By Revolución Socialista – PSOL. ISL, Brazil
“The other time (2003), I received the government of a democrat president, a colleague that had a history of struggle in this country for democracy, for human rights”, said Lula about FHC in a speech on the 100 days of his administration. The assessment of the first months of the government of the Frente Amplio showed that, although the defeat of Bolsonaro in the ballots meant a popular triumph, the alliance with the traditional right, the financial capital and the agribusiness is a bad sign for the poor and working people.
Compared to Lula’s first cycle in the presidency, today the president has a higher disapproval index, according to DataFolha. 29% evaluate his government as bad or lousy, while 30% evaluate it as fair and 38% as excellent or good. It is a fact that the Brazilian people, in a scenario of political polarization, do not sign blank checks and expect urgent answers to the strong social crisis.
Positive steps to gain popular support
Actions to address the humanitarian crisis on Yanomami land were positive, although they did not solve the problem. We know that indigenous peoples struggle without much support against the predatory power of capital. Mining and all illegal extractive activities must be banned and attacked with full force. But these activities are not the only ones responsible for socio-environmental destruction. It is necessary to combat the productive matrix that kills and pollutes, that produces profit without solving the hunger of the people. The matrix that has agribusiness as its star industry. Banning agribusiness is a first fundamental measure. In its place must arise agro-ecological, proximity and sustainable production, which generates employment and produces without destroying nature, where the native peoples have much to teach.
Stopping the privatization of 8 state-owned companies, among them Correos and Petrobras, is great news for the workers who have been fighting against privatization since day one. But the federal government’s decision is not enough with the justification that the suspension comes from the “need to guarantee a rigorous analysis of the impacts of privatization on the public service or on the market in which the referred economic activity is inserted”. It is necessary to nationalize all the companies already privatized and to prevent the privatization of those that are in process, under the management of the workers and users.
A fiscal framework adapted to the needs of financial capital.
The table formed by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, and the Minister of Planning, Simone Tebet, is a clear demonstration of the meaning of this economic plan presented as the “New Fiscal Framework”. The market celebrated the plan, which maintains the commitment to limit spending on public policies to meet popular rights, and does not set a ceiling on interest and amortization of the public debt. It is clear why this measure is not positive for the people but for the rentiers.
As we published in a previous article, “We must fight against the new fiscal framework and prioritize the right to food, housing, fair employment, education and public and quality health, living wages, among other urgent social needs.”
For the definitive repeal of the New Secondary Education!
Temer’s reform, called New Secondary Education (NEM), represented by Todos Pela Educação, an NGO financed by the Lemann group, Bradesco, Itaú, iFood and a long list of big companies, must be definitively repealed. In order to debate a truly popular secondary education, education workers, unions and student organizations must be called upon. Only they can create an educational plan that responds to the real needs of working and poor people, not of businessmen who would never send their children to a public school.
Lula and the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, declared themselves totally against the repeal of the NEM. Pressured by the mobilization, days later they had to backtrack and suspend the application for 60 days. The growing mobilization process began to get out of the hands of the union and student leaderships aligned with the government. It is evident that the Lula-Alckmin government is not yet in conditions to face an uprising of education, preferring to cool it down for a few days.
For our part, we reinforce the need to mobilize for the definitive repeal of the NEM, of the National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC) and of all the counter-reforms that take away conquered rights. To demand in the streets, mobilized and fighting, that the government responds to the people and not to the defenders of private education.
Mobilization and union leaderships
There are processes of struggle in many different categories. The strike of the subway workers in Sao Paulo was an important example that confirms the will to struggle that exists at the grassroots. At this moment we are experiencing a growing process of mobilization in education. Last April 26, an assembly of approximately 12,000 teachers approved an indefinite strike, going over the heads of the bureaucracy that runs the union (Sinpro) and demanding a wage increase.
The demand for wage recovery is combined with the demand for the defense of public education and the repeal of the NEM. Workers and youth join forces, making an explosive combination that is provoking an increase in mobilization. That is why the union centrals and the unions, led by the bureaucracy, are trying to contain it, to avoid the explosion of the rank and file and to decompress. The discourse is: unity must be maintained because the extreme right is in the opposing side, this is not the time to criticize or demand from the government, but to accompany it. The CUT, the CTB and other centrals led by the union bureaucracy constantly act in this direction. They did it on April 26, during the National Education Strike, and they are doing the same for May 1. They divide, isolate, wear down and demoralize, that is their function, because the only thing they are interested in is to maintain their privileges and political agreements with the governments in office.
But the rank and file are not willing to wait, the critical social situation is an unstoppable impulse. The rank and file are on the move, they vote strikes, organize assemblies and events, discuss and contradict their treacherous leaderships. May 1st is an important date to express the unity of the trade union and political left, we must strengthen each rally, in each city, that serves to raise the banners of militant and class unionism that does not fall before the siren songs of the Frente Amplio.
We want a successful government for the working and poor people.
The Brazilian people have scrapped educational, health and social policies, lack of jobs, low wages, scarcity, poverty and hunger. The Fiscal Framework will deepen these ills, generate more social crisis and wear out the Lula-Alckmin government with the masses, who expect answers after Bolsonaro’s defeat at the polls and the promises of “meat and beer” on the people’s table.
If this government works for the bankers and businessmen, then it does not work for the people. An excellent scenario for the recovery of the far-right, which will be ready to become again a political alternative of government. We want to bury the far-right once and for all , that is why we fight against any attack on the workers and the poor, and we fight to recover the rights that have been torn away, because if the people are strengthened, they do not lose rights, they recover them and conquer new ones. Because if the people are strengthened, they do not lose rights, they recover and conquer new ones, they will not vote for anyone just because they are opposed to those who defrauded them.
We want a government that breaks its commitments with the bankers, stops paying the fraud of the public debt and commits itself to the people. We want a government that will put a ceiling on the mechanisms that favor the usual ones, so that those who always lose win: the poor and the workers. Tax the big fortunes, lower interest rates, eliminate taxes on the basic basket of goods, nationalize the banks and foreign trade, repeal all counter-reforms and make way for a whole plan of urgent measures for the people.
We want more left!
There is a lot of right wing inside and outside the government, in the unions, in the student centers, in the media… what is missing is a left that is determined, bold, that speaks loud and clear; a left that defends the interests of the 99%, regardless of who is in office; one that knows how to demand, complain, claim and denounce when necessary; a left that is willing to govern and put an end to the governments of the 1%.
From Revolucion Socialista, internal current of the PSOL, we oppose the policy of the majority leadership that has decided to assimilate itself to the frenteamplista project, renouncing the task we have of building a leftist and socialist political alternative. This is the task that the PSOL and the entire left must have. That is why we are militating and organizing. Join us!