Brazzil
March 2002
Politics
By its sudden withdrawal from the governing coalition this past week, the PFL has shown itself unworthy of the faith placed in it by those electors who voted for it. Its probable presidential candidate, Maranhão state Governor Roseana Sarney, has also shown herself unfit to be in charge of the country. Her pique over a raid by Federal Police checking alleged financial malpractice at a company where she is a partner, and her claims that she is being discriminated against because she is a woman, show how vain and selfish she is. Ms. Sarney is making a big mistake and, more importantly, so is her party.
She and her husband Jorge Murad—a career public servant currently in a high-ranking position with the state administration held by his wife, often at the receiving end of allegations involving mismanagement of public funds—are being investigated for allegedly taking part in a scheme to defraud SUDAM, a development agency for the Amazon region. Magnitude of the alleged misdeed: over R$40 million (about US$17 million). SUDAM was so rife with corruption that President Fernando Henrique Cardoso shut it down last year.
We won't go into specifics about what is being alleged to involve the Sarneys, but it's the type of behavior that doesn't surprise anyone who follows the Brazilian political scene. It goes something like this: well-connected politicians are often owners of companies, or partners in companies that make huge profits, often from public contracts. The spoils are then hidden away in "front" companies and tax havens abroad, or invested in land and property in Brazil. Roseana Sarney is probably no better or worse than others accused of much the same routine.
She correctly said that it is not a crime for a company to have cash funds in its office. This was a reference to R$1.3 million (about US$540 thousand) in cash found during the federal police raid—voters are still wondering where the piles of cash came from. Outwardly at least, the attitude of Roseana Sarney and the PFL seems to be that, because she is a politician, she should be above the law—a strange attitude from someone so keen on taking the presidential oath to uphold the constitution.
The timing of the raid though is certainly fishy, and one can understand the PFL suspicions that the PSDB is out to embarrass Ms. Sarney, as she is well ahead of its candidate, former Health Minister José Serra, in opinion polls. However, politics is a rough game and not for the faint-hearted. If Roseana Sarney is to win the respect of voters as a politician, she would be better off following the examples of England's Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, than imitating a bodiced Barbara Cartland heroine clutching a tear-stained handkerchief. The PFL leadership may have shown admirable loyalty in backing its words by actions, but it has acted with a measure of haste it may come to regret. We can expect to see lots of squirming and turning in the coming months, as the party tries to share the credit for what went right, with a government of which it is no longer part.
About a year ago, when Roseana Sarney was a real outsider as a presidential candidate, I wrote an article about nepotism in Brazilian politics. The Sarney family was mentioned as, at that time, its politically active members included former President, now Senator José Sarney, his son, then-Environment Minister José Sarney Filho, and Roseana herself, the state Governor of Maranhão. I asked somewhat rhetorically whether "President Roseana Sarney" would feel obliged to have her brother in her government. As it turned out it was, in fact, her brother who showed that blood is thicker than water by resigning as environment minister because of the police raid. Within a couple of days, the PFL leadership had announced that the party was pulling out of the governing alliance, although, pointedly, it did not join the opposition…
The elder Sarney has also been making plenty of noise, and has threatened to make a public attack on President Cardoso. The President must be hoping Sarney will do so, because the egg will fly back on his own face. Sarney was an incompetent, inefficient president, who only took office because the elected president, Tancredo Neves, died before taking office after the end of the military regime that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985.
While Sarney the elder cannot be blamed for the economic chaos he inherited, he accomplished next to nothing to combat hyperinflation, and Brazil defaulted on its foreign debt during his term in office. In fact, his daughter has been unbelievably fortunate not to have been tarred by her father's brush. Sarney père has illusions of grandeur, and any bull-in-a-china-shop action by him could wreck any chances his daughter might still have, simply by reminding people of the last Sarney presidency.
Curiously enough, the elder Sarney is a member of the PMDB, not the PFL. He has naturally been trying to get the PMDB to back his daughter, rather than find its own presidential candidate. As for Sarney junior, when he resigned as Environment Minister, he held a press conference to boast about all the achievements he claims to have made during his tenure. The Sarneys seem to think Brazil revolves around them. The Globo newspaper had a nice cartoon summing them up: it showed the younger Sarneys, dressed like children in pretty frock and short trousers, having a tantrum in the street and screaming at the top of their voices _ "Daddy, daddy!"
The mystery is why the PFL has followed such a fragile leader. There are echoes of the PMDB, marching behind Jader Barbalho, the Senate leader who quit a year ago to avoid being impeached over serious corruption allegations. Barbalho was recently taken into custody briefly by the Federal Police, and his party, the PMDB, continues to lose face over the affair.
Some commentators say the PFL is hoping to distance itself from the government in its final year, and put all its bets on Roseana Sarney. However, the PFL has been a loyal supporter of the government for seven years, and has already said it will not alter the government's economic policy, so how exactly will it distance itself? As it is a right-wing pro-business party, it cannot suddenly veer to the left and adopt a social conscience.
The PFL has often been accused of sucking up to whoever is in power, and it has been a member of every coalition since the restoration of democracy in 1985. In fact, it goes beyond that—key PFL members were staunch supporters of the military regime prior to 1985, so they've had a foot in government for decades. The way the party has "pulled out" of the government coalition, while hundreds of its appointees have remained in their cushy government positions, actually speaks volumes about the way the PFL has done things over the years. For now, the party says it will not "harm Brazil," yet by pulling out of the government it will delay much-needed reforms which it has supported up to now.
Ironically, Brazil's Vice-President, Marco Maciel, is a member of the PFL. He is not resigning because he is not an appointee—the electorate actually voted for him. But a repeat might not be in the cards. Unless Roseana Sarney comes clean, and the PFL behaves more consistently, it is unlikely that in October electors will put its candidate in the Planalto Palace—either as president or vice president.
John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987 and has lived in São Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and finance and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicações, which specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian and foreign clients. You can reach him at Johnfitz@osite.com.br
This article was originally published in Infobrazil www.infobrazil.com), an E-zine on Brazilian culture and current events.