in Brazil’s history.
“Without a doubt, the objective of
these emergency measures is to create
a climate of fear among the legislators,”
declared Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula),
president of the trade union-based
Workers Party (PT).
PMDB President Ulysses Guima-
raes-also a presidential hopeful–de-
livered an impassioned address on the
floor of the Congress: “Any Congress-
man or Senator who is intimidated is
not a real public servant. Where is the
insurrection to justify emergency mea-
sures when we are demonstrating with
millions of people in perfect order? The
real threat to social peace comes from
hunger, misery and the surrender to
foreign interests.”
Figueiredo was unmoved, imposing
the worst press censorship and repres-
sion since abertura began. The Chamber
of Deputies, encircled by the Army,
narrowly missed the two-thirds vote
necessary to send the constitutional
amendment to the Senate.
The next week, television and radio
were back reporting the real news,
which was that diretas was still in the
air. Print journalists from left to right–
some of whom had been detained by
the Army in Brasilia-excoriated Fi-
gueiredo for imposing emergency mea-
sures. Guimardes and Lula threatened
to call out even larger demonstrations–
and only then did the president opt for
negotiations.
Brazilian Air of Festivity
The movement that forced the gov-
ernment to the negotiating table will
surely go down as one of the more
remarkable of recent history. The dem-
onstrations were pervasively non-violent,
almost Gandhi-like in their restraint,
but with a particularly Brazilian air of
festivity-though never permitting any
doubt that, with the current economic
crisis, political events amount to a mat-
ter of life and death.
The diretasjd campaign was to have
reached its crescendo April 10 in Rio,
where Gov. Leonel Brizola organized
an awesome protest, providing free bus
and subway service, a spectacular laser-
beam light show projected off the fa-
cades of modern office towers on the
Avenida Presidente Vargas and a broad
rostrum of the country’s leading oppo-
sition figures.
“Rio is going to bury the electoral
college” was Brizola’s claim in the
weeks leading up to the demonstration.
As governor of Rio Grande do Sul from
1958 to 1961, Brizola had expropriated
the telephone company and organized
preparations for armed resistance to a
1961 coup attempt; in 1964, when his
brother-in-law, President Joao Goulart,
was overthrown, Brizola again was in
the forefront of those endorsing armed
resistance. Twenty years later, after 18
years in political exile and a startling
political comeback, a greatly mellowed
and far more accommodationist Brizola
brought out one million working- and
middle-class Cariocas for the largest
single protest in Brazil’s history.
Six days later, in Sao Paulo this
time, a million and a half protesters
took to the streets. The Symphony Or-
chestra of Campinas was brought out to
perform, as was Samba queen Beth
Carvalho. And Brazil’s top soccer
player-Socrates–announced he would
scrap a multi-million dollar deal to play
in Italy and remain in Brazil, if direct
elections were held.
Diretas ja had become a national
fever, to rival the veryfutebol that had
carried Socrates to stardom; as if 20
years of stifled expression had suddenly
gotten loose. Up and down the 5,000
mile of the South Atlantic coastline,
and deep into the interior, Brazilians
poured into the streets wearing bright
yellow T-shirts (from the country’s flag,
the movement’s official color), singing
the national anthem; samba groups
carried their tambores down from shanty-
towns and slogans appeared rekindling
the long-buried memory of Joio “Jan-
go” Goulart. Lines formed around the
block for every showing of Jango, a
fiercely partisan documentary portrayal
of the only Brazilian president ever to
die in exile.
In the south, gigantic block letters
appeared on factory walls reading BRI-
ZOLA FOR PRESIDENT; and Plan-
ning Minister Ant6nio Delfim Netto,
architect of the fleeting economic mira-
cle who now functions as the long arm
of the IMF in Brazil, appeared in out-
door murals bartering the country’s
sovereignty for a fistful of dollars.
PDS Splits Over Electoral Issue
The democratic contagion spread
rapidly to widen rifts within Figueire-
do’s own Administration and party.
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
18Vice President Chaves came out pub-
licly for diretas jac, effectively ending
amicable relations with the president, and Chaves’ own presidential ambitions were endorsed by former President
Geisel, who was rumored to regret having chosen Figueiredo as his suc-
cessor. Navy Minister Maximiano Fonseca
was forced to resign in late March, the result of his barely disguised sympathies
for Chaves and diretas. Immediately, the new Navy minister’s two sons told
the national press they were adamant
supporters of the movement. And, in
the weeks leading up to the April 25
vote, Congressman Jose Sarney, Jr.
(PDS) joined the caucus of government-
party defectors in favor of the Dante de
Oliveira amendment–despite the ob-
jections of his father, Sen. Jos
Sr., until June national preside
PDS. The elder Sarney resig
Figueiredo rejected his bid ti
PDS split by holding a party I
Were it not for Figueired
ified state-of-emergency an
warnings that diretas j6i cou
duce the pre-coup climate
there remained a chance that
sident votes, prodded by ov
ing public opinion, could ha
Dante de Oliveira to victory.
weeks after the vote, only
branch of negotiations kept I
ment in abatement.
By mid-June, however,
clear that the ever deepening
within the PDS were effect
tralizing the possibility of a n
Rosinha shantytown, Rio de Janeiro. Ninety percent favor direct ele
t Sarney, settlement. And as the Report went to
lent of the press, rapidly breaking developments
ned when suggested that the presidential succes-
o heal the sion would remain in the electoral
primary. college-but with an important catch.
o’s mod- On July 4, Vice President Chaves and
d oblique another PDS presidential candidate,
uld repro- Sen. Marco Maciel, renounced their
of 1964, candidates; and together with about 40
PDS dis- influential party dissidents, they formed
erwhelm- a Liberal Front. With the joint support
ve carried of the Liberal Front and a united op-
And in the position, Gov. Tancredo Neves could
the olive conceivably beat the government on its
the move- own turf-that is, the electoral college.
Meanwhile, the political intrigue, ma-
it became neuverings and daily developments
g divisions continued apace.
ively neu- As everyone admits, Brazil’s prob-
ieaningful lems run far deeper than the question of
:tions 1nasceso.Wovrsc cin ceeds Figueiredo–whether a pro-mili-
tary technocrat like Maluf, or a leading
,,,;;,,ii ~ I1^r^.r–~ opposLUUn moderate RlJliL LL UUV. i alcredo
Neves or a non-political draft choice
like industrialist Ermirio de Moraes-
the challenge will be to govern a country
which strains at the breaking point.
Clearly, it was the potentially vol-
atile social situation to which Sio
Paulo Governor Franco Montoro was
alluding following the defeat of Dante
de Oliveira, when he came out for
negotiations with the Administration:
“We want to put the political process
back in the hand of professionals-and
out of the streets.”
Montoro, a PMDB leader, was ex-
pressing the sentiments of the moderate
and conservative opposition. As much
as they want an end to 20 years of
dictatorship and the more recent addi-
tion of an IMF overseer, the moderate
opposition has little interest in deeper
issues raised by popular movements
and a centuries-old class structure that,
exacerbated by the military’s conserva-
tive development model, has left 70%
of the population completely excluded
from the country’s prosperity.
There is little doubt that, once demo-
cratization takes place, economic plan-
ning will be shifted to a growth orienta-
tion, modest social services instituted
for the poor and the international debt
renegotiated in more realistic terms.
Less certain is the relationship that will
develop between a liberal democracy
and its disenfranchised majority.
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