Latin America
Will Success Spoil Brazil?
Arthur Ituassu
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RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil has been making international headlines of late, but not for traditional stories about urban violence, natural catastrophes, political corruption, or deforestation in the Amazon.
At the G-20 Summit in London last April, for example, US President Barack Obama called for the world to pay heed to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the “most popular politician on earth,” and shook hands with him, saying: “My man right here. I love this guy.”
In September, the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, reappeared in the country inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa after three months of exile. Although his presence dramatically fuelled the situation for a time, Brazilian diplomats, working with the US, were able to reach agreement with Honduran authorities to allow Manuel Zelaya to return to office.
Then came the news that Brazil will host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games – this coming on top of hosting the 2014 World Cup.
As for the global – and fortunately now abating – economic crisis, Brazil has shined throughout, recording a fast and strong recovery. And, as if this good news were not enough, Brazil’s giant state oil company, Petrobrás, is already at work developing two huge deep-water oil fields discovered in the sea off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
For these and other reasons, Brazil is gaining the world’s attention. Brazilian democracy, at long last, is working well, following many years of military government, and its economy seems more robust than ever. As a result, many people are enthusiastically pointing to an increased international role for Brazil in the future.
But two connected and major challenges lie ahead for Brazil and its government: the need to build a far more equal society and to resist the temptation to use nationalism to mask whatever domestic failures may manifest themselves.
Brazil’s current success is rooted not only in Lula’s two terms, which must end in 2010. The economic stabilization program enacted by Fernando Henrique Cardoso since 1994 (the Real Plan), first as finance minister and then as president for two terms, solidified a structure that made it possible for Lula’s tenure to be so prosperous.
This is not meant to take anything away from Lula. His presidency has guaranteed political stability and strengthened social cohesion. Indeed, by managing the political process to make the government work for Brazil’s people, Lula’s administration has made Brazil a truly stable and consensual democracy.
There is nothing modest about that achievement, given Brazil’s traditional institutional instability and the series of major corruption scandals that engulfed Lula’s government in 2005 and 2006. Lula survived those scandals and did not move to amend the constitution in order to seek a third term, though some in Brazil pressed him to do so.
Lula also enacted critically important social policies. Under his government, two million homes received electric power for the first time, 11 million very poor families gained the support of a minimum income (the Bolsa Família), the minimum salary grew 45% in real terms, thus benefiting 42 million people. Moreover, eight million jobs were created, 17 million people escaped poverty, and the income of the poorest 50% grew 32% – twice as fast as the income of the richest 10% in the same period. And Lula achieved all this without triggering inflation, which he knows – perhaps a result