On Brazil again

Returning to theme of yesterday – Brazil – I should add that in addition to the corruption issue, that is undermining the credibility of some political circles, there is a serious problem of deep social disparities.

Many Brazilians live a very tough live and their children have few chances of getting out of the social swamp because they are not proper schooled. Education for the very poor is still a major challenge. The ruling Workers ‘Party has helped the poor, but the policy of money grants is not sustainable.

Then, on the other side of the class ladder we find people that enjoy all pleasures of life and can afford a standard of living that is comparable to the best in the world.

It is the middle class that is being squeezed out. The cost of decent housing and other expenditures have increased dramatically during the last few years. Some costs are far higher than in Europe. 

Therefore, it is no surprise to see that the main activism against President Dilma comes from people belonging to the urban middle classes. She is actually losing ground fast within this social group. 

Corruption in Brazil´s leading circles

I had a long conference call with a Brazilian friend who lives in Rio de Janeiro. And I could realise how much the Petrobras corruption scandal is eroding the foundations of President Dilma Rousseff´s power. It is also exposing her natural tendency to micromanage everything that counts, instead of letting the institutions and the procedures do their work. She is in serious need of sound advice. But is she able to listen?

Dilma´s political future is at stake

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil´s head of State, is fighting for her political future.

The second round of the presidential elections will take place in about eleven days, on October 26. The odds are playing against Dilma. Her party has been in power for the last twelve years. It is strongly embedded in the administrative apparatus and it has also a solid support in the poorer segments of the country. But at a time of economic slowdown, as it is today the case in Brazil, when public resources have become scarcer, it is easy to put the blame on the government and vote against those in power. On top of that, large sectors of the urban and better educated Brazilians are today against Dilma´s party and her control of the administrative machinery. They are basically afraid of Dilma´s interventionist policies, of new taxes, and they want change.

In many ways, the Brazilian society is today much polarised. And less solidary. Class plays a defining role. And individualism, personal success, is also a common trait in a country that prides itself for its self-made men and women. Many do not understand the social policies Dilma´s party has implemented in favour of the poor.

All that runs objectively against a candidate that is identified with a strong option for a more redistributive social policy.

I am afraid Dilma might be the loser at the end of the day, on the 26^th. 

Brazil's class politics

Recently I spent about three weeks in Brazil. And I wrote, in the Portuguese weekly magazine Visao, where I am their international affairs columnist, that I found a better country than fifteen years ago. Indeed, Brazil is a much safer place, with a striving economy and a growing international agenda. But I also said that the cost of living is exceptionally high, the currency overvalued –which benefits the urban rich that love to travel abroad –and the police too close to the interests of the rich and powerful.

Since then, the country has been headline news. The riots in many urban centres reveal the malaise that many Brazilians experience. This malaise is a composite feeling that is fed by several streams: corruption, low politics, high cost of living, poorly performing public services and wide social disparities. In addition, life in the big cities can be extenuating just because of the time it takes to move from home to work and vice-versa.

The demonstrations also show that the urban middle class is deeply against the ruling party, Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, President Dilma’s party. They see this party as something close to the populism prevailing in other parts of South America, a party that is too keen in taxing the better-off in order to give subsidies to the insouciant masses. For them this is not social justice, it is lefty power politics.