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[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for November 6. See original article here.]

by Arturo Cano

Salvador de Bahía, November 5 – The election of Dilma Rousseff has unleashed a wave of racism in Brazil. And not because the president elect is the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, a communist who became moderately wealthy, but because in the northeastern region, the poorest and the darkest of the country, the vote for the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party) candidate was substantially larger than that for José Serra, candidate for the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB – Brazilian Social Democrat Party).

On every side, traces of racism and regionalism are surfacing: “Do São Paulo a favor: hang a northeasterner.” The sentence urging the killing of inhabitants of the northeast of Brazil because “they are not people” was written by law student Mayara Petruso on Monday morning. By then it was known that the PT candidate had gotten the majority of the 12 million votes in the north and the northeast of the country that made the difference. Petruso, in the southern city of São Paulo, voted for Serra. (more…)

Neutrality in the runoff may have been only on the surface

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for October 28. See original article here.]

by Eduardo Sales de Lima

Marina Silva says she is neutral in the runoff election, as does the Partido Verde (PV – Green Party). What appears to be agreement at first sight may hide what some political personalities see as a programmatic abyss between the former candidate for the presidency and the majority of the party cadre.

Support for the former PV presidential candidate grew surprisingly in the days before the first round of the elections, winning her 19.6 million votes from throughout Brazil. Roberto Malvezzi, CPT [Comissão Pastoral da Terra – Pastoral Commission for the Earth] advisor, believes many people, to the right and to the left, underestimated the votes for Marina and attributed her growth to conservative and evangelical backing. Support for Marina, according to Malvezzi, reflected more than that; it represented the discontent of many Brazilians over the lack of regard for the environment, especially in connection with large projects like the transposition of the São Francisco river and the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu river. “The Lula government misjudged the environmental question. I don’t know if Serra judged it at all,” he declares. (more…)

Rousseff changes her position on abortion, which costs her two points

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for October 7. See original article here.]

by Arturo Cano

Rio de Janeiro, October 6 – At the beginning of last year, Brazilian media gave prominence to a terrible story: a nine-year-old girl, raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins, received an abortion in a public clinic in Pernambuco. The doctors had determined that in her case the two exceptional circumstances in Brazilian law were met: the life of the young mother was in danger and the pregnancy was the result of rape

The reaction of the Catholic Church, represented in this case by the archbishop of Recife and Olinda, José Cardoso, left no doubt about how far the Brazilian hierarchy would go in its “defense of life”: it excommunicated the doctors and the girl’s family members, except for the stepfather who had abused the child since she was six years old. “We consider it illicit to end one life to save another,” declared the Catholic hierarch in his final judgement on the episode.

When this case is taken into account, things did not go so badly for Dilma Rousseff, the Workers’ Party candidate, and Lula’s, for the Brazilian presidency. The war against her because of her support for decriminalizing abortion, on which she reversed herself in the campaign, cost her only two points in the first round of the election, according to some polls.

But although Rousseff would like to end this chapter, the more conservative sectors of the churches (the Catholic and the numerous evangelicals) are not going to let go of it from now until October 31, the date of the runoff election.

Besides, now they have an invaluable ally in José Serra, the Social Democrat Party candidate and Rousseff’s opponent. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Jornal de Brasilia for August 21.]

A poll by the Datafolha Polling Institute sponsored by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and released on Saturday, August 21, shows the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party) candidate for the presidency Dilma Rousseff leading with 47 percent of the intended votes. The Partido da Social Democracia Brasiliera (PSDB – Brazilian Social Democratic Party) candidate, José Serra, is in second place with 30 percent. Marina Silva of the Partido Verde (PV – Green Party) holds third place with nine percent, while none of the remaining candidates received one percent of voters’ preferences. Voters who have not decided how they will vote or who did not respond totalled eight percent, and blank or null votes, four percent.

This is the first Datafolha poll conducted since radio and television campaigning began. Those who report they have seen campaign ads at least once make up 34 percent of those interviewed…

If only valid votes are taken into account, the poll numbers indicate that the PT cantidate would win the election on the first vote. In a previous Datafolha poll released on August 13, Dilma received 41 percent of the intended votes, Serra had 33 percent and Marina Silva ten percent.

[Translation of an article from Correio da Cidadania for June 15.]

José Serra -- ABC Photo

By Duarte Pereira

Presidential candidate José Serra, of the PSDB-DEM-PPS coalition [Partido da Social Democracia Brasileiro – Demócratas – Partido Popular Socialista], has not made any statement about the act of piracy by the state of Israel in its assault, in international waters, on a Turkish merchant ship involved in carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. As is known, Israeli military forces boarded the Turkish ship, killed nine and wounded hundreds of crew members and passengers, and captured all the cargo, the ships, the crews and the passengers making up the peaceful convoy. Condemned in words, Israel has still not suffered any sanction on the part of the United Nations nor has it so far allowed any international investigation of this serious incident. Candidate José Serra has kept silent on the episode and on Brazil’s justified position condemning Israel’s criminal and intimidating action.

