In Brazil, Democracy is the Winner
An estimated 115 million Brazilians went to the polls across this enormous country on 5 October to decide who will get to govern them for the next four years. It was Brazil's (where voting is compulsory) seventh democratic presidential election since the fall of the military dictatorship that ruled the country with an iron fist from 1964 to 1985. But none of the candidates managed to obtain an outright majority, which means that the race will be decided through a runoff on 26 October.
The current President, Dilma Rousseff from the centre-left Workers' Party (PT), managed to get 42% of the votes, followed by Aécio Neves from the (misleadingly named) centre-right Social Democrats (PSDB) with 34%, and Marina Silva from the Socialist Party (PSB) with 21%. Rousseff is thus currently regarded as the favourite to win the second round battle against Neves.
But it is not necessarily the result that ultimately makes this such a highly intriguing election; it is the way in which the election campaign itself has unfolded. The process has consistently been marked by an unprecedented level of uncertainty among analysts and political pundits, with polls projecting a different winner on an almost weekly basis. One exasperated analyst from Estadão Dados even felt the need to claim that this election was ‘incomparable with anything that has happened anywhere in the world'.
So what is it that has made this campaign so exceptional? The story begins with the June 2013 protests, when more than a million Brazilians flooded the streets of cities across the country to loudly express their frustration with corruption, poor service delivery and the money being spent in preparation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. These were by far the biggest demonstrations the country had witnessed since the arrival of full democracy in 1990. The political mood changed overnight, with approval of Rousseff's government being halved from 80% to 40%. Two-thirds of the population indicated to pollsters that they were in favour of ‘change'.
This was in spite of the fact that Brazil has undoubtedly made tremendous progress since the PT came to power under Luiz Inácio ‘Lula' da Silva in 2003. The government was able to lift more than 40 million people out of extreme poverty in the decade since then, partly due to innovative welfare programmes like the much-vaunted Bolsa Família, increases in the value of the minimum wage and prudent macroeconomic policies.
Unemployment currently stands at only 6.7%, while all measures of inequality point to a significant decline during this period. The result is that more than half of the population is now classified as middle class. In short: under the PT, Brazil has become a middle class society. But along with this growing middle class come their heightened expectations. And under middle class democracy the question is (or should) always be: what have you done for me lately?
The truth is that, since 2011, Rousseff's government has squandered some of the momentum it inherited from its predecessor. The expectation is that the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will increase by a meagre 0.7% in 2014, while the inflation-shy population nervously watches an uncomfortably high rate of 6.3% eat into their wages. The market value of the Brazilian stock exchange has declined by a full 23% - totalling some $300 billion - since Rousseff became President.
And in spite of the government's rhetoric, corruption and poor service delivery stubbornly remain features of everyday life. This was recently reaffirmed by allegations of massive corruption, maladministration and underspending by the state-controlled oil company Petrobras. It is within this context that the government's expenditure of $14 billion on the World Cup triggered the middle class protest wave in 2013.
The drama of the 2014 election campaign was set against this backdrop. It initially appeared that a combination of increases in the value of welfare benefits, support among the poor, and an uninspiring cast of opposition candidates would enable Rousseff - a former political prisoner who was tortured by the military dictatorship and later survived a bout of cancer - to weather the storm of dissatisfaction relatively easily. But the death of Eduardo Campos in a tragic plane crash on 13 August and the announcement by the PSB that he would be replaced by Marina Silva completely changed the game.
In Silva, the discontented suddenly found their chosen outsider: the daughter of black rubber tappers who grew up impoverished in the Amazon and was known for her integrity as an environmental activist. She even resigned as Environmental Minister from Lula's Cabinet in 2008 due to ‘the growing resistance by important sectors of the government and society'. In an arena where cynicism has become the political leitmotiv, this kind of commitment to principle was indeed somewhat extraordinary.
A mere ten days after Campos' death, Rousseff's impressive lead had been erased, with opinion polls suddenly indicating that Silva would win in a runoff. For more than a month, analysts predicted that Silva would comfortably win in a battle with Rousseff, while Neves would struggle to get more than 10% of the vote.
But a further twist awaited: the traditional political advertisements and televised debates between the presidential candidates. While emphasising her own government's track record on poverty reduction, Rousseff used these opportunities to accuse Silva of planning to gut spending on popular welfare programmes. The PT poured money into advertisements, painting a picture of Silva as being indecisive and weak. The message was clear: she may be passionate about the environment, but that does not mean that she has the requisite governance skills to run a country.
Rousseff's strategy worked. Not only to her own advantage, but also to the advantage of Neves. While Rousseff and Silva fought it out, Neves performed well during the debates. This was especially true for the final debate on 3 October, where both Rousseff and Silva were visibly exhausted, while Neves' criticism of the faltering economy and corruption was razor sharp. The result was that voters lost faith in their chosen outsider, while Rousseff effectively used the power of incumbency and Neves came across as competent. The campaign in the lead-up to the runoff promises to be even more intense and the ultimate result is far from certain.
This is also where the implications for South Africa become clear. In spite of the fact that Brazil continues to face daunting challenges, this election serves as further evidence that the country's democracy is consolidating. This is based on two factors. The first is that a decisive amount of voters are not beholden to any particular political party. Brazilians are becoming active citizens that demand accountability from their government. Rousseff herself admitted the impact this has had when she remarked on Sunday that: ‘I clearly understood the message from the streets and from the ballot boxes. The majority of Brazilians want us to speed up the Brazil we are building'.
Another characteristic of this democratic consolidation is the fact that the campaign was overwhelmingly conducted on programmatic grounds. It was a battle of ideas, where the decisive factor revolved around voters' estimations of which candidate would be best able to govern the country. Brazilians asked the difficult (but often absent) question: who will do the best job running the country? The result is that, in contrast to South Africa, Brazil is building a democracy where politicians are constantly kept on their toes by an active, ambitious citizenry.
*Leon Schreiber is a visiting fellow at Princeton University and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. The views expressed are his own. This article first appeared on his blog at http://theschreiberei.wordpress.com/. He can be followed on Twitter here.
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