We republish an article by our Brazilian section reflecting the launch of Glauber Braga’s pre-candidacy for the presidency.
By Alternativa Socialista / PSOL – ISL / Brazil.
This week, PSOL federal deputy Glauber Braga officially launched his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic. This launch responds to at least three problems: to call on people to join the broad unity for the immediate overthrow of Bolsonaro’s genocidal government; to open a debate in the 7th Congress of the PSOL, scheduled for this year; and to fight for an independent, radical PSOL and not a new element in the front with the bourgeoisie.
The time has come for the PSOL to choose whether to continue with its founding program, expressing a living party in the class struggle, or if it breaks its principles once and for all and buries itself with the historically failed project of the broad front. The pre-candidacy of Glauber Braga, the deputy who called Eduardo Cunha a “gangster” and Sergio Moro a “thief judge”, represents the unity of currents and public figures that fight to avoid the PSOL becoming a political corpse.
After the launch, the majority leadership – “PSOL de Todos las Luchas” – did not take long to express their public disagreement in an empty way. They affirm that “2021 is when”, which is correct, but at the same time they prepare the party to be the last wagon of the train of the broad front headed by Lula / PT for the 2022 elections. Comrades Guilherme Boulos and Marcelo Freixo are the main expression of this mistake, with the silence (or complicity) of the majority bloc.
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The remarkable parliamentary expansion since 2018 accelerated the electoral pressure on the PSOL. This dynamic was also expressed in the 2020 elections and left a thread of continuity toward 2022. The disagreement of the majority leadership with Glauber’s pre-candidacy reflects, in reality, two fundamental electoral conditions: the approximation to Lula’s candidacy in order to considerably expand its presence in parliament; the demand to Lula for an “anti-capitalist” program, as some currents do, to place themselves in the dynamic. The two conditions ignore a third: the possibility that the PSOL will be erased by Lula / Frente Amplio.
The immediate task: Bolsonaro and Mourão out!
The manifesto that presents the pre-candidacy of comrade Glauber, written by several hands, which includes Alternativa Socialista, Luta Socialista, CST, PSOL pela Base, LRP, GAS and SoB of the Bloc of the Radical Left, the MES, Fortalecer, the Commune among other currents and referents of the PSOL, keeps its footing in this difficult 2021 for “the mobilization for the immediate tasks of the pandemic period, which necessarily includes the mobilization for Fora Bolsonaro/Mourão. This program must be implemented by a people´s government in replacement of the current rentist-military project that devastates us”.
Over 400,000 lives have been lost to Covid-19, there is an accelerated rate of infection, absence of necessary vaccines, people desperate due to the shortages of the second dose, an increase of misery and hunger, unpopular reforms such as the administrative reform that attacks the right to stability, millions of unemployed, privatization of strategic sectors such as the Post Office and the Bank of Brazil, cuts in education, health and research, destruction of the biome and attacks on indigenous peoples, and blatant corruption in the government. There are countless reasons to build today the unity that is so needed to crush the entire Bolsonaro government.
The collective pre-candidacy with the name of comrade Glauber Braga also represents the struggle to defeat rentism and neo-liberalism, to defeat the model of land concentration and the destruction of the environment, to defend public service with popular control and to fight for more rights. For this, the PSOL must demand that the trade union centrals, Lula, the PT and the social movements call for a national plan of mobilizations against this government of hunger, misery, unemployment and death.
We share the Manifesto:
GLAUBER BRAGA, PRE-CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
The anti-capitalist left, present in militant parties and social movements, wants to draw lessons from history in order not to repeat past errors and omissions. For this, it proposes an ideologically defined program, a reference for the organic formation of a Front. Starting from the mobilization for the immediate tasks of the pandemic period, which necessarily includes the Fora Bolsonaro/Mourão mobilization, this program must be implemented by a popular government in replacement of the current rentist-military project that devastates us.
