Workers Party wins municipal elections

BY LIDICE VALENZUELA

The governing Workers Party (PT) has just won the municipal elections in Brazil, thus giving Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration popular backing. This anticipates what could occur in 2006 when Brazil is to have presidential elections, elect 27 governors and close to 1,000 deputies and senators.

There were 27 political parties participating in these elections involving 120 million voters electing mayors and councilors serving four-year terms in 5,596 territories. These elections described as an acid test for the government headed by the former Sao Paulo steelworker. Voting is mandatory in Brazil.

The digitalization of the electoral process for the first time enabled the Supreme Electoral Court (SET) to report the preliminary results in more than 90% of municipalities within 24 hours before polling stations closed on October 3, confirming the PT as the winner.

These elections are of unique importance for Lula’s government, 21 months after his entry into the Planaito Palace, given that the popular acceptance of his welfare programs was at stake. They include Zero Hunger, targeted to eradicate starvation among over 45 million Brazilians who live in absolute poverty, above all in the northeast, where the president was born.

The PT government, in alliance with other long-established parties, has highlighted these programs, targeted to augment the quality of life among the poorest, considered its triumphant card by the party.

The SET’s results, known in the early hours of October 4, indicated that the PT was the fastest growing party in comparison with the first electoral round of the 2000 elections.

The figures demonstrated that four years ago this center-left organization, founded by Lula in the 1980’s, won the elections with approximately 12 million votes in the first round, while this year it secured 14.3 million. This result has placed the party in an advantageous position in relation to the opposition.

The PT, which currently controls eight municipalities of 200,000 people in the capital, obviously of great political importance, secured a victory in six of them and will dispute a further nine municipalities in the second round on October 21 Lula’s supporters won the municipalities of Belo Horizonte, a traditional enclave of the party, Recife, Aracaju, Palmaa, Macapá, and Rio Branco. The PT will contest the second round in Porto Alegre, Golania, Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Cuiabá, Vitória, Porto Velho and Belém.

It is remarkable that the WP participated in these elections without alliances with other parties in 23 out of 26 Brazilian capitals. Brasilia, the federal district, was left out of the municipal elections.

However, not everything smelled of roses for the governing party.

Without it being the end of the world, but certainly a harsh test to be faced in the next elections, despite predictions the municipality of Sao Paulo slipped from the hands of PT candidate Marta Suniro, who now will have to confront a heavyweight from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), former presidential candidate José Serra, ex-government minister in Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s cabinet and one of his most trusted administrators.

Sao Paulo, the state capital with almost 20 million inhabitants, has a unique importance in Brazilian political debates, given that it is the largest in relation to its voters, and it also the nation’s largest industrial complex.

Although it is not necessarily the case, political analysts believe that it is very difficult to win the presidential elections without winning Sao Paulo. The results of these elections, then, are a powerful alert for the PT, which will now have to reinforce its work in preparation for the second round.

According to the preliminary results at the close of this edition, Cardoso’s PSDB (turned into the major opposition party) has lost voters since the 2000 elections when it obtained 13.5 million votes, as opposed to the current 13.4 million.

The long-established Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) still controls most of the country’s municipalities.

This party, however, has been losing influence during the last four years. Its votes have decreased from 13.2 million in 2000 to 12.2 in this year’s preliminary results.

The right-wing Liberal Front Party (PLF) also lost votes, from 12.9 million in the 2000 elections to 9.6 million in the current ones, a substantial loss.

The only PLF joy was to win the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city in the country, where Cesar Maia was reelected by a large margin.

Maia, who is now Rio de Janeiro’s mayor for the third time, remarked that he owes his victory to his economic and social development programs in this municipality with over six million inhabitants, considered the “postcard” of the South American giant, famous for its tourist attractions, which generate a high income for the national budget.

Other minor parties such as the Popular Socialist Party, the Brazilian Socialist Party, the Democratic Labor Party, and the Liberal Party secured more municipalities than in the last elections.

Experts affirm that from now until October 21, the PT will have to work hard, given that it has emerged as the party with the highest number of candidates (27) to face a second round.

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/octubre/mier6/41brasil.html