The Americanistas

With his designated successor Dilma Rousseff facing health problems ahead of 2010 presidential elections, and the lukewarm support of a key allied party (PMDB), the rumor in Brazil is that two-term president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Worker’s Party is mulling a third term. (The Brazilian Constitution would need to be changed for this to happen).

One cartoonist, Amarildo, from Rio daily O Globo, is having a field day with this. In the first, the cartoonist has shown Lula in bed with his wife, Marisa Leticia Lula da Silva, but Lula has somehow magically morphed into Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. He says to his wife, “Marisa, I swear I’m not thinking of a third term!” Marisa responds, “Sure joker, You get a strange look on your face every time you talk about it!”

Strange face indeed …

Some in Brazil thought it was inappropriate to show Chávez in bed with Lula’s wife.

The next cartoon, published today, is clearer, and shows Lula musing not about one more term, but two more terms. Lula’s reading a newspaper article saying that life expectancy for Brazilian males is 73 years. He thinks, “I’m 64 years old, 9 years to go for 73. Sweet! I have enough time for two more terms!”

clipped from oglobo.globo.com clipped from oglobo.globo.com

Dilma Rousseff (Agencia Brasil)

1. THE CYCLICAL TENDENCY: As anyone who has been around a little while knows, mature democracies, and even not-so-mature democracies tend to be cyclical. Power tends to oscillate from right to left and back again. Incumbents are vulnerable because being in power creates wear and tear. Responsibility means making mistakes, and voters tend to punish those in power by throwing them out whenever they’re unhappy about anything at all. It will be important to keep this pattern in mind when evaluating Brazil’s 2010 election. Brazil’s post-1980s democracy began to strike deep roots with Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB or Brazilian Social Democratic Party), who served two terms. Then it veered slightly left with the PT or Workers’ Party and its boss, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Despite the fears of his critics, who fanned paranoid fantasies that he would be a firebrand, Lula has been a moderate, pragmatic, and unifying two-term president. His great achievement was building a societal consensus around a free market model that acknowledged Brazil’s deep economic inequalities and so built in a relatively aggressive policy of wealth redistribution, social programs and some state-directed economic stewardship, so that the country could grow without aggravating economic polarization and ameliorate it instead. Along the way, Lula drifted a bit from the PT leftist base, and did so while remaining immensely popular personally. The PT, though, took some hits: most importantly a corruption/bribery scandal that’s still playing out in the courts, as well as some bruising elections along the way. Now, the global financial crisis has taken some of the shine off Brazil’s economy, and while it’s largely not the fault of the country’s leaders or business class, the party in power will inevitably be dinged by it. So the PT goes into 2010 facing off with a revived PSDB opposition, which has fielded two strong candidates: governors José Serra of São Paulo and Aécio Neves of Minas Gerais. The cyclical nature of politics means it will be easier for Neves and Serra to present themselves as eligible successors to the presidential palace after the eight year PT grip on power. They’ll present themselves as competent, business-friendly, slightly technocratic, and argue that a change at the top will help cement the foundations of Brazil’s democracy. They’ll say they’re for continuity in terms of Brazil’s general direction, but put more emphasis on reforms: streamlining bureaucracy, business costs, etc. It will be hard for Worker’s Party candidate Dilma Rousseff (now Lula’s chief of staff) to build a clear campaign theme other than riding Lula’s coattails. With Lula behind her on the campaign trail, Rousseff will go far, but her challenge will be to build her own brand and vision, apart from Lula’s that voters can connect with. A final note: a democracy’s political cycles can be brusque or smooth. Argentina is a case in point for the roller-coaster model. Ever since the return of democracy in 1983, non-Peronists and Peronists have alternated in power, but they’ve done so via political crises like the inflation fiasco of the late 1980s and the economic and social implosion of 2001. Brazil can pat itself on the back. The PT’s Lula succeeded the PSDB’s Cardoso without tumult or chaos. Today, the robust consensus in Brazil around a social democracy virtually guarantees that the 2010 hand-off will be just as smooth (and hopefully this time the markets won’t create a scare, as they did in 2002).

Aécio Neves (Agencia Brasil)

2. THE PANAMA PARADIGM VS. THE SOUTH AFRICA PARADIGM: This month’s elections in Panama and South Africa offer contrasting scenarios of a political system renewing itself. In Panama, a right-leaning business magnate succeeded a member of the Torrijos political dynasty, which might be fairly described as a populist strain in the Panamanian  DNA. Martín Torrijos, the son of 1970s strongman Omar Torrijos, is a social democrat, but he  favored some causes with a certain flavor of combativeness, such as supporting Puerto Rican independence and building ties with Cuba. Despite the fact that Panama’s economy has been growing, and that the country isn’t facing any acute crises, voters opted away from his Democratic Revolutionary Party founded by Omar Torrijos and elected a pro-business millionaire president, Ricardo Martinelli. It seems Panamanians, instead of opting for their institutionalized center-left party, decided to give the center-right a chance, which according to the cyclical model is a natural thing for voters in a democracy to do. But there are exceptions. South Africa presents a radically different context, one in which the African National Congress has dominated politics since 1994. South Africa’s parliament elected the ANC leader Jacob Zuma president a few days ago, making him the fourth consecutive ANC boss to lead the country. Whatever the internal divisions inside the ANC, it’s clearly the institution South Africans want in power, a desire that trumps any inclination to let another group hold the reins. Voters gave the ANC 66% of the ballots. Despite Brazil’s obvious differences with both South Africa and Panama, the question voters there face is essentially this: will we give more power to the PT, after eight years in which it existed as the most powerful political institution in the country, and consolidated itself as a major grassroots force with a rock solid base among Brazil’s working poor, because that’s how much we believe in this party and its vision (the South Africa model). Or, are we going to even the playing field a bit and try something else for a change (the Panamanian model)?

José Serra (Silvio Tanaka)

3. BOLSA FAMILIA: As I mentioned above, both the Brazilian PSDB opposition and the PT will wrangle over whether it was their presidents Fernando Henrique or Lula who engendered  social programs like Bolsa Familia (cash payments to poor families who keep their kids up to date on health checks and in school). These programs have proved elemental in helping millions of Brazilians out of the grind of poverty. When opposition PSDB politicians talk about Bolsa Familia, however gracious they might seem, what they’re really trying to do is hammer away at the perception that Lula is the savior of the poor masses. Consider what Aécio Neves said about Bolsa Familia, as reported today by Ricardo Noblat’s blog: “The question isn’t who’s the mother or father of the child. Over the course of Fernando Henrique’s government, there was relevant action on social programs, which later matured into the format of Bolsa Familia. But it’s obvious Bolsa Familia matured greatly over the course of Lula’s government.” It sounds like a generous quote. It isn’t. What Neves is really saying is that Fernando Henrique and Lula are both responsible for the popular program. It benefits Neves’s candidacy to do away with the idea that the PT is the only party capable of acting in behalf of poor Brazilian’s interests. The election may turn on Brazilians’ reaction to this paternity suit. The question becomes, who fathered Bolsa Familia, and if the PT isn’t the sole progenitor, do we trust the PSDB enough to share custody?

Lula in Mozambique in 2003 (Agencia Brasil)

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva was called the most popular politician on earth by U.S. President Barack Obama, who also has asked him to be the White House’s main intermediary in Latin America. In Brazil, Lula has approval ratings that oscillate around 80 percent. Last Sunday, Argentine newspaper La Nación published a lengthy interview with Lula, in which he reveals his vision for the world as it tries to emerge from the global downturn. Some quotes from the article:

In calling for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to adopt a more collaborative approach and cease dictating policy to borrowing countries, Lula called for an end to bean-counting and a reliance on political consensus to overcome global problems:

“The phase of the technocrats is over. The moment has come for politics.”

In detailing some major investments planned by the government (including via state-run oil company Petrobras) in order to build up Brazil’s internal market and weather some of the drop-off in foreign investment that will result from the financial crisis:

“Petrobras alone has planned investments of 178 billion dollars through 2013. We’ve just announced a plan to build a million homes.”

Why Brazil has decided to reduce its fiscal surplus, in order to invest more in stimulating the economy (Lula’s argument is that the crisis presents an unprecedented opportunity for governments to reshape their societies):

“In Brazil we even reduced the … surplus because we’re convinced that the moment has come for investments, to create jobs and generate a better distribution of income. It’s an exceptional moment to make political decisions. In the last few years, Brazil has earned the right to go into debt a little bit more because we’ve shrunk our public debt to 35% of Gross Domestic Product from 52%. We have the right to work with public debt to finance and create more public works in our country. I see this crisis as the great opportunity that’s showing us how to be more courageous, be more audacious, and prepare ourselves for the end of the crisis. Countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Argentina have greater opportunities to emerge from the crisis, as long as we do things right.”

On Central America and the Caribbean:

“I told President Obama that the Caribbean and Central American economies are all totally focused on the United States. So it’s necessary not only to be worried about the United States, but to also be concerned for those smaller countries.”

More on Brazil’s efforts to weather the crisis:

“In Brazil, because of the crisis, we have various infrastructure projects manned by two shifts of workers. Our worry now is to prevent a fall in society’s consumption habits, to create jobs and not pull back on social programs. That’s the miracle we have to achieve in Brazil.”

On his succession:

“There’s one thing I can say: it’ll be a privilege for this country if there’s a presidential campaign pitting Dilma Rousseff (from Lula’s own Worker’s Party) against José Serra (from the more centrist PSDB opposition party). If the candidates are Dilma, Serra and Ciro (Gomes, from the Brazilian Socialist Party or PSB) that would also be a luxury. Ditto if (Aécio) Neves is there. And that’s because I don’t see anyone from the right there. I see colleagues from the left, center-left, progressives. That’s a huge step forward for Brazil.”

On Marxism:

“I was never a Marxist. Never. That’s one affliction I never suffered from!”

On Bolivian President Evo Morales and his tug-of-war with Brazil over natural gas:

“When Evo Morales began to fight with Brazil, some in conservative spheres wanted me to hit back. I always treated him as a friend and partner. I knew the gas was his and I knew that one day he would learn some lessons and he himself would learn that there were different approaches that might be taken. That’s what’s happening: he’s a lot more mature, he was able to build a team.”

At the end of the interview, the La Nación journalist says he was shooed from the room by Lula’s handlers who explained that the Brazilian president was about to take a call from U.S. President Barack Obama. Lula said that once his second term ends in 2010, his plan is to continue working on Latin American issues and also on helping Africa.

  

The logos of regional blocs in the hemisphere, clockwise from top-left: UNASUR, SICA, NAFTA (only economic), CARICOM.

Ahead of this weekend’s hemispheric Summit in Trinidad, President Barack Obama has offered to meet with Latin American and Caribbean leaders on a bloc-by-bloc basis, the AP reports.

Obama called Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is acting president of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), to arrange a meeting with South American leaders. Bachelet and Obama are scheduled to talk by phone this morning to set the agenda for the talks.

The Obama administration made a similar invitation to the Central American Integration System (SICA), which is currently led by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a harsh U.S. critic. The U.S. President is already scheduled (tentatively) to sit down with leaders from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) tomorrow night after the Summit’s opening plenary. Bilateral U.S. issues with Mexico, it seems, are being dealt with in a pre-Summit meeting between the two presidents.

Breaking up the meetings in this way – though Obama will presumably have at least some bilateral meetings – makes sense: The three regions will have distinct agendas with the U.S. president.

The Caribbean leaders will ask for more economic assistance and for Washington to stop trying to block (on behalf of U.S.-based fruit companies)  the preferential access Caribbean nations have to European markets.

The Central Americans will request more economic assistance and urge Obama to press forward with a thorough immigration reform. They might also ask the President to further beef up military spending to help fight the spillover effects of Mexico’s narco wars. (Central America is also a key transshipment point for U.S.-bound South American cocaine that makes its way through Mexico.) Central American countries generally had very close ties to the Bush administration (with the exception of Ortega’s Nicaragua), so this meeting won’t be so much about reconciliation as it will be about setting a renewed sub-regional agenda.

In South America, the scenario is quite different. The region is home to nearly all of the governments that have swung to the left in recent years, including vocal U.S. critics such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. All three leaders have expelled U.S. officials in recent years, while Bolivia and Venezuela have practically severed diplomatic ties with Washington.

The South America meeting will be Obama’s largest challenge. Besides the economic crisis, new financing initiatives, and lingering trade disputes (e.g. Doha, Colombia’s FTA), leaders will likely bring up the Cuba issue. All South American governments have called on Washington to change its Cuba policy, and those that stand to make the loudest pitch are Bolivia, Venezuela, maybe Ecuador, and possibly Paraguay. The leaders of these four countries are currently meeting in Caracas, under the auspices of Chávez’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas initiative, which includes Cuba, to set a common strategy for the Trinidad Summit.

Before making the case for Cuba, however, the region’s more radical left-leaning leaders will first try to feel out Obama’s intentions on improving U.S. relations with their own countries. This will be a delicate dance: In the eyes of these leaders, all of whom felt grossly insulted by the Bush administration, it should be Barack Obama that tries to woo them, not the other way around.

If Obama manages to restore ties with both Bolivia and Venezuela, this will be a big step forward. On that front, the U.S. administration seems to count on the welcome support of Brazil, which is increasingly  positioning itself as a regional interlocutor. No foreign leaders have hit it off so well with Obama as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

If Obama can strike the right notes with South American leaders in Trinidad and if he does more “listening than lecturing,” as he himself once said, U.S.-Latin America relations could enter a promising new stage.