During the first 30 months of the Workers Party (PT) government in Brazil, few raised their voices to criticize the party for withdrawing from its social proposals. The press and the militancy displayed no anxiety about its political deviation towards more conservative social positions.

All it took to wake everyone up, however, were the denunciations of ethical deviations.

The PT is a party founded upon political ethics and social change. The ethical deviations breaking out recently are, at the least, just as grave as the political deviations transpiring during the entire Lula government.

To make matters worse, honor can be recovered but the cause perhaps never will be. A few careless or dishonest leaders besmirched the former; the latter was lost by the entire militancy either by omission or by co-optation.

The PT has lost its honor now, but the cause has been lost since the beginning of the present government. Under the leadership of the so-called "majority bloc" the party abandoned the cause that had inspired it since its foundation.

The militancy, in general, watched passively as the historic causes were abandoned. The exceptions were some internal groups and independent militants, who, true to their banners, did not compromise and continued criticizing.

The PT took office unfaithful to its causes and without reorienting them. Many parties change their causes, survive and grow, but none grow after abandoning them. If the PT abandoned causes because they would have been difficult to carry out, then they should have been modified before the 2002 elections.

The world has changed a great deal since the founding of the party and the beginning of the 21st century. It would have been natural to adjust its program to the new reality. But this did not happen.

The leaders of the PT and of the government simply abandoned their historic banners without explanations and without convincing or inspiring the militancy with new visions.

The PT also abandoned substantial causes that had justified its existence; it was, after all, founded to change the course of Brazil. In these two years, even when the PT's honor was still intact, the government lost its entire commitment to changing Brazilian society.

In 30 months it did not carry out a single clearly transformative measure. On the contrary, it preferred to continue the previous administration's economic and governmental assistance policies with slight administrative adjustments. It even backtracked on the social impact of some projects, such as the migration of the Bolsa-Escola to the Bolsa Família program.

The government did not take any concrete action against poverty, income concentration, regional inequality, urban and rural violence, or the housing crisis. It did nothing for the protection of childhood or the environment.

The few changes realized in education, like the eradication of illiteracy, the Federal Certification of Teachers and the establishment of the Ideal School, were abandoned after one year.

The Lula government was characterized by its lack of causes before the lack of honor hit the PT in the last few weeks. The latter will soon be overcome because the militants are not responsible and did not participate in the discredited acts.

But it will be difficult to overcome the former because the PT militancy, under the leadership of the "majority bloc," was remiss during these 30 months. And to build a new cause, the militancy must undergo a long process of reflection, lasting perhaps decades, before successfully doing what it should have done before coming to power.

But now it must do so while paying the high cost of having already been the government and having suffered the internal and external lost of inspiration.

Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is 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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