Brazil Election - 5 October 2014

[Famous Mortimer]

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%A3o_presidencial_brasileira_de_2014

Most recent poll:

Dilma 39% Silva (formerly Green, now "Sustainability Network) 35%, Aécio Neves (Social Democrats) 12% Eduardo Campos (Brazilian Socialist Party) 4%

[Famous Mortimer]

I wouldn't say that Marina has great chances of being President, though She has some nice ideas. The only to go well in 2014 is creating a coalition of mid-size parties such as PDT, PC do B, PV or at least  the small socialist PSOL.

You mean the PCB? I thought the PC do B were very far up the PT's ass and certain to back Dilma.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why is Alckman called Chu-chu?

[Famous Mortimer]

So is Neves like a crappy candidate or something? I thought he would be doing better.

[Famous Mortimer]

One important thing to have in mind: Brazil has NO political debate. There's virtually no right-wing here, except maybe for fringe grass-roots movements which rely heavily upon the web.

To make things worse, the "slightly less to the left left-wing" coalition has very little chance of winning, and thats despite 12 consecutive years of a far-left Bolivarian aligned government which is leading us to a huge crisis. Thats 3 presidential terms people.

And they do not lack chances of winning only for being absolutely amateurish. They essentially are no different from the Workers Party (PT) ideologically, and they actually depend upon the PT to keep the little power they still have.

Contrarily to what most people think, our military government, which lasted 21 years from 1964 to 1985, did very little against the so-called "moderate" left. Newspapers like Pasquim were absolutely free to circulate. Never had the left-wing book industry profited so much. The only leftists they truly prosecuted were the ones engaged on terrorist activities. Our current president, Dilma Roussef, was one of those. However, there was also another group heavily prosecuted by the Military Junta. Our Right-Wing. The same Right-Wing which trusted upon the Military for the counter-revolution in 1964, and which saw 3 years ago that things were taking a rather nasty path, is the very same right wing which was ostracised when they realised that the military government did in fact intend to remain in power. Carlos Lacerda, our main conservative leader by then, was a guest at Bill Buckley's firing line, where he explained it all.

The result? We emerged from the regime without an organised Right-Wing. Since then, every single political party here has proudly identified as left-wing over fears of being ridiculed by the media, which very certainly associated the military government with Right-Wing. Trust me, they did it. In 2007, still in HS, I was vocal at defending traditionally right-wing positions, which are actually quite different from the ones the military junta defended. For that, I was frequently called fascist, nazi, friend of the "milicos". If Jonah Goldberg had reasons to write Liberal Fascism in the USA, I'm pretty sure he could write a neverending book on the issue in Brazil.

Today it is essentially a crime to be a right-winger, though things have been changing over the last 6 or 5 years, largely due to a work started by Olavo de Carvalho, a philosopher, Brazilian, currently living in Virginia.

This guy is not serious

Many brazilians who did not participate in the "guerrilha" and engaged in a peaceful resistance against the military regime were killed

Édson Luís and some other students were killed by the riot police in 1968
Rubens Paiva, a famous left-wing polician, was disappeared in 1971
Wladmir Herzog, a journalist, was tortured and killed in 1975
Manuel Fiel Filho, a steelworker, was tortured and killed in 1975, only because he was suspicious of being a member of the Brazilian Communist Party
Pedro Pomar was killed in 1976 because he was a member of the Brazilian Communist Party
Many natives were killed during the construction of a highway in the middle of the Amazon Forest
A bomb letter, sent by far-right terrorists, supporters of the regime, killed three members of the Association of Brazilian Lawyers in 1980

And many other journalists and political activies were arrested and tortured, many artists and academic had to live abroad


So, the sentence "The only leftists they truly prosecuted were the ones engaged on terrorist activities." is completely false.

Besides, most of the activities of the guerrilha groups that opposed the military regime cannot be defined as "terrorism". Their target were policemen, soldiers, foreign diplomats and banks. The civilian population was not target of these groups.

Negligible numbers of innocent people were prosecuted by the military government government, thats true. On that time, on the other hand, the homicide rate was much lower. There was law and order, and no gun control. Point is: whilst a very few people were possibly prosecuted by the military government, the Pasquim was sold everywhere and other left-wing publications were free to circulate. Even censorship wasn't that horrible: except for news pertaining to guerrilha related activities, censorship was negligible.

And you are the one joking here. Targeting banks is not terrorism? Killing innocent people on these attacks is not terrorism? Attacking ambassadors is not terrorism? By this hilarious definition of terrorism, the plane which hit the Pentagon wasn't engaged on terrorist activities. The attack upon the American Embassy in Iran in 1979, also, wasn't a terrorist act.

I find it very interesting to read from a conservative Brazilian. This can be a fertile ground for debate and show another perspective. Could you give us a brief overview of how the brazilian conservatives and right wingers are organized? Which parties do they prefer and vote for, are there regional strong holds and why - from your point of view - they are so marginalized? And could compare your nations situation with for example Chile, Argentina or Paraguay? I look forward to your point of view.

Since I'm relatively new to this forum, it is not to me to express myself to strongly about the forum rules, but I think we should not be to narrow minded and politically correct here. Having said all that, I bow my head, of course, before the leader of the forum.

The right-wing party that backed the military regime was splited into two parties in 1985: the Progressive Party (PP) and the Liberal Front (PFL). Both are very small parties now. They are members of the old right, supported by rural oligarchs and old military officers.

The new right, composed by business associations and mass media, is not very well represented by the Brazilian party system, but they prefer the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB). This party was founded by moderate opponents of the military regime, who were center-left when they were young and became centrist or center-right when they became older. Despite the name, PSDB is not a social democratic party. One of the founders, Franco Montoro, admitted that he was a christian democrat and not a social democrat.

PSDB is the party of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil between 1995 and 2002. Cardoso built a coalition between PSDB and PFL. Although he was a leftist academic in the 1960s, his admistration implemented free-market policies, like privatization and de-regulation.

Nowadays, young supporters of free-market policies join PSDB, although this party was considered a center-left party in its early days. They dislike the parties of the military regime (PP and PFL) because the military regime implemented a state-led capitalist development model.

There are many conservatives that do not feel represented by any party. They dislike the Brazilian party system and rely on conservative think thanks like "Instituto Millenium" and on Internet propaganda. They are very active in online discussion foruns and in the comments pages of the News websites.

The conservatives don't need to be strong opponents of Dilma Roussef administration, because they are well represented in this administration. Dilma's Workers Party (PT) and the Communist Party (PCdoB) are minority in the Congress. She needs support of conservative parties. That's why they have some ministries.

In the average, the Brazilians are more conservative than Americans and much more conservative than Europeans in social, religious, cultural and moral issues. And they are more progressive than Americans in economic issues. Social, religious, cultural and moral issues do not have big influence in the elections. That's why most of the Brazilian poor people are social conservative and voted for Lula and Dilma. Her administration will not try to legalize abortion. PT is one of the few left-wing parties in the world that does not have a consensus supporting abortion legalization. There are pro-life and pro-choice members in the party.

Although most of the Brazilians are more inclined to the left in economic issues, there is an importante school of economics supporting small government in the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the mass media support "small government" and free market. Most of its readers belong to the top rich 20% of the population.

That's not true about abortion. Plenty (most?) left-wing parties in Latin America don't support legalized abortion. The United Socialist Party in Venezuela doesn't. The Sandinistas don't. Correa doesn't. I don't think Kirchner does either but I could be wrong about that one only.

[Famous Mortimer]

How convenient! A candidate dies in shady circumstrances and is replaced by someone polling better. That's fishy.

Except no one powerful really benefits from Silva's rise. In fact, most of Campos' original backers are probably anxious about it.

[Famous Mortimer]

Silva did leave the Workers' Party because it had moved too far to the center though...

[Famous Mortimer]

She has now flip flopped and said she was never for gay marriage, only civil unions, although this is still a fairly liberal position for Brazil.

As to whether she's an economic leftist, social conservative or an economic rightist, social liberal, it seems to me you could make an argument either way.

She could be on the economic left because she used to be a member of the Workers' Party and she has avoided explicit alliances with the right. She could be an economic conservative but her platform is vaguely rightist (although mostly just vague).

She could be a social conservative because she's an evangelical. She could be a social liberal because she's for civil unions.

Basically, it's not clear what she stands for and that's why I wouldn't support her if I was a Brazilian. If he does get into office, she'll probably be fine but I dislike anyone who knowingly tries to mislead people to get elected (and she's for sure misleading at least half of the people who are going to vote for her).

[Famous Mortimer]

So what is the deal with gay marriage in Brazil? According to Wikipedia it's already legal.