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 With each passing day, we get more and more the impression that this year's campaign was exactly like the one in 2002. A farce. President Lula, candidate to the re-election, repeating his performance as candidate the first time around, promised the world regarding changes. He reiterated that he would change the economic policy, that he would resist privatizations, that he would make productive activity much more profitable than speculative activity.
We can already see, however, that he is going to leave everything the way it was. Deceived by the campaign emotional tone, presidential aides such as Tarso Genro, Dilma Rousseff and Guido Mantega had faith in the stump speech. They went ahead believing that Lula was talking seriously when he blasted what he called Avenida Paulista (São Paulo's financial center), the banks' profit and the speculators' privileges. And what's happening? Those who believed in development are being disavowed. They have been put to corner by reality. All seems to indicate, that the president changed only to bolster his campaign and to once again win the elections, because at the end of last week he reiterated that the economic policy will continue the same, that nothing is going to change. Let's admit, a sorcerer's apprentice cannot repeat the same magic twice. The risk is too big. One day, the cauldron explodes... Beware of the Justice The campaign for the second round that guaranteed Lula's reelection revealed a pantomime. Suddenly, president Lula and the PT forces embarked on a violent blitz against privatizations. They accused opposition candidate Geraldo Alckmin of defending them, following the same line of Fernando Henrique, who dilapidated the public patrimony, gave away to foreigners the national wealth and turned Brazil poorer. Lula's strategy worked and it probably contributed a lot for the re-election. The so-called nationalistic and left forces got reorganized. Many people tried to understand president Lula, who in his first term of office did nothing to revert the privatizations, giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he did what he did because he had no other option, due to the immeasurable pressures of the neoliberal sectors. Who knows, now, things might work out? There is no sign, however, that the subsoil, which was privatized through the Vale do Rio Doce, will once again be public patrimony. Much less the telecommunications, not the cellular phones, which can stay with the private sector, but the satellites, which are fundamental for the preservation of the national sovereignty. Should we lose hope? No way. Even if Lula doesn't do anything in his second term of office and once again shows that he favors giving Brazil away to the foreigners, there are other forces resisting. One of them, according to Rio de Janeiro's regional prosecutor for the Union, Luís Leivas, is the Justice. Loads of lawsuits are pending in the courts against the privatization of the Vale do Rio Doce, the railroads, the telecommunications and other crimes against the country carried out by the sociologist (former president Cardoso). A decision by the Regional Federal Court brought back to the city of Belém's Justice cases that had already reached a higher instance. Even so, a federal prosecutor, in Brasília, fights to prove that Brazil had losses with the privatizations. Losses that are evident in the judicial proceedings. Whoever wants to be sure about this, all he has to do is to get ahold of the ex-officio lawsuit 1997-39-00-00-9960 in the state of Pará. It will become clear how much the Brazilian public patrimony was hurt and how much the privatizers from the Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government will have to pay to compensate the public treasure. Without mentioning Lula government's inaction, which is on the verge of being turned from observer into a defendant.
Military Crisis? From the leader of the PSDB party, Artur Virgílio, talking in the Senate: the Lula administration for the first time in 20 years, since the end of the dictatorship in 1985, is creating a military crisis. The lack of investments in the Armed Forces is leading the country into chaos. Virgílio stated that lack of money even for feeding the soldiers has forced the Army to discharge recruits long before they are ready. He reminded that half of Brazil's warplanes cannot take off for lack of spare parts. That Navy boats have stopped patrolling and are not bringing assistance to riverside populations anymore. But he focused his declaration on the downsizing and on the budgetary cuts of the air traffic. Flight delays and cancellations are happening again and the security of commercial flights keeps on being threatened. The Lula government, according to the senator, favored investing in building airports and marble, instead of computers and qualified personnel to operate them. The collapse in the civilian aviation is a very serious matter that places us among the world's most backward nations. There is a lesson in all this: the government should rule itself before it can rule the country.
Speech and Chaos Last week, while there was continued chaos in the airports, with a load of delayed flights and inexplicable cancellations, the Senate started public hearings bringing together the main characters connected to the subject. There we had the Defense minister, the Air Force commander, the presidents of Infraero, of the Civil Aviation National Agency, of the unions of Flight Protection Workers and the Air Companies. Everyone tried to show how efficiently they were fulfilling their obligations. The trouble is that at the airports remained as it remain right now the confusion, the humiliation of passengers and the evidence that the public power is trying to use ordinary measures to face an extraordinary and explosive situation that requires special initiatives. We just cannot allow things to keep on going the way they are until the end of the year, until the end of the month or even until the end of the week. Flight controllers continue their so-called "work-to-rule campaign," but even without making any judgment on the parts involved, it's quite evident the responsibility of other sectors. Starting with the air companies that for long have been treating their customers as cattle. The demand has increased but not the means to meet it. If we are smack in the neoliberal era, the old Portuguese maxim should prevail: "Quem não tem competência não se estabelece." (He who has no wherewithal shouldn't open shop.) We need the immediate intervention from the public power, even if it's only temporary. What's happening in the air transportation area shows that not all economic activities should remain under the control of the private sector. Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio's daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at
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. Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.
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