Brazil: The Meanness of Lula's Regime

Brazilian House members may face the possibility of being sued
and convicted for crimes against the State. After all, they
consciously ignored the Constitution when they approved the new
minimum wage. Only from Houdini could anyone expect the
possibility of a worker surviving with the approved salary.

Carlos Chagas

The explicit self-serving spectacle staged by both ministers and government leaders in Congress in the last few days gave the Planalto Palace a victory, with the approval of the provisional remedy bill raising the minimum wage to 260 reais (US$ 84) per month.

It was a Pyrrhic victory, though. Even if the Senate confirms the official victory, and this is still an interrogation mark, one thing will be made very clear to the 40 million Brazilians who work for the minimum wage: the true face of the PT government. Which is just like the face shown by both tucanos and liberals during our eight years under the sociologist.

Nothing less than an administration that was put in place to serve the bankers, the speculators and the elites repository of all the benefits, rewards and favors, in contraposition to the despised and humiliated masses who always have to sacrifice. The majority of House members who gave their votes to the establishment of this obscene minimum wage were left with the crumbs from the feast.

A Spectacle of Meanness

One day these House members will face the possibility of being sued and convicted for crimes against the State. After all, they consciously ignored the Constitution when they approved the 260 reais.

The fundamental law of the land says that the minimum wage must be enough for workers and their families to afford food, housing, clothing, transportation, education, health and even recreation. Only from Houdini could anyone expect the possibility of a worker doing so with what the House of Representatives has decided they should earn.

We do not even need to mention the promises and threats made to the majority. Ministers knocked on every politician's door and used the telephone to ensure the granting of money, nominations and other gifts for those Congress members willing to vote for the provisional bill. Or to change his or her vote at the last minute.

At the same time, bearded and with a forbidding look on his face, the president of the PT, José Genoíno, threatened with less than enlightened punishment any comrade willing to insist in voting against the official proposal. He said they would be treated as oppositionists and, between the lines, suggested the shadow of expulsion, à la episode affecting senator Heloísa Helena and three other House members.

There will be a pay back, no doubt about it. With municipal elections nationalized, it will not be easy for the PT to keep the mayors of major cities or to win new mayoral races. It was indeed a Pyrrhic victory because it exposed the bowels of this spectacle of explicit meanness practiced against those who voted President Lula into power. It's time to repeat the old saying, spelled out now in letters of proof: in Brazil, presidents are elected by the people, but they please the elites, with rare exceptions.

Mistrust of PT Creeping in

Yesterday's session had a little of everything. Glowing exhortations favoring the defeat of the provisory bill from those with little legitimacy to make them in the first place, such as tucanos and liberals who committed the massacre of the humble in the past. Clumsy explanations from those who denied their origins and their consciences. And even irony from those who have been oscillating for years between the delights of power and the lies of political rallies.

The nation still trusts President Lula. People imagine that he will soon commit to his campaign promises and deliver them. But there is a growing number of those who doubt it and are beginning to suspect that the PT has been like this from the very beginning. What happened was that it was able to fool the electorate during all the years when it was opposition, not government.

And it is hardly worth it to argue that yes, we do have the funds, in public and private coffers, to raise the minimum wage to 300 or 350 reais. The Previdência Social system would not break. Municipal governments would survive, as well as businesses, even if the superavit primário (primary surplus) were to be lowered.

Or the bankers were to have to swallow the smallest decrease in their profits. The IMF would shrug its shoulders, as well as the World Bank. They even reiterate that the Lula government is exaggerating.

Madam the Ambassador

One thing is more than for sure, backstage in the municipal elections: the possibility of Marta Suplicy losing reelection as Mayor of São Paulo, as the polls are indicating today, will not be a reason to leave her outside of the inner circle who shares the delights of power.

She has been promised, in the event of defeat, the embassy of Brazil in Paris. Madam the ambassador would thus remain in her alternativo (nouveau riche) habitat. And mister Favre would return to his home country. Nothing like being friends of the King.

An alternative has been presented, too. If Marta is unwilling to work full time, she can choose to head Brazil's representative office at Unesco, by coincidence also headquartered in Paris.

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 carloschagas@hotmail.com.

Translated by Tereza Braga. Braga is a freelance Portuguese translator and interpreter based in Dallas. She is an accredited member of the American Translators Association. Contact: terezab@sbcglobal.net.