Election by Indirection in Brazil

...Last spring, Diretas-Ja—"Direct Elections Now"—became a rallying cry for the opposition parties...

...The Democratic Workers' Party (PDT), whose best-known adherent is Rio de Janeiro's Governor Leonel Bri-zola, managed to elect him, one senator and 24 congressmen in the last elections, two years ago, and has attempted to lay claim to leadership of the Socialist movement in Brazil...

...They are faced with the choice of supporting what appears to be a fairly conservative opposition candidacy, or of putting forth their own candidates and risking an Electoral College split that could enable Maluf to emerge victorious...

...But by summer the Dire-tas-Ja drive had faded...

...Moreover, as a mid-August survey of 3,000 Brazilians by the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo revealed, a preponderance of citizens believe nothing much will be done to confront the country's 220 per cent inflation, its $100 billion foreign debt, and an unemployment rate that approaches 20 per cent when all the self-employed shoeshine boys and candy vendors are included...

...It would de-emphasize exports—a major government thrust—but would retain the vast system of import protection Brazil has developed...

...In July, when I visited its headquarters—a two-story, single-family house with yard in a middle-class neighborhood of Sao Paulo—party leaders were busily plotting strategy for an upcoming Diretas-Ja demonstration...

...Although no charges against him have ever been proven, Maluf's image has been tarnished by a reputation for corruption that his well-paid publicists have not been able to alter...

...Yet many of that policy's basic elements represent a consensus, with the result that aside from supporting democracy itself, neither the PT nor any of the other opposition parties has a great deal to offer at present in the way of an identifiable alternative...

...Aided by fine weather and free public transit in opposition-controlled states, millions of Brazilians poured into the streets to demand the right to vote...

...Now that the PMDB's interest in direct voting has waned, the PT has again been pushed to the margin, with little influence outside its traditional home base in the industrial regions of Sao Paulo...

...When the prospect of another general running the country was quickly denounced across the political spectrum, the Army beat a hasty retreat...

...Figueiredo, a weak and indecisive President, officially endorsed him after he was named the PDS standard-bearer but has done relatively little to impede the party's consequent collapse...

...Before Maluf's nomination, trial balloons in Brasilia mentioned several generals as possible compromise PDS candidates...

...He appears to be more feared than respected throughout Brazil...

...They took over the Presidential Palace, purged officials tied to previous administrations, repealed laws limiting repatriation of capital by multinational firms, and weakened the power of labor unions and reduced wages...

...Despite their efforts to control the campaigns and to block the candidacies of leading political figures, forces opposed to them won unexpected victories in four key states...

...The present military - imposed Constitution, though, calls for the president to be chosen no later than January 15 by a 686-member Electoral College...

...The major Tancredo program is avoiding the other guy," observes Antonio Carlos Porto Gon?alves, an economist here...

...But the party has revealed itself to be as corrupt as the government it seeks to oust: The PDT agreed that its sole senator would support the military regime, when necessary, in return for control of the huge government-owned food company, Companhia Bra-sileira de Alimentacao, with the attendant nationwide graft and patronage...

...His biggest asset is that nobody knows what he wants...

...Thus after asking the Communists not to wave red flags at his rallies and picking Jose Sarney, the ex-head of the PDS, as his vice-presidential candidate, he moved to placate the Left by declaring that Brazil should devote no more than 10-20 per cent of export earnings to paying interest on its foreign debt...

...Whatever government Brazil ends up with after March 15, therefore, is likely to lean toward the Right...

...True, the PT opposes the government's basic policy of redistributing income from the poor to the rich...

...they are convinced that thanks to PDS defections their man can win in the Electoral College...

...The institutional questions in this country are so important at the moment that the economic questions are being considered less than they should be," Weffort told me...

...Politicians further to the Right, such as PDS stalwart Antonio Carlos Magalhaes, former governor and the head of the party's machine in Bahia State, quit too...

...He's forming the broadest coalition in Brazil...

...Neves' toughest task, in fact, has been keeping the diverse elements of his coalition on board...

...The military is worried about the public's negative reaction being so great if Maluf takes office that troops will be needed to quell the riots...

...CHOOSING A PRESIDENT Election by Indirection in Brazil BY MARC LEVINSON Rio de Janeiro It is far easier to take a democracy apart than to put one back together, the generals who run Brazil have discovered...

...Of late, the PTD has been bargaining with both Maluf and Neves, offering its Electoral College support in return for the ministries of its choice...

...Nevertheless, Right-wing officers have been unable to conceal their anxiety lest an opposition victory deprive military men of profitable sinecures throughout the government and state-owned corporations...

...It would democratize the management of the huge state-owned firms that control much of the economy, but accepts their basic structure...

...But people want a leader, someone they can have confidence in, someone who can unite the country...

...Maluf is very efficient" is a typical comment...

...Neves enjoys solid support from businessmen, who have been hurt by the recession and offended by the slowness of the country's return to democracy...

...Nobody's against him...

...When public opinion turns against a person with such consistency, this means something very significant, something that should lead all politicians to think...

