February 2021 will see elections take place for the president of the Câmara dos Deputados (Chamber of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house of parliament). So far, two large blocs are shaping up for the contest. The first is centered on Arthur Lira from the Progressives (PP) and is supported by the Bolsonaro government and the “centrão” (parties of the center) that make up the government’s base in Congress. The parties in this bloc include the PP, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Republican Party of Social Order (PROS), Forward (Avante), Patriot (Patriota), the Liberal Party (PL), Solidarity (SD), and the Social Christian Party (PSC).
The second bloc around the current president of the Chamber of Deputies and Democrats (DEM) leader Rodrigo Maia brings together parties from the neoliberal right, the center-left, and the left. This bloc includes neoliberal right-wing parties such as the Democrats, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and the Social Liberal Party (PSL); the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) and the Sustainability Network (REDE) from the center-left; and the Workers’ Party (PT) and Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) on the left.
Regrettably, the left has not launched its own unified candidate for the first round, which leaves the contest to revolve around two blocs of the bourgeois right: one linked to the federal government and the other to the neoliberal opposition. To make matters worse, the leaderships of the PT and PCdoB have decided to join the bloc of Rodrigo Maia, and are justifying this as being necessary for defeating the Bolsonaro-backed candidate.
This argument does not hold up. Neither of the two right-wing blocs have enough votes to win in the first round. So if the left – the PT, the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL) and the PCdoB – had launched their own unified candidate, this candidate would, even without the support of the center-left (PDT, PSB and REDE), force a second round to occur in which the left could tactically vote for Rodrigo Maia in order to defeat the Bolsonaro candidate.
We believe that the defeat of Arthur Lira in this election is important, because this defeat would weaken the far-right government for the next two years. However, there is no need to subordinate and dissolve the left into the camp of the neoliberal right to achieve this goal. In the second round, the left votes in the Chamber (54 from the PT, 10 from PSOL, and 9 from the PCdoB) would be enough to decide the winner.
Ultimately, the determinant that saw the PT and PCdoB enter the bloc of Rodrigo Maia was not the need to defeat the Bolsonaro candidate, but negotiations for positions on the Chamber’s seven-person Mesa Diretora (Directing Board) and its various committees. There is of course a certain importance in the winning of positions within the power structure of the Chamber. But these negotiations cannot be overinflated and placed above the independent positioning and performance of the left. This is especially the case when we know that the president of the Chamber, through procedural force, has enormous power, even the power to break previous agreements that were made with occasional allies on the left.
The fact that almost the whole of the left (minus the PSOL) has joined the Maia bloc means that the neoliberal camp has been strengthened and that opposition to the Bolsonaro government has been hegemonized by them. The left has lost its own prominence and leadership in the name of promises of positions on parliamentary boards and committees, which could easily be negotiated in the second round.
It is important to remember that Maia and his gang supported the coup in 2016, were the main sponsors of the labor and social security reforms, of various privatizations, of the Amendment to the Teto dos Gastos (Spending Ceiling), have shelved over 50 requests for impeachment, are in favor of Administrative Reform, and have given parliamentary support to the economic agenda of Paulo Guedes and Avenida Faria Lima (a financial center in São Paulo akin to Wall Street). Along with this, the Democrats, PSDB and MDB have made no commitments to open impeachment proceedings against the genocidal president in 2021.
We have great respect for PSOL politicians Marcelo Freixo, Fernanda Melchionna and Sâmia Bomfim, but we do not agree at all with their statements in favor of PSOL’s entry into the bloc of the right-wing opposition. Freixo goes so far as to state that “(…) there is something in common that unites us (the left and the neoliberal right-wing opposition) and is much greater than our differences: the belief in the values of the Democratic State based on the Rule of Law (…)”.
Since when did the neoliberal right, the same one that led the coup against former PT president Dilma Rousseff, that supported Lula’s political imprisonment, that stood alongside Bolsonaro in the second round against the PT’s Fernando Haddad, and who carries out in their state governments the policy of extermination of the black and the poor of the favelas and the periphery, have a real commitment to democratic freedoms?
We have no doubt that it is necessary to make specific and concrete unity with the bloc of Rodrigo Maia to defeat Bolsonaro, including in the second round of voting in the Chamber. However, we completely disagree with being part of a common political camp with the traditional right, and in this way, sacrifice the independent program of the working class.
For the next period, the political strategy of the left must be to defeat – and, if possible, overthrow – Bolsonaro before 2022; for this, the mass movement in the streets and the United Front of the working and oppressed class must be promoted. In 2021, it will be necessary to link the struggles for the most pressing demands of working people (vaccines, basic income, employment, rights, defense of the lives of the black population, women and the LGBT community) with the battle for ‘Fora Bolsonaro’ (Bolsonaro Out). The neoliberal right is the enemy of this program.
Consistent with this strategy, part of our political framework must be fighting for the left to lead the opposition to the government, so that the right-wing opposition is not credited with being the main alternative to Bolsonaro. We will not advance towards our objective of overthrowing Bolsonaro and defending the rights and interests of the working class and the oppressed while being part of a political camp that is led by the bourgeois opposition and which receives orders from Avenida Faria Lima and imperialism.
It is worth emphasizing the courage and success of PSOL federal deputy Glauber Braga from Rio de Janeiro. We agree with him: PSOL should launch its own candidate in the first round, present a program against Bolsonaro and differentiate itself from the neoliberal opposition, while committing itself to vote against the government candidate in the second round, that is, voting for the candidate who will run against Progressives (PP) leader Arthur Lira.
This article is an English translation of “PSOL deve garantir candidatura da esquerda, votando contra o candidato de Bolsonaro no 2º turno”, Esquerda Online (EOL), 23/12/2020.
Translation: Bobby Sparks
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