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 The first interpretations suggested by the tight electoral results of Sunday (October 1st) have to do with the media: the hamlets have entered the media universe. They have become part of the audience, they are sensitive to the news.
Therefore, it is possible to think that: ** The hamlets did not approve candidate Lula's absence from the debate on Globo TV; ** The hamlets were impressed with pictures showing the piles of money from the Isto É-Vedoin dossier. ** And, despite the poverty, the hamlets are shrinking. If not in statistical terms, certainly in their perceptions over what is right and what is wrong. It means that the poor also worry about corruption, it means that moral matters are not limited to the "elites" and that it starts to bring down the corrals' gates. Former president José Sarney will tell you that. The man has never suffered that much to win an election. The interpretations on Bahia's Carlism (Antonio Carlos Magalhães is an old and decadent political chief in Bahia) defeat squashed by Jacques Wagner (from the Workers Party) steamroller follow the same logic: the electoral corrals are being taken by storm with the support of the masses - this same pleb that a reactionary and authoritarian portion of the Left imagined immune to political finesses. The same occurred in Paraná: Roberto Requião believed that the media reaction to his truculence would not reach the provincial electorate. During the whole campaign he didn't hide the certainty that he would have a straight win in the first round. He is going to the second and might well be left in the middle of the road. Tiring Refrain The PT command erred by adopting the strategy to confront the press in their national program. The facts were too obvious to be discarded or credited just to a media "coup." The press did not invent the money pictures. The Federal Police's delay in releasing them and in advancing in their investigation got through the Deep Brazil. For the masses crime doesn't pay. Paulo Maluf once again got an expressive number of votes, but Maluf's voter is not the pleb, it's the middle and middle-high class who identifies with his entrepreneurship. The narrow victory of president Lula can be understood as a defeat of the palatial way of doing politics. The masses wanted to see him next to Alckmin and certainly would have cheered and rooted for him. Although the PSDB candidate (Geraldo Alckmin) committed all possible and imaginable mistakes during the debate, he did one thing right: he was there. In the 2002 elections, the press felt it was being watched and in a way reflected the feelings of different segments of society in favor of the well-dressed, good-humored union man, selling hope. This time, Lula passed a tense, something angry and, above all, arrogant image. That refrain "never in this country etc. etc." started to tire, it didn't match reality. Most of all because the mensalão (big monthly allowance), the dollars in the underwear etc., etc., were all part of this reality, always being swept under the carpet. The halters from the Left and the Right are worn out. The hamlets now hear, ponder, react. It is no use blaming the press and harassing it. Better to have it on your side. As the other time around.
Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR - Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. You can reach him by email at
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Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.
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I usually enjoy Alberto’s take on matters, however he’s far off track on this one. If anything, the results, not just Lula’s narrow setback, but all across the country solidify the idea that it pays to be corrupt and that Brazilian’s have problems with short and long term memory. Just take a look at the impressive list of corrupt movers and shakers to be appointed to prime kickback political positions – Maluf, Collar, Braga, Sarney, Palocci et.al, all first runoff successes. As Churchill once lamented “The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.†One could only imagine how he would have rephrased that in the light of these elections.