Olé,
Olé, Olá
Lula!
Lula!
October
7, 2002
Narco News '02
And
Almost...
Lula
and Brazil Wait
For October 27th
By Luis A. Gómez
Narco News
Andean Bureau Chief
From
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Yesterday,
kind readers, was a long day, full of anticipation for democracy in our América. Throughout the day the
people of Brazil went to the polls... and presidential candidate
Lula da Silva arrived just three percentage points from opening
the doors to the government in the first round... But no harm
done, because within three weeks, nobody doubts it (not in Brazil
and not on Wall Street), the popular and most important leader
of the Left will triumph.
But let's talk about what has happened,
because although Lula was not elected president of Brazil yet,
some of his allies did win important posts in the first round,
changing the history of his Workers Party, that now becomes the
leading political force in Brazil: People like Congressman José
Dirceu, who is also president of the Workers Party (PT, in its
Portuguese initials), or the governor of the state of Arce (on
the Bolivian border), Jorge Viana, and the senator from Sao Paulo
Aloizio Marcadante... and many, many more.
And let's speak also of the dark moments
for democracy. Yesterday, for example, it was demonstrated that
the polls, all of them, did not tell the whole truth about the
intentions of the voters. The most scandalous case was that for
election of the governor of Sao Paulo. In its final poll before
the vote, the daily Folha of Sao Paulo (perhaps the most respected
newspaper in Brazil) said that José Genoino, the PT candidate,
was in third place with 24 percent, behind the current governor
Gerardo Alckim of the governing party, and the old politician
Paulo Maluf. The other polls said similar things.
Last night, when almost have the votes
in the state of Sao Paulo were counted, Alckim had obtained 40.6
percent, Genoino 31.4 percent and Maluf with barely 21.4 percent.
From this it is possible to conclude that the polls were badly
conducted
or perhaps organized with the intent to undercount
the support for the PT candidates, because the case of Genoino
is not the only one. Everything indicates that the labor of Brazilian
special interests was very vast and that, with actions like those,
they have tried to undermine the enormous vote that the people's
party received.
It's worth mentioning that with those
results in Sao Paulo, the last representative of the military
dictatorship, Paulo Maluf, a civilian who worked with the military
commanders in the sixties and seventies, has been left on the
sidelines of political life for the first time
a clear
indication of the changes afoot.
Oof,
the Electronics!
Yesterday,
also, the first "electronic" national elections were
held in Brazil history. The 115.2 million
voters chose their candidates from small terminals that looked
like the check out counter at the supermarket, which registered
the ID of the voter and the numbers on the list that corresponded
to their political preferences. With this, the vote-counting
was quite fast and, everything indicates, minor fraud and counting
glitches were evaded.
"Everything legal," as the Brazilians
say
up to now. The problems began when the people, especially
the poorest, came before the voting machine
or when, for
example, in Rio de Janeiro they used approximately 500 electronic
terminals in bad condition
Many people, confused by the
use of electronic machines, took as much as a half hour to emit
their votes. With this, the long voting lines in some places
(above all, the large cities) caused many to have to wait more
than three hours in the streets. Various polling places didn't
close their doors until 9 p.m., when the closing hour should
have been 5 p.m.
The question was complicated for those
not familiar with computers (and in Brazil, that means more than
50 million people). Each voter had to punch six different numerical
formulas into the computer (that is to say, six votes), to elect
president, governor, two senators, a congress member and a state
legislator. In the case of the PT candidates, for example, someone
in Sao Paulo had to type the following: 1131 to elect federal
congressman Ricardo Berzoni, and then confirm with another work
of typing, next, 13184 for the state legislator Maria Lúcia
Prandi, and then confirm it, and then 131 for Senator Mercadente
(which also had to be confirmed), later, 651 for Senator Wagner
Gomes (once more, having to confirm the vote), later 13 for the
governor (then confirm it) and finally 13 (for Lula) and confirm
that vote
19 sets of numbers to be able to vote and express
their will!
And as the majority of these people who
voted for the PT and the other parties of the Left are poor people,
without much education, these were the parties most affected.
Here, in spite of the apology by the minister in charge of the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal, it is clear that democracy not only
can (and must) by supported by technology, but also that it is
necessary to facilitate, to help the people so that their will
be done
and it wasn't that way, at least not enough so.
For now, Anthony Garotinho, presidential
candidate of Brazil's Socialist Party (and perhaps the most harmed
by the errors in the voting system), is filing suit against the
elections in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In this state, the
voting was slow and there were many problems, harming also the
PT candidates
and while he said he was "surprised"
by these matters, the president of the Electoral Tribunal, Nelson
Jobim, has blamed the problems on "the people's own difficulty
in voting."
Lula:
46,44 %
And
almost... we've almost arrived with Lula to the Government Palace. In the highest vote count ever obtained by a left-wing
party in Brazil, the PT arrived only 3.5 percent from winning
in the first round. But last night, in spite of the fact that
the grand fiesta organized for Paulista Avenue was cancelled,
there was no frustration or unhappiness in the streets. To the
contrary, there were parties and songs, music and red banners
with the star of the PT in a celebration that lasted until dawn.
Let's go... To not make it in the first
round is no defeat. With 99.21 percent of the vote already counted,
Lula has 46.44 percent. He's already made history and will have
many opportunities to continue making it. Of the 29 states that
make the Federal Republic of Brazil (its official name), Lula
won in 27 with more than 40 percent; in five states, about half
of the valid votes (not counting the blank and nullified ballots).
He even won in New York
What's more, is that in almost
all the countries of the world where Brazilians abroad voted,
Lula won.
O povo
"luló"... Lula as a Verb
Today,
Lula made his first post-election statements,
explaining his intention to come to power, reaffirming the proposals
of his campaign and confirming what we all know: that the people
are with him and are not thinking of letting him down or leaving
him alone. They will follow the steps yet to come. Already, everyone
is working to weave alliances. At least one of the large parties
of the Left - the Socialist Party - has announced its support
for the PT in the second round. With this, if the war is not
too dirty, that alone will be sufficient to make Lula the president
of Brazil.
For his part, the second-place finisher
and Lula's rival, José Serra, also also in the battle
for October 27th. Serra, the candidate of the Social Democratic
party, plans to utilize the figure of his most important ally
as a decisive support: that of President Fernando Hernrique Cardoso.
Here, we'll have a new round of an old conflict, now more clear
than ever: the dominant groups, with their sympathizers in Washington,
vs. the popular will. We have three weeks left to report it all
In the coming days, Narco News will be
dedicated to report, with more calm, what is happening in Brazil.
We'll be speaking with the key members of the PT, and perhaps
even with Lula (who, logically, is quite busy these days) and
we count with the support of some authentic journalists (like
Renato Rovai of Forum magazine: http://www.revistaforum.com.br/
Let's go now and accompany the Brazilian
people in the final stretch of their journey to obtain a just
and truly democratic government. Come on along with us
For
more Narco News Click Here
Olé,
Olé, Olá