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 The first generation of the Workers Party (PT) was a heroic one. In the depths of the military regime, it organized the workers to press forward with their demands.
Confronting an entrenched dictatorship and a reactionary elite that concentrated wealth and power and had no sense of nationhood, the founders of the PT never thought they would come to power under the leadership of a worker with neither fortune nor diploma.
They even dreamed of running candidates in elections. It was a party of historical heroism.
By bringing together people from diverse wings of the Left - orphans of the Communist movement, leaders of the Catholic Church, union members - the new party was not, in fact, even a party.
Divided internally into tendencies, it was like a federation of movements against the dictatorship, more a grouping of slogans than a party with goals of power and an alternative national project.
The heroic generation started to make demands. The PT turned into the collection of unions, social movements, groups organized for the immediate struggle that often defended the impossible.
It began to represent the workers against capital, to symbolize the different, the incorruptible opposition, the hope in a country of corrupted politics.
Soon that movement transformed into a party. Accustomed to legislative opposition but without governmental projects, it increased its presence in Congress. Little by little, mayors were elected; they needed to replace demands with proposals.
This was followed by the election of two governors, one of whom, under pressure from militants and union members, did not succeed in remaining in the PT until the end of his term.
PT leaders began to occupy executive posts. The party of disputing was tested in administrating; the party of demands was tested in proposing.
But on the national level, the presidential candidacy represented only position taking. Lula, nevertheless, almost won the first direct election for president after the military regime.
In 1989, Brazilians rejected the traditional politicians of the dictatorship and of the democratic struggle, deciding between the candidates that offered difference: Lula and Collor.
As proved by Fernando Collor - who resigned the presidency while facing impeachment - neither of them had viable projects.
Even when its opportunity to govern a complex country like Brazil was approaching, however, the PT did not change as it should have. While presenting proposals through its municipal and state officeholders, on the national level it remained oppositionist. Its deputies and senators voted without a commitment to the construction of the possible, without conciliation.
The party participated in the democracy without appearing cut out for it; it was intransigent, adverse to dialogue; it presented a list of radical dreams and union demands instead of a clear project for a different Brazil. The lack of taste for dialogue was confused with authenticity and purity; the list of demands was viewed as a project, as hope.
With its popular appeal, not much was lacking: to show the elite that the PT was not an uncontrolled whirlwind, or an association of the confused, and that, with its purity, it would be capable of conciliation. It only had to demonstrate that it was an alternative and not a threat.
Once this was accomplished - and with Lula's charisma and political genius - the PT of the impossibility succeeded in electing the president. The PT and Lula were prepared to govern. They had the sense of responsibility and of the limits of the possible.
Now that more than two years have passed, Lula can be considered one of the best Presidents of the Republic that Brazil has had. But he is a competent president of the old Brazilian cycle and not the first president of the new historical cycle.
The PT has still not taken the steps to make our republic republican with measures that aim toward a change in power, in the distribution of income, in the universalization of quality schools, in the reduction of inequality, in attending to the essential needs of the people.
The Lula government is administering the present well but it still has not begun to transform a divided country into a unified nation. It is maintaining the old course of the democratic country with monetary stability, but it is a country that is unequal, poorly educated, sick, corrupted with opportunistic politics.
The lack of transforming acts is causing hope to evaporate; the PT's halo of purity is fading due to the party's excessive alliances with traditional elites and its utilization of the same methods it formerly fought against. Its two great strengths, hope and purity, are beginning to disappear.
History shows that some parties define themselves upon arriving in power, while others lose themselves. The PT risks the latter if it is not capable of influencing the Lula government politically and changing the historical direction of Brazil.
Militants and voters are asking themselves if it is still the same party. Even worse, the internal opposition, considered of the Left, is criticizing the economic policy, but it is not presenting an alternative to reorient the national project.
At 25 years of age, the PT has not succeeded in transforming its electoral success into a political and historical success, and it does not know how to remove Brazil from the centenarian hands of the aristocratic oligarchy and reorient the future of the country.
For this reason, we are not commemorating the PT's Silver Anniversary, but the Anniversary of Doubts. For this reason, instead of a party in Recife, we should be organizing a debate in the entire country.
Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a professor at the University of Brasília and a PT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage - www.cristovam.com.br - and write to him at cristovam@senador.gov-br.
Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com.
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