AND Editorial – Crisis in the government anticipates electoral race

We share an unofficial translation of the latest Editorial by A Nova Democracia.

The low approval of the current government – Luiz Inácio’s lowest historical rating as president – consolidated a change in the political dynamics, which already tended to occur. Once the major guidelines for the disputes in 2026 and the inauguration of the city halls machinery throughout the country have been defined – as a rule, the forces go for the game of “lose-and-win”, in which all those who will compete with the government in the next election are pushed to active opposition, while the government enters in a “electoral mode”. When the government in question has an approval rating lower than disapproval and the “opposition” rushes to define Bolsonaro’s replacement, it is inevitable that such a change will be imposed.

Gleise Hoffmann as responsible for institutional relations is the ministerial expression of this early electoral race – with her, a great deal of negotiation will take place behind the scenes in Brasília to disarm the tendency of the “center” to unite with “moderate Bolsonarism”. Gleise and the PT have a difficult task, because the big landlord right wing has an excellent opportunity to regain control over the central apparatus of the old State without needing the favors of opportunism and, at the same time, without being bothered by a far right-wing president, since Bolsonaro is ineligible – although it is mandatory for the traditional right to unite with Bolsonaro in his purpose of “amnesty”, so that he gives to the right the “anti-PT votes”. Moreover, the strong storms on the international scene – both from the economic crisis always latent internally and externally, as well as from the dangers of wars and world confrontations – always require, in these circumstances, more reliable and more “pure blood” governments for the big bourgeoisie, because every spark can produce immense flames, more than ever now when the people’s masses are in such a state of revolt, until now contained with heavy doses of false political polarization between bourgeois “democracy” and Bolsonarist “fascism”.

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Today, Bolsonaro is the biggest obstacle of the “moderate Bolsonarism” itself: he insists and resists the idea of not defining a replacement in order to keep his far-right and fascist militant base tense, and not to run the risk of being overthrown from his condition as the only hegemonic leadership in the right-wing field with mass and electoral weight. Tarcísio de Freitas, the most reliable of the “moderate” presidential candidates for Bolsonaro, still does not have the Bolsonaro’s complete confidence. Although he told Veja that he will stay as a candidate until the last minute to “serve as a blockade” against the “right-wing candidacies”, then quoting Tarcísio (giving a sign that he will appoint him as a “successor”), the truth is that Bolsonaro still feels the São Paulo governor is ideologically not firm in the coup cause and is flattered by the monopoly press; Bolsonaro considers it risky that, if Tarcísio is elected, he will end up undecided to support Bolsonaro in the cause of his amnesty to get him out of probable prison.

All the more so now that his process in the Supreme Federal Court practically flies – at a truly remarkable speed – Bolsonaro prefers to remain a candidate without being one, in order to put preferably a candidate who is totally submissive to him – totally dependent on him or under some political blackmail. Someone like this, of absolute control, could only come from his clan, whether it is his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, or/and especially his son (less electorally suitable in relation to Michelle, but even more reliable for him), which, however, would not have the same acceptance from the liberal right. They are the crossroads of the bush captain.

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Luiz Inácio’s demagogic measures to control the inflation, which weighs mostly on the poor – the basic food basket – will certainly give some results in the polls: these, however, will not be lasting. As the “flight of a chicken”, soon ahead will be destined to return to the starting point.

Firstly, because the budget – without which any demagoguery cannot continue long – is partly hijacked by the “centrão”, which uses it for its own ends, partly independently, partly under the surveillance and control of international finance capital. The latter even has at its disposal an entire army of pseudo-intellectuals within the newsrooms of the “respectable major newspapers”, in the weekly columns and on social networks, ready to massacre the government, as soon as spending reaches a limit, or even with the purpose of favoring the opposition with a view to the elections themselves.

Secondly, because the measures do not even scratch the surface of the great national problems, which are the root and cause of the evils and misfortunes that make the people’s masses of our country unhappy. As much as they will present such measures as improvements to the popular masses – such as the expansion of the gas aid, free medicines at the People’s Pharmacy, tax exemption for food, etc. – they are just maneuvers, which Bolsonaro also resorted to, in the election year 2022. Let us remember that Bolsonaro even held the interest rate at less than 3% per year (an unimaginable feat) and did the same with the price of fuel, which impacted living conditions – so it is simply ridiculous to call such measures of the current government a “turn to the left”, because such a “turn” is a common artifice, even among fascists around the world.

The great and crucial problems of Brazilian nationality are to be found, first, in the concentration of land to an indecent degree, in which the big landlords hold 55% of the working land (even though they are only 2% of the total number of owners, not exceeding two tens of thousands, since many of them own several properties). On the other hand, the small and medium-sized landowners, peasants, being 98% of the total number of owners, almost five million families, together own the rest, of which the small owners, the vast majority, only hold 20% of the land. The former, grantees of the vast areas of the country, focused on monopolistic agricultural primary production for export, totally dependent on foreign capital in technology, machinery and equipment, “improved” seeds, fertilizers and poisons, etc., is the root of our great structural evils. Starting by hitting the daily life of our people with the inflationary action of the basic food basket that derives from this anomaly, to remain on the surface of the problems. A deformed economy, totally focused on meeting the needs of the international financial oligarchy, imperialism, for its sustenance and obtaining maximum profit, which does not and cannot meet national needs, this being the second great national issue. This results in the deindustrialization and denationalization of our economy. In the past, it was the impediment to the accelerated industrialization of the country and the total opening to foreign capital, and it increasingly destroys the feat in long decades. All this on the one hand.

On the other hand, the same big landlords, associated with the voracious mining companies, hydroelectric dams and the green deserts of homogeneous forests, advance their genocidal war against the poor people of the countryside, seeking to further monopolize the land and enhance their capital and political strength. The agrarian war for land ownership, as a current manifestation of the continuing peasant war, a historical thread of five centuries in the country, is the social reflection in the class struggle generated by this whole situation. The government of opportunism with the traditional right – like all the others – not only turns a blind eye to the genocide in the countryside (when they do not increase the repression of the people), but also finances the same latifundium and also frees it from any taxation, not even charging it tax for export. There is no hope for the people’s masses in this system, due to the perception that nothing changes with each election and each political fact.

While the reactionaries and opportunists engage in demagoguery, the people’s masses, even if part by part, must not only take advantage of this to improve their condition of existence, but also demand more from them, and without offering them any gratitude in return, for it is precisely the obligation beyond a secular debt. In order not only to get stuck in the symptoms, but to go to the root, it is urgent to raise the struggle against famine, unemployment, the generalized impoverishment of the masses, to political agitation for the Agrarian Revolution, whose development, in the midst of the fight against the Bolsonarist far right and the other fascists, by handing over the land to the poor people of the countryside, will solve the most heartfelt dramas of the Brazilian nation.