Latin America’s post-colonial political history has been one defined by fluctuation. Long-term authoritarian governance has only been punctuated by brief periods of weak democracy. However, the 1980s brought with it a newfound optimism and faith in democratic politics. Even after crises such as the economic crash in Argentina in 2000 and the recent disorder in Bolivia, democratic institutions have still retained their legitimacy. There is now a strong cross-party consensus in the majority of Latin American states that democratic governance is the only way forward for the region. This shift towards more open and inclusive democracy has also begun to give non-traditional parties, and more importantly parties of the left, a real chance of election.
On 1 January 2003 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became the first democratically elected president from the left in Brazilian history. The transition of the boy from the poverty stricken Ipiranga neighbourhood of Sao Paolo to the presidency of the biggest economic and political power in Latin America is nothing short of remarkable. However, after one year in government, the former shoe-shine boy turned metal works trades union leader turned politician, has found that he will have to encounter and overcome even greater problems in his mission to transform Brazil into a progressive, socially-democratic state.
Lula, as he is affectionately known, has confounded his doubters within the global economy not only by following an orthodox economic policy that has created a relative macroeconomic stability within Brazil, but also by adopting an unexpectedly conciliatory approach towards the IMF, resulting in a new agreement with the developing world’s main financier. However, this success has been tempered by Lula’s inability to show any real equivalent progress on a social front. His ambitious ‘Zero Hunger Plan’, the centrepiece of his new social policy, is supposed to provide three solid meals a day for the people of Brazil and relegate the issue of hunger to the history books. But unlike Lula’s initial economic actions, his ‘Zero Hunger Plan’ is yet to show results and the minister in charge of the plan, Jose Graziano, was subsequently sacked in the recent cabinet reshuffle.
Lula’s lack of progress in dealing with Brazil’s numerous social problems is beginning to concern his massive working-class support base. After all, his Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party) was set up to help and defend them rather than the business elite who seem to have been the major beneficiaries of the new Lula government. And herein lies the problem for Lula, who has not turned out to be a classical Latin American politician of the left. Lula, similar to his compatriots Ricardo Lagos of Chile and Néstor Kirshner of Argentina, firmly believes that progress can only be made within a state where the private and public realms are symbiotic. Furthermore, Lula has realised that the realities of government in Latin America are shaped around the IMF and the global economy, which has prohibited his leftist instincts from bringing in any radical reforms. But Lula is no sell out. His acceptance of neoliberal economics and the need for a limitation on state intervention are not the signs of a paradigmatic shift to the right; they are simply the actions of a man and a government who, like their social democratic contemporaries in Europe, have realised the need for the politics of the left to move forward. Whilst Brazil is certainly not out of the woods in economic terms, the confidence bread by Lula’s first year in power should allow him to at least begin to turn his attention towards social welfare.
On the political front, Lula’s PT party is witnessing problems currently afflicting the Labour party in the UK. Factionalism is starting to creep in as the more radical left of the party begin to lose patience with Lula’s market-friendly approach. Four members of the PT have already been expelled for consistently voting against the government, and one of the rebels, Leloisa Helena, has threatened to set up a new leftist party to rival Lula. And as with New Labour, the PT may find that the biggest threat to their ability to create real progress within Brazil comes from the oppositionist left of their own party rather than any external threat.
Lula’s need to convince the PT’s working class support base of the need for incremental social-democratic and redistributionary reform instead of a radical anti-free market policy dovetails to some extent with the current challenges facing the New Labour government in the UK. Only time will tell whether Lula’s huge public approval levels and the overwhelming public trust he enjoys will persist and allow him to bring real change to one of the richest, yet socio-economically unequal, countries in the world.