Peru / Brazil *
Primaries
ELECTRONIC BULLETIN
OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FOR LATIN AMERICA
Alegre that the governmental apparatus and the television channels were neutral. The O.A.S. mission demanded two weeks to check that the software was correct and was not manipulated. The JNE refused to delay the date of the second round. This was carried out without national or foreign observers and without the participation of Toledo, who called on his supporters not to vote or write "no to fraud" on the ballot paper.
In Peru it is obligatory to vote, a heavy fine is paid if you don't, in addition the electoral authority threatened many additional punishments for those who did not vote. Even so, there was little voting, but this was not recognized by the governmental machines. Luckily Toledo did not let himself be intimidated by being called a "rebel" and a "terrorist". Between the first and second round he continued participating in enthusiastic and large demonstrations as opposed to the few Fujimorista demonstrations which people were taken to by force. In the afternoon and night of the day of the second round, the squares of the country were filled by the "losers" whereas the "winners" could only meet in a few corners and Fujimori did not appear to celebrate his "triumph"
The Constitution recognizes the right of insurgency against an illegitimate government. We are living through the final days of Fujimorismo. Fujimorista masses are not seen, although they are there as a minority, but they are not used to mobilizing, the pro-government assemblies have always been prefabricated. However antidictatorship people are in the streets, sometimes attacking the police. We know that these demonstrations cannot continue indefinitely, but the people will know how to organize itself, how to fight in a more prolonged resistance. The people have taken Toledo as a flag, but a great part of them are not necessarily Toledista, they are anti-Fujimorist, anti-dictatorial and antineoliberal. That is what worries imperialism.
The peaceful replacement of Fujimori by Toledo is one thing, another would be Toledo's coming to power on the back of the people in movement - the peasants, the students, the pensioners, have made him make commitments. If he does not fulfill them, the movement will continue. That also worries imperialism. One neoliberal lamented: "Fujimori is to neoliberalism what Sendero is to the left". Fujimori destroys the image of democratic neoliberalism. Today we read in the newspaper that a father, dismissed from a privatized company, seeing himself without work, tubercular and in poverty, poisoned himself and his four daughters. We do not want that to happen again, and for that reason we have risen. * * Hugo Blanco is one of the historic leaders of the Latin American revolutionary left. He is a leader of the Confederacion Campesina del Peru (see interview in IV no 321, May 2000).
AFUERA DICTADO
THE primary elections to choose the Workers' Party (PT) candidate for the mayorship of Porto Alegre, Brazil's "capital of democracy" in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, took place in a tense climate on April 9, 2000. LUÍZ MARQUES* T HE contenders were the current mayor Raul Pont, the first assistant José Fortunati and former mayor Tarso Genro.1
The process mobilized the PT's militants and sympathizers and contributed to politically legitimate the choice of Tarso Genro. The PT thus comes out reinforced for an electoral confrontation in which the conservative camp is finding it difficult to define its candidates. The sad aspect of the story is that, in various aspects, the political victory of the PT choosing its representative for the October election went hand in hand with the risk of a serious cultural defeat in relation to the fashion of making policy followed by the right-wing in our country.
### Seduction
The processes of seduction of the electorate used to accumulate votes through the transport of voters in rented buses and paid meals, like the participation of hundreds of electoral organizers? coming from remote municipalities (in particular Gravatai) to give spectacular dimensions to the campaign and the stuffing of ballot boxes, showed that the PT in the capital of democracy is also threatened by anti-democratic methods. Such is the specter that we must vanquish in our political practice henceforth, although this specter cannot be used to challenge the cleanness and the honesty of the majority choice.
As Raoul Pont stressed after the final
23
International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000
* Brazil calculation of the votes, "the problems which have occurred did not alter the final result, but deeply disturbed our relations in the party and must be discussed internally". Thus, the relations between militants in the party are no longer the ethical and moral anticipation of the future that we want for all citizens. Worse: they run the risk of reflecting in an uncritical way the mentality of "what is good is what works" stimulated by neoliberalism.
The process of the primary elections in Porto Alegre closed a cycle of illusions in the imagination of the militants of left. It is not true that the PT gaucho? is immunized against the ideological degeneration affecting the left in the contemporary world, which, in a vertiginous way, relegates principles to the second level in the name of a pragmatism directed by a "policy of results" in accordance with the dominant rules of the game.
### Depoliticization
The increasing depoliticization of the PT during elections — no longer characterized by the necessary programmatic debate between militants, increasingly treated as spectators to decisions taken by the leadership - reveals that the global adaptation of the left to the limits of capitalism has been facilitated by the processes legitimized by the national leadership of the PT itself. The means, in this way, absorb and compromise the ends. In this atmosphere, it is impossible that the defects of the traditional policy should not affect Rio Grande do Sul, although to an incomparably lesser degree than other States, like Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, for example.
The difference, however, is quantitative and not qualitative. In the municipalities and at state level, the PT gaucho is the administrative symbol of humanity's fight against neoliberalism in political terms, because it continues to base itself on popular participation in policies opposed to privatization and social exclusion. But it should not be seen as an invulnerable fortress against the assaults of the dominant wisdom, in cultural terms. Such is the best lesson of the primary elections for the militants of left: the political (in the short run) and cultural (in the medium and long terms) maintenance of the socialist origins of the party, against the social-democratic inflections of which it is currently victim, is a national and not only regional task. 24 International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000
### WORLD SOCIAL FORUM [email protected] Porto Alegre, Brazil January 25-30, 2001 THE World Social Forum will be a new international arena for organizing against neoliberal policies and for building economic alternatives that prioritize social justice.
