|
 Brazil's left wing political spectrum is split in three distinct groups. Today, the PSOL (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade - Socialism and Liberty Party) is the far left wing political party created by the first few expelled PT members early in the Lula administration.
And many in the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Workers' Party) especially in the Congress are moderate leftwing politicians who align themselves with the centrist political parties like the PMDB and PTB.
There is also, a rumbling left wing movement in Brazil who is discontent with the Lula administration but does not support the far left PSOL platform.
This group, little talked about today in the media, is formed mainly by the PDT and PPS political alliance. They are also attempting to attract the PV party to this alliance. Many members of the PT, PMDB, PSB, and PCdoB show their affection to this new left wing political movement.
This more progressive left wing movement has developed a sense of maturity that rejects failed radical ideology while providing Brazilian voters a 3rd way or alternative to the PT-PSDB feud.
Paulo Pereira da Silva, Paulinho, president of the Força Sindical union is a member of the PDT. Last month, Agência Estado wrote an article where Paulinho attacked Lula for suggesting that Brazil needs to lower its tariffs on imported goods if companies refuse to control their price adjustments.
Reading just this, one might think that Paulinho supports the old populist measures of protectionism. Further analysis, however, shows that his understanding of the Brazilian economy is quite different from the interventionist approach in the economy by the federal government.
The president of the Força Sindical argues that the federal government must adopt new economic measures to strength the economy. "A large part of inflation, at this moment," says Paulinho, "is the result of the public adjusted prices and the higher taxes especially in the service sector."
Furthermore, the article details that the labor union leader believes that reducing taxes and interest rates, especially bank spreads, is an effective method to combat high inflation.
"The government has put a rope around the neck of the entrepreneurs, by increasing taxes and then begins to pull the cord, suffocating those who produce."
He has a valid point that the current government policy is killing Brazil's industry, jobs and the working class. Extremely high taxes and interests rates are contributing to higher prices and costs to both businesses and consumers.
Few can argue the point that cutting taxes to stimulate growth and reducing interest rates are wrong, so why is it that many still criticize people like Paulinho in Brazilian politics. Is it not rare to hear about a tax cutting labor union leader?
Do many criticize Paulinho because he is against lowering tariffs? Personally his viewpoint holds some validity. He realizes that if Brazil were to lower tariffs a larger part of the domestic industry would go bankrupt.
If this were to happen, Brazil would lose the capabilities to develop a competitive industrial base, which is needed to build a stronger economy in the future.
Brazil, today, does not have the technology to compete against the European or American companies. But consumers might benefit from lower prices, except for those who lack jobs.
Agriculture is where the Brazilian economy has its competitive advantage, but it must not be its future. It must eventually use its domestic resources to create a domestic manufacturing base. No country can develop a modern economy on a competitive advantage of agriculture.
Instead, a country's industrial policy should be to invest in building a large, powerful, exporting industrial base. But Paulinho is the only one changing the left from inside-out.
Governor of Paraná, Roberto Requião, is also adopting a new economic formula from the Left. He has adopted some populist measures but overall he is trying new economic stimulus.
His economic plan is based on using the government tax revenues to lower taxes for small business owners while attacking the incentives given to multinational corporations.
The Governor, will lower the ICMS, state sales tax, for certain goods from 18 percent to 12 percent. Even future presidential candidates seem to be emerging from this new left mentality.
Senator Jefferson Peres, (from the Amazonas PDT) is an exceptional politician. His main proposals involve eliminating all federal taxes and creating the unified federal tax modeled on the CPMF (Contribuição Provisória sobre Movimentações Financeiras - Temporary Contribution on Financial Transactions) tax.
At a new higher adjusted rate, this would eliminate the current Byzantine tax code. He also supports maintaining the primary surplus if it helps bring down interest rates. Is he radical? No, not really.
Also it seems that Cristovam Buarque is suddenly becoming a viable alternative for the new Left. He is still a Senator from the Federal District, under the PT party, but he currently feels the party is drifting away from his positions.
He is a dedicated senator who was once the governor of Brasília. He has a complete plan on how to transform Brazil through education and might even be the candidate this new alliance is looking for. Only time will tell which person will will shine under this new alliance.
No matter how you feel about this New Left movement, credit must be given to both parties for maintaining some sort of consistency in their program.
The PDT, immediately left Lula's coalition after it felt Lula betrayed the public sector workers by supporting pension reform that they believed was being conducted on the behest of the IMF and international organizations to pay more on Brazil's interest payment.
The PDT has always opposed such reforms and immediately set out against them. The PPS felt that after giving Lula two years at the presidency that he has not been committed to the plans for change he promised during the campaign.
He has maintained the same economic policies that were in place when Cardoso was president and it seems to have forced the PPS president, Roberto Freire to demand that the party leave the coalition.
But it all might be a reaction from angry political leaders, since many in Congress from both parties still support Lula. Just a few days ago, some in the PPS launched Roberto Freire candidacy towards a presidential bid in 2006.
Don't count them off just yet. Sure the PT-PSDB may capture the headlines but in the 2002 election the PDT-PPS-PTB alliance helped put together Ciro Gomes presidential candidacy.
Even though he came in 4th place, at one point early in the election Mr. Gomes was tied with Lula for first place. After constant attacks from José Serra, Ciro eventually finished in 4th place. Who knows what may happen this time around.
Daniel Torres is a political science and economics major at the University of Massachusetts. Comments welcome at dftorres@gmail.com.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