Yesterday, however, during a visit to Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, candidate José Serra found it necessary to criticize Brazil’s diplomatic intervention on behalf of Iran, which has just been subjected to new sanctions by the United Nations Security Council for insisting on keeping its nuclear program. The state of Israel developed its own nuclear program and became a mid-sized nuclear power without being challenged . The PSDB candidate, supported by the DEM and the PPS, justified his position by charging that “Iran is not trustworthy, they have a violent government that sends all its opponents to the gallows, with no mercy.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian newspaper Hora do Povo for June 9. José Serra is the presidential candidate for the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, the Brazilian Social Democrat Party, who will face Dilma Roussef of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers’ Party, in the October 3 vote. Colombian Juan Manuel Santos, former defense minister in the administration of Álvaro Uribe, is the likely winner in the June 29 runoff election to replace Uribe.]

The candidate for the presidency José Serra has again attacked Bolivia and offered effusive praise for the Colombian government, against which several accusations involving drug trafficking have been made. His statements were delivered during a debate in São Paulo on Tuesday. He said that the Uribe government, in contrast with that of Bolivia, “was not soft” in its fight against the supply of drugs to Brazil. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Correio da Cidadania for May 4.]

by Wladimir Pomar

According to recent news, representatives of the international financial system are alerting stockholders that the Brazilian stock market is forming a bubble, the Brazilian economy is overheated and the real is overvalued. In other words, the honeymoon between international finance and the Brazilian government’s policy of growth seems to be ending, even though that relationship has been one of the most profitable of the past few years.

This lack of confidence should lead us to analyze the matter more carefully, with an eye toward determining if there are real reasons for the warnings or if a political move is involved, considering possible changes in the Brazilian monetary policy. The Banco Central has hastened to calm international finance, declaring that Brazil could adopt measures assuring a growth rate greater than two percent a year, once it withdraws fiscal incentives and raises the SELIC [Sistema Especial de Liquidação e de Custódia -- Special System for Settlement and Custody] rate, the basic interest rate. (more…)

For the president, those opposed to the power plant are a “blackout industry”

[Translation of an article from Hora do Povo of Brazil for April 28 concerning controversial plans to build a hydroelectric plant in the Amazonian region of Pará state. The project, supported by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is being opposed by environmentalists, indigenous groups and by José Serra, until recently governor of São Paulo state and now presidential candidate for the center-right Social Democratic Party.  Serra’s opposition is likely more a case of campaign opportunism than concern for the environment or for indigenous rights.  See also “Equivocations of a 'people's' govnernment” below.]

On Monday, April 26, during his weekly radio program “Café com Presidente,” Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva responded to criticism from tucano [Social Democratic Party] candidate José Serra of construction of a hydroelectric plant at Belo Monte, in Pará state. For the president, opponents of the project are the same people who are “manipulating for another blackout in the country.” He said the plant will be the third largest hydroelectric plant in the world. “There will always be those who don’t want us to act because they hope for a national disaster so they can find somebody to blame,” Lula charged. “There were five years of study before authorization could be obtained. Now, at last, the project will be built,” the president declared. (more…)

[Translation of an article from O Globo for April 1.]

by Luiza Damé

Brasilia – Speaking at the closing of the Conferência Nacional de Educação,

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday credited teachers’ strikes for advancing Brazilian education – precisely at a time when the state of São Paulo, led by Social Democrat José Serra, is faced with work stoppages and protests by teachers belonging to a union allied with the Worker’s Party. Lula and Minister of Education Fernando Haddad defended the adoption of a national policy on teachers’ salaries  and criticized states that have resisted the implementation of a salary floor of 1,024 reais [about 578 US dollars] a month for public school teachers. (more…)

Demonstrators ask Governor José Serra to open negotiations but are attacked by police

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian paper Hora do Povo for March 26. The striking teachers are demanding a 34 percent salary increase, improved pensions for retirees and greater job security, among other demands. José Serra, governor of São Paulo state, is the candidate of the center-right Partido do Social Democracia Brasileira for the presidential elections, to be held October 3. He is currently leading in the polls, with 36 percent, followed by the socialist Partido dos Trabalhadores candidate Dilma Rousseff, with 27 pecent. Rousseff, Lula’s chief of staff and his own choice to succeed him, is generally considered to be to the left of Lula politically.]

A number of teachers from the state educational network of São Paulo were assaulted during a demonstration in Franco da Rocha against the intransigence of state Governor José Serra, who refuses to negotiate on their demands, for which they have been on strike since March 8. (more…)