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 Charming, elegant and eloquent. This could be a good definition at first sight of former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. He is also intelligent and sharp, but natural sophistication and class keeps him from being presumptuous.
He came to New York for the launching of his new book The Accidental President, at Columbia University. Newsweek called it candid, brilliant and thoroughly readable. Publishers Weekly says he is a seasoned history writer. The book intends to brush up the image of Brazil, giving a picture of reality, without the discrimination and prejudice so commonly found in first world countries. The writer uses his extraordinary image of a respected intellectual, professor of Brown University, and a former president of South America's giant, to reach many who, after reading his book, will have a much clearer vision of Brazil, a complex country of many colors and contrasting realities. When you wrote The Accidental President of Brazil, was your intention with such charming writing to promote a realistic but less condescending view of Brazil? You just said it, it was a good synthesis. This was precisely the idea. Primarily the idea was for Public Affairs to publish the book I wrote, which was just launched in Brazil, The Art of Politics, but it is a big book, 700 pages. Then the editor pointed out that that particular book had a frame of reference meant for Brazilians, which would be hard for Americans to follow. And he suggested that I wrote my memoirs, about my own life, my family and so forth. I did not see much sense in writing a book about myself, the interesting thing would be to write about Brazil, telling in a book how much Brazil has improved, changed, despite all the difficulties and problems and do so in an accessible way to reach the American reader. And that's what I did, using my own political history, showing the reality as it is but without the prejudices and preconceptions so commonly found here. We also wanted it to be a readable book, not an academic book, aimed at a more diversified public. The book I just published in Brazil is more complex, it is a more difficult book to read, but The Accidental President of Brazil is easy reading all the way. And I hope I reached the goal, just judging from your question, I think it seems to be going in the right direction. Which changes would be more needed in Brazil, and which among changes that have occurred would you say are the most important? Real changes have happened in Brazil's economy that made it better. Brazil has a more open economy now, even if not all the way, but a lot more than before. Secondly, the entrepreneurial mentality is already a strong thing in Brazil, both in the private and public sector, which facilitates to lead the country ahead towards growth and development within the present context, which means that Brazil is responding to the challenges of globalization, it is not with the head stuck in the sand, like an ostrich, no, it is facing it. It still lacks a lot, but what I really think is that the problem is an another area, we need a more equal Brazil, with access to work and education. This is our Achilles' heel. Brazil is the 10th economy in the world, therefore a strong country. Why is it not well developed? It is not because of the economy, it is because of its society, with all the poverty, the inequality. This is what we need to build, a more human country, more equalitarian, and this cannot be done overnight, but it can be done. This is the reason why I reinforce in this book the fight against discrimination and prejudice, AIDS, defending land redistribution, an integration between an organized society and the government, because these are things that will contribute to the modernization of the country. Globalization affects all countries, developed and developing. Is Brazil getting organized to react to all the insecurities brought about by this phenomenon? Globalization is asymmetric, and one may lose importance, globalization is exclusive. Look at Africa, that huge continent, but it does not have a place in this global economy. But for our luck, Brazil exports so it does matter in this global economy. Brazil is a great exporter and competes with the US in agriculture and other areas. I think that Brazil is getting organized but there is also that anxious feeling. Let's look at jobs, for instance. In my generation everything was stable, one had a career with a fixed income and it lasted one's entire life. Today we have occupations, not jobs the same say as we did before. The newer generations adapt to this more easily than my generation. I see this with my own children, none of them has a fixed job and the one who did, my daughter who used to be a professor with USP (University of São Paulo) resigned. Some time ago something like this was unthinkable, no one would give up the benefits and pension plan associated with such jobs. There is a new mentality and people know that today life has many more variables. One needs education that prepares for flexibility. Yesterday I went to visit Bloomberg, which is very impressive. The young man who is in charge of Latin America told me he had a degree in Philosophy and Math. Here in the US you do that a lot. I teach at Brown and I know a lot of students who major in Literature and Chemistry, for instance. In Brazil it is different, I have two grandchildren ready to go to college. One of them is studying Psychology in Rio and the other one is torn between Law and Biology. Here she could do both and only later make her choice, it is more flexible. We have to change a lot of things yet. Do you think that the political mentality in Brazil has advanced in any way? I think so, it didn't advance as much as other areas. Look at our press, for instance, it is so alive and it exhibits a global level. You read a big Brazilian newspaper and you read The New York Times, and we are about equal, of course we have some translation writing too. But if we look at our universities we can see a lot of improvement. Look at the military and how much they have changed. Now the political area reflects the country as a whole and the whole is unequal, so it reflects this inequality and it is a slower process of absorbing the necessary changes. You still see a lot of clientelism, which leads to corruption and this is still a strong factor in Brazil. No, I could not say that the political mentality has changed sufficiently. And which changes would be crucial to happen as soon as possible? I think the main change would be changing the voting system. The present criteria does not allow the voter to control the actions of those elected. Each party can have twice as many candidates as the number of openings. In a big state like São Paulo you can have as many as 1,400 candidates, so people don't even know who they voted for. And the candidates compete within their own party for votes. So we have internal competition and costly elections which need money and those who have and give money, do not always want to appear, then it's money off the records, illegal, it invites corruption. So we have to change this system. The easy illegal money changed sources, no longer comes from construction contractors, now advertising companies are the new rich... It is not exactly that. Advertising companies are a channel that transports public money, it is public money. With the money off the records, what you have is a private donor who does not want to show. But what happened during the present administration of President Lula is something else. It is not money from private sources. It is public money that uses a private channel to buy votes in Congress, and this is not during campaign, it was done after the campaign. It changed, yes, but it became much worse. By picking São Paulo's governor, Geraldo Alckmin as your party's (PSDB) candidate for president, a name who is not well known in Brazil, isn't this contributing to the reelection of president Lula? Serra, the other possible candidate, decided not to move on to primaries, he stepped out and what this means is that the party will start out strong and united launching Alckmin for President. Our idea is that Geraldo will win the upcoming elections. As governor of São Paulo he has 70% approval and if he is not well known, we have some advantage there, presenting this excellent name, who is new and solid. I see people tired of Lula and his style and Geraldo is the opposite of all that. Could you say something about Lula and his Worker's Party? The unionists of the party reached power and took the presidency, then what happened, they just forgot their roots? I wrote an article called "The American Dream." They are making a dream come through, reaching social mobility, going up in the ladder. Where is the class? They moved up personally, they did not even carry with them a true commitment directed to the working class, their roots and political base. So is it a mere case of social climbing? It is curious because Lula's speech was all on the working class and after the election it turned to poor people, like any other populist politician, directed to the class of very needy voters with very bad quality of life, who will welcome any kind of assistance that comes their way. So the Lula who was a union leader no longer exists. A mutation problem... Minister Palocci's resignation and Guido Mantega taking over, how do you see this will affect Brazilian economy and the credibility abroad? Many people criticized other parties who were defending Palocci, but that was not it, parties were defending our economy. But it gets to a point that nothing can be done. My party, the PSDB didn't cause Palocci's fall, things got to a point that he fell on his own, because of things they did. To substitute Palocci is no easy task and I don't think Guido Mantega has the knowledge required. I also find him somewhat inexperienced, he needs to be more careful about his remarks, anything he says might bring consequences. I don't think he has what it takes to lead the Brazilian economy at this point. If I were president Lula I would have kept someone who was already there, like Murilo Portugal, at least until the election. This is no time to change the line of work. Even if they have a plan B, this is no time for this kind of change, not during election year. What do you see in the future of Brazil? I think what happened with the Lula administration shows the future of Brazil. Despite all the negative expectations, nothing exploded when he took office. Brazil is a strong country, and people cannot just go and do whatever they want. But I do feel that this particular moment in this election year is favorable to the opposing party. Would you consider running for President again? No. It is in my book, I made a mature decision to continue working in public life, but not running for office again. I think we should know our moments, because going back to doing what you have already done, as well as you did, it will not be the same thing. No elections. I was invited to run for Senator in several states, I would have easily won, but I don't think this is the right thing to do. After being president, I don't want to compete with members of my party. I'm writing books, giving lectures, conferences, I'm going to analyze and criticize, and I'll be with my party. But no more elections. Clara Angelica Porto is a Brazilian bilingual journalist living in New York. She went to school in Brazil and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Clara is presently working as the English writer for The Brasilians, a monthly newspaper in Manhattan. Comments welcome at
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