Only with a strong call for popular mobilization will we be able to reach a social majority to bring about real change. Our struggle is for a platform that helps the organization of the working class to overcome capitalist exploitation. It is for the unity of the youth, Black people, women, LGBTQIA+ people, indigenous peoples, workers, farmers, the elderly, people with disabilities, state workers, precarious workers, in short, the whole class in support of the projects with the political radicalism that our harsh reality requires. This radicalism must be expressed in the confrontation with private monopolies, the latifundium, imperialism and environmental devastation. For a program that helps the organization of the immediate tasks and reinforces the socialist strategy.
To this effect, the undersigned decide:
To present to the militants of the PSOL and its organs, and to society as a whole, the name of legislator Glauber Braga, expressive parliamentarian of the opposition in the National Congress, as representative of this space, in a dialogue to be established with other political forces of the left-wing opposition to the Bolsonaro government, in the condition of pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic under the following points:
Axis one: defeat rentism and neoliberalism.
Referendum to repeal privatizations and other measures that dismantle the State in its social guarantees: spending ceiling, labor “reform”, pension “reform”… The end of the dismantling of state companies and public administration as a whole. Bank of Brazil, Caixa Economica and BNDES under absolute popular control, through the State. It is also fundamental to audit the public debt, to reveal how it is structured, how it was contracted, who profits from it, how much has already been paid and what fraudulent operations have been committed, and thus review the payment to the big capitalists. Implement the law of full employment: the State as employer of last resort: PL 5491/19. Implementation of the Tax on Large Fortunes, taxation of profits and dividends, broadening of taxes on inheritances….
Axis two: to defeat the model of land concentration and environmental destruction.
A true agrarian and urban reform, guaranteeing the right to decent housing, moving forward in the transition to an agroecological food production model, prioritizing food sovereignty and food security instead of commodity production. Overcoming the concentration of land ownership. Guarantee of a broad delimitation of indigenous lands and quilombola territories. Program in defense of the Amazon, Pantanal, fauna and flora, water and mineral resources, territories, knowledge and environment.
Axis three: In defense of public service, with popular control.
Total priority to SUS (SuperSUS). Budgetary and operational guarantee of the universalization of the family health model and primary care with a focus on prevention and not on the disease that sustains the profit of the private market. Exponential expansion of taxation on the private health and education network with the return of all revenues to the respective public systems. National emergency plan for housing. Universalization of comprehensive public education. Overcoming illiteracy. Solid expansion of public resources for science. Constitutional review of the role of the Armed Forces and the state police.
Axis four: More rights!
Structuring and updating of ten-year plans to fight structural racism, LGTBphobia, sexism and ableism (discrimination against people with disabilities), with consistent budgetary guarantees for the projects to be implemented. Review of the legislation responsible for the increased incarceration of Black youth and women. Legal and free abortion. Broad articulation with entities, movements and collectives, with experience in the struggles, both for the formulation and planning as well as for the execution of policies.
From these four major axes we must deepen the debate on the program with an agenda of debate that organizes the guidelines of our “program/project”. The name of Glauber Braga is, in our opinion, the one that embodies and can sustain this and other debates so dear to the left and to Brazilian society.
And it must be registered. Our pre-candidacy will help in the confrontation to defeat Bolsonaro from now on and will strengthen the resistance to his reactionary and genocidal program. We emphasize this because we believe that the left, and especially the PSOL, must use all its strength to promote mobilizations and actively support strikes and protests, calling for and being part of the processes of struggle and striving to unify the actions in a single national day. For a pre-candidacy that does not leave for tomorrow what reality demands today, we support the name of comrade Glauber Braga to carry out this task:
Ação Popular Socialista – APS, Alternativa Socialista. Anticapitalistas. Avança PSOL, Comuna, Construção Pela Base, Construção Socialista – CS, Corrente Socialista de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores – CST, Fortalecer o PSOL, Grupo de Ação Socialista, Liberdade e Revolução Popular – LRP, Luta Socialista – LS, Movimento Esquerda Socialista – MÊS, Nova Práxis, Politizando, PRIS, PSOL pela Base, Socialismo ou Barbárie.
Read and sign the manifesto: https://manifestoglauber.com.br