...Tancredo Neves was named the PMDB standard-bearer...

...Their protests seemed Marc Levinson, a free-lance journalist who is contributing to The New Leader for the first time, recently returned from a 10-week trip to Brazil...

...Magalhaes told Veja, a Brazilian newsmagazine: "Paulo Salim Maluf knows perfectly well that he could not walk 500 meters on the sidewalk in the light of day on any major street in Brazil...

...Now, finding itself among the last of Latin America's military dictatorships, Brazil is bracing for presidential elections...

...But no one seems to care very much what his policies are...

...This was clear proof that Brazil was not yet ready for democracy...

...Olavo Setubal, head of a big private banking group in Sao Paulo, has been frequently mentioned as a possible finance minister...

...a convincing demonstration that Brazilians were indeed more than ready for democracy...

...That body, where the PDS theoretically has a 36-vote majority, is composed of Federal congressmen and senators plus representatives of the state governments...

...So much wining and dining was done by both sides that Avelar Brandao Vilela, Roman Catholic archbishop of Salvador, was moved to declare, "What is happening profoundly injures the principles of our national conscience...

...In these circumstances it is reasonable to ask why, after 20 years of broken promises, most Brazilians seem ready to put their faith in Tancredo Neves...

...Vice President Aureliano Chaves and another prominent anti-Maluf-ist, Senator Marcos Maciel, have established the Democratic Alliance, a group Chaves hopes will be the nucleus of a new centrist party...

...In 1964, when they overthrew the civilian government of President Joao Goulart to stop what they saw as Communist influence and growing anarchy, the military leaders thought the restoration process would be simple...

...In mid-August, with much fanfare, the regime's Democratic Social Party (PDS) and the main opposition group, the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), met on the same weekend in Brasilia, the nation's capital, to select their candidates...

...Because it strongly favors direct elections, in the heyday of the Diretas-Ja movement the PT suddenly achieved respectability among politicians of the more conservative opposition groups eager for its support...

...During 10 weeks of extensive interviews, I failed to find a single person who acknowledged supporting him...

...Certainly the division in the ruling ranks has benefited the PMDB's Tan-credo Neves, who was governor of the industrial Minas Gerais State until recently, and in the early 1960s served as chief minister under the subsequently deposed Joao Goulart...

...Maluf s unpopularity—or possible acts of retribution—has produced an exodus of many of his opponents from the PDS...

...In all of this the two major Left-wing parties find themselves on the outside looking in...

...We don't expect miracles from the next President...

...An implementing law setting the precise date for picking a successor to General Joao Figueiredo, whose six-year term expires next March 15, remains to be passed...

...Francisco Weffort, the sociologist who serves as party secretary, admitted that while the PT favors a redistribution of income, it has not had time to develop a coherent economic policy...

...Actually, despite its radical status, the PT finds itself in agreement with the military regime on an uncomfortably broad range of issues...

...The Army Minister, General Walter Pires, still warns portentously of "radical minorities that only want to sow disorder and chaos...

...Andreazza, a former colonel who enjoyed the unenthusiastic backing of Figueiredo, was able to offer highway projects and licenses for television stations in return, but Maluf's better-organized effort defeated him by a surprising 143 votes...

...In addition, Brizola's apparent indifference to Rio's spiraling crime rate has made him exceedingly unpopular with voters...

...After 20 years of dictatorship, the Brazilian Left is in considerable disarray...

...The regime has steadfastly rejected direct elections, recognizing that it would surely lose if only because the country is in the fourth year of a deep recession...

...It would reduce the size of some of the government's massive development projects, but would only eliminate the nuclear power program...

...Nineteen more years of military rule—alternately repressive and benign, always corrupt—were to follow...

...The PDS' Maluf, an aggressive former governor of Sao Paulo State, is the son of a Lebanese immigrant who made a fortune in the wood products business...

...Paulo Salim Maluf captured the PDS nomination...

...Few Brazilians, however, believe the discredited generals can muster enough military or popular support to prevent the return to civilian rule...

...In return for their backing, these converts from the PDS have been promised control of the key economic ministries in a Neves government, suggesting that it would have a Center-Right tilt...

...He swept to victory over Interior Minister Mario An-dreazza at the party convention on the basis of years of personal favors and, some delegates charged later, offers of cash or ministries in his government...

...Everyone knows the economic situation isn't going to turn around all of a sudden," a friend of mine explained one evening as we sat together in a bar near the beach at Leblon...

...A clever politician with a grandfatherly air, he has assembled an astonishingly wide base of support, stretching all the way from the Communist Party of Brazil to Vice President Chaves...

...It would subsidize small industry, commerce and agriculture, but so has the government in many cases...

...The more radical Workers' Party (PT), headed by the trade union leader Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, controls a mere eight seats in Congress...

...While a number of determined advocates are trying to revive its momentum, leaders of the PMDB today largely pay lip service to direct balloting...

...Then they allowed gubernatorial elections pending in 11 of the 22 states existing at the time...