Democracy Undressed

Brazil longs for radical changes that will reorient
 its future, while radically adhering to the
conquests already achieved.

Cristovam Buarque

The first months of 2002 will be forever known as the days when Brazilian democracy shed its clothes. And it was not a pretty sight.

During the entire month of January, the public relations people were more important than the candidates, as if form were more important than content in our democracy. Instead of offering leaders with proposals and dreams to change the country's future, the political parties seem to be preparing to show off candidates made over to conform to the latest public opinion polls.

In February, the PR people gave way to the judges, who defined the election rules through their own interpretation and not in conformance with the rigorous standards the population expects of them. Suddenly, just a few months before the elections and after the candidates had already formed their alliances and the voters were assessing their options, a court finding—which in the long run will probably prove to be correct and positive—is forcing a total reorientation of the electoral process.

March has begun with a near grand finale to the democracy striptease: a woman candidate claims the government committed a brutal, arbitrary act against her family to halt her rising popularity in the polls. At the same time, she is still helping undress the democracy even more by demanding privileges inadmissible in a serious democracy: the protection of the governing alliance to impede the police from carrying out their judicial mandate. One of the two alternatives is the correct one, but either of them—a government that acts arbitrarily or a governor with special privileges—brings shame to Brazilian democracy.

As if this were not enough, Brazil is entering an election year in the midst of external crises: a country in civil war caused by violence; an economy almost stagnated; a society divided by inequality; shameful social indicators; fragile monetary stability. And none of the candidates is explaining the fundamental reason that he or she is seeking power. They want the power without stating what they are thinking about changing, or thinking about keeping, in Brazil.

The country longs for radical changes that will reorient its future, while radically adhering to the conquests already achieved. Each candidate must show Brazil what he or she will leave behind at the end of his or her possible term. But this is not part of the debate in these first months of 2002, when the democracy is caught in a vise between the image-making of the PR people and the will of the judges—the first, not always telling the truth; the second, not always acting impartially.

For years now, voter perplexity and indignation have been fueled by a society marked by both wealth and poverty, capable of manufacturing and exporting airplanes while at the same time engendering and exporting children for adoption abroad. Able to set up the world's most sophisticated vote-tabulation system but unable to define the electoral rules ahead of time. A people perplexed by the inability of democratic politics to transform our resources and our past conquests into a future without poverty, a future with, instead, independence, respect for the environment, growth and income distribution. With hope and mysticism to offer, above all, to the young.

Perhaps voter indignation is Brazilian democracy's only current wealth. If this nudity fosters licentiousness, vote selling, and the casting of votes for corrupt politicians, then democracy will be more than merely undressed. It will be dead. Its nudity will be that of the morgues.

Fortunately, nothing indicates that our democracy is a naked cadaver. It is still alive with the people's hope that their agents will assume their responsibilities: that the candidates will transform themselves into leaders; that the judges will be impartial; that the public relations people will be merely advisers; and that it will be clarified if we have a government that arbitrarily uses the Justice Department, the police, and the Public Ministry against a candidate, or if we have a candidate accustomed to her privileges and unwilling to conform because the governing alliance has imposed the law upon her.

Brazilians have the right to ask that their politicians, judges and PR people begin to dress the democracy that had such a difficult birth. And we have the right to transform our indignation into an electoral force to be reckoned with.

Cristovam Buarque - cristovambuarque@uol.com.br  - is a professor at the University of Brasília/Center for Sustainable Development and the author of the book Admirável mundo atual (Brave real world).

Translated by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com  

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