It will take place every year in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, during the same period as the World Economic Forum, which happens in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January. Since 1971, The World Economic Forum has played a key role in formulating neoliberal policies throughout the world. It's sponsored by a Swiss organization that serves as a consultant to the United Nations and it's financed by more than one thousand corporations.
The World Social Forum will provide a space for building economic alternatives, for exchanging experiences and for strengthening South-North alliances between NGOs, unions and social movements. It will also be an opportunity for developing concrete actions, to educate the public, and to mobilize civil society internationally.
The World Social Forum developed as a consequence of a growing international movement that has gained greater visibility since the mobilizations against the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI), which happened in Europe in 1998, the demonstrations in Seattle, during the WTO meeting in 1999, and the recent protests against the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, DC, among others.
For decades, these international financial institutions have been making decisions that affect the lives of people all over the world, without being subject to any sort of democratic control. People in Third World countries, as well as the poor and excluded sectors of industrialized countries suffer the devastating effects of economic globalization and the dictatorship of international institutions such as the IMF, the
World Bank, the WTO and the governments that serve their interests.
We need to continue pressuring these institutions to be accountable to our societies. Similarly, our governments must be made aware that this oversight will be exercised with increasing intensity over their actions. Many of us have struggled in our own countries, regions, or cities, thinking that we were isolated. Recently, we have begun to realize that together we can constitute a planetary archipelago of resistance. The World Social Forum represents a new opportunity toward the construction of an international counter-power.
Brazil is one the countries that has been greatly affected by neoliberal policies. At the same time, different sectors of Brazilian society are resisting these policies, in rural and urban areas, in shantytowns, factories, political parties, churches, schools, etc. The richness of Brazilian grassroots organizations represents a source of inspiration for the development of the World Social Forum.
The Brazilian Organizing Committee invites international networks of NGOs, unions and social movements to help us build the World Social Forum. We hope to receive support from organizations in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe with a commitment to contribute with this organizing process and to send delegations to
Porto Alegre in January.
We are asking for a special commitment from organizations in the First World to help funding delegations from their partner organizations in Third World countries, in order to guarantee diversity within the World Social Forum. The World Social Forum will represent a historic moment for organizing and social change. Let's build it together! *
Brazilian Organizing Committee: The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (Associação
Brasileira de Organizações Não Governamentais, ABONG); Action for the Taxation of International Financial Transaction in Support of Citizens (Ação pela Tributação das Transações Financeiras em Apoio aos Cidadãos, ATTAC-
BR); The Brazilian Commission of Justice and Peace (Comissão Brasileira de Justiça e Paz); CIVES - Brazilian Association of Businesses for Citizenry; The Central Union Federation (Central Única dos Trabalhadores, CUT); IBASE - Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis; Global Justice Center (Centro de Justiça Global); The Landless
Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST)
None of the historic virtues of the old PT gaúcho can survive if they are not articulated nationally with changes in the principal vector of the party. That the organizations of the left are nevertheless directed towards a regionalistic pragmatism is a sign that they have lost during these primaries the principal (national) reference of the objectives pursued by the party. They repeated, voluntarily or involuntarily, the traditional error of reformism; to take the shortcut of inconsistency at a time when the path reaches a crossroads. In this way, intending to take a step forward, they made two backward.
### Watchdogs
An internal tendency in the PT, Socialist Democracy (DS), to which vicegovernor Miguel Rossetto belongs, has been identified by the media "watchdogs" of the bourgeoisie as controlling the greatest number of positions of responsibility in the state administration. That the facts contradict the assertion does not matter. Inside and outside the party, the "hegemonist intentions of the DS" have been invoked to disqualify the pre-candidature of Raul Pont.
This fallacious argument pins on DS all the collective responsibility for the government of a state cut to pieces by the preceding administration of the PMDB; encircled by a media monopoly; with a majority of hostile deputies in the legislative assembly and confronted with tensions with public servants, particularly education workers. Thus the electoral defeat of DS and its allied currents has been interpreted by the media and the enemies of the popular and democratic camp as a political defeat of the government of Olivio Dutra.
The PT in Porto Alegre has opted for Tarso Genro, the candidate they consider as the most adequate to win the forthcoming ballot. He can transform into reality the fourth mandate of the PT and the Frente Popular in the capital of democracy, where around 70% of the electorate still approve of the current administration. The struggle continues! Until victory! * *Luiz Marques is deputy secretary for culture of the government of Rio Grande do Sul, of which Porto Alegre is the capital. 1. Raul Pont, currently mayor of Porto Alegre, is a member of the Socialist Democracy tendency of the Workers" Party (PT). 2. Electoral organizers paid for by the candidates are typical of the Brazilian bourgeoisie but have not until now been employed within the PT. 3. Gaucho is the term used to refer to the cowherders of southern Brazil and Uruguay. By extension the population of the whole state of Rio Grande do Sul are known as gauchos.
Brazil / Imperialism *