Disunity
Rally

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso called the march undemocratic since one of its objectives was to oust him. But more than a thousand buses brought in participants from all over Brazil, and they arrived, protested, and left without incident and without compromising the republic. The demonstration also showed that Brazil has no genuine opposition.

Adhemar Altieri

It was dubbed the "March of 100-thousand", and although the turnout didn't match the title, it was, by far, the largest anti-government demonstration since president Fernando Henrique Cardoso was first elected in 1994. Even as it fell short, last Thursday's event organized by a hodge-podge of leftwing political parties, labor unions and religious organizations captured the public's attention in Brazil at the end of August, and delivered important messages—to the government, its opponents, and Brazilian society. 

Certainly the orderly way in which it all happened is a positive sign. More than a thousand buses brought in participants from all over Brazil, and they arrived, protested, and left without incident. Police reported one arrest for drunkenness. Market reaction, or the lack of it, is also worth noting. While speakers railed against the government in Brasília, it was business as usual throughout the day—no noticeable effects on key indicators. 

This is not what some in government seemed to expect. Cabinet members, and the president himself, dubbed the march "undemocratic" even before it took place. A protest march, however large, is not in itself undemocratic, but had critics been more specific and focused their remarks on some of the movement's stated aims, the argument would have made sense. 

One such aim was president Cardoso's resignation, proposed by one of the organizing parties. In light of recent events in neighboring Venezuela, where general Hugo Chavez is in the process of dismantling his country's institutions, the resignation demand and what it really implied came across as annoying to people on all sides of the issue. And it didn't help that former presidential candidate and the left's inspirational leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, went public with his admiration for what Chavez is doing. 

At best though, this led to a bit of discomfort and a lot of verbal jousting, but no real threat or surprise. After all, Lula has said many times before he considers Fidel Castro "the greatest statesman in the Americas". It seems that the authoritarian approach is not an option Lula fully rejects.  And while Venezuela borders on Brazil, the two countries are oceans apart in terms of institutional stability, so the threat of a repeat in Brazil of what's happening there is remote, if it exists at all. 

From the government's perspective, a large protest, even if smaller than promised, is not something to be shoved aside and ignored. In the past, we've described president Cardoso's government as lethargic, and that may be the nicest thing one could say about its lack of initiative and leadership on vital issues—particularly the all-important constitutional reforms that don't seem to go anywhere. If a few thousand shouting protestors in Brasília help to shake out a few cobwebs, they will have served a useful purpose. 

Lost Left

Already there are signs this might be happening. The week ended with the announcement that a series of measures, most aimed at launching or enhancing social assistance programs, will be introduced by the government in the next few days. It is still not clear if this is a bona-fide attempt to move on key issues, or a knee-jerk reaction to the march. 

Looking at the organizers, the march made it clear there is not much glue between the parties and factions that currently oppose the government. Even as busloads of protestors arrived, party leaders couldn't agree on common goals for their movement. The biggest hitch was the demand for Cardoso's resignation, something most parties and organizations refused to officially support. 

The rift  became obvious and public when a document unifying all demands could not be delivered at the end of the protest. The government, of course, cashed in on this lack of cohesiveness, and often described the movement as the "march of the aimless"—a bit heavy handed as an overall assessment, but not entirely false. 

What the opposition did deliver was a petition with over one million signatures, calling for a congressional inquiry on the privatization of Telebrás, the State telecommunications monopoly dismantled a year ago. As a driving cause for the protest march, this was a very poor choice, bordering on silliness.

The basis for the petition was a series of illegally taped conversations between government officials, discussing ways to assist one bidder in the privatization process to obtain financing from a government source. In one exchange, president Cardoso himself is heard agreeing with the approach. The help did not materialize, the bidder did not win a chunk of Telebrás, and dozens of taped conversations could only show the government's intent was ensuring that qualified bidders entered the newly-created, privatized telecoms market. 

The fact is that the opposition's rejection of privatization is strictly dogmatic. The numbers simply demolish any argument against privatizing the phone system in Brazil. Against a million or so signatures on that petition, there are over 15 million new phone users in Brazil in the first year of privatized telecommunications alone—all benefiting from improved access to both cellular and fixed phone lines, not to mention lower prices. None of this would have happened under a State monopoly, which never managed more than a million new phone lines per year before privatization, and always at extremely high cost. 

In high unemployment days, the newly-privatized telecommunications sector is one of the biggest job creators in Brazil today, which makes it even more difficult to accept the opposition's rejection. On the other hand, this is not entirely out of line with the way the Brazilian left has carried on for several years now. Relevance and timeliness have not been the buzzwords of opposition initiatives. 

Even in organizing this march, the amount of political opportunism at play was obvious from the start. In another gem, during a speech to promote the march, Lula described the current government as "the worst in Brazil's history". Interesting that he would find this government, even with all its problems, worse than Fernando Collor's administration, so rife with corruption it led to that president's resignation to avoid impeachment. Or worse than José Sarney's, which chalked up galloping inflation levels of up to 90 percent per month. Or worse than the 21 years of military rule that ended in 1985. 

Strange
Bedfellows

The lack of unity so visible in Brasília at the end of the march, when organizers couldn't subscribe to a common set of demands, has really been the norm among the government's opponents, and this is no small problem. It means there is no constructive opposition at work in Brazil today. Opponents can put together a protest march, but come up empty handed when asked just how they would do things differently. This was the case in the past two presidential election campaigns, which saw Lula suffer resounding first-round defeats to Cardoso. 

If there's an objective at all, it seems to be cashing in on any opportunity to bash the government, without necessarily offering an alternative. This "anything goes" attitude was clear during a recent farmers' protest, when Lula's left-wing Workers' Party (PT) joined hands with extreme rightwing members of Congress to defend a costly debt pardon for wealthy landowners. 

A prominent voice from the Brazilian left summed it all up in a recent television interview. Harvard professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger said the left needs to "stop campaigning and realize the election is over, and they lost". Unger's conclusion, five days before the march even happened: Brazil currently has no practical, functioning opposition. 

Respected Brown University Brazilianist Thomas Skidmore, in a radio interview following the march, agreed with Unger and added: "The Brazilian left no longer has a point of reference. Regimes it once looked to as ideal to pursue no longer exist". 

As things stand, the leftwing opposition led by the PT is doing little more than keeping an eye out for opportunities to be critical, which is part of its role. But in the process, it is making no discernible contribution to improve things. It is certainly not spelling out just what it would do differently if it held power. There's no lack of catchy slogans and dogmatic phrases. Unfortunately for the Brazilian left, these tend to represent ideas which the rest of the world abandoned several years ago. 

Adhemar Altieri is a 21-year veteran with major news outlets in Brazil, Canada and the United States. He holds a Master's Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and spent ten years with CBS News reporting from Canada and Brazil. Altieri is a member of the Virtual Intelligence Community, formed by The Greenfield Consulting Group to identify future trends for Latin America. He is also the editor of InfoBrazil (http://www.infobrazil.com ), an English-language weekly e-zine with analysis and opinions on Brazilian politics and economy. You can reach the author at editors@infobrazil.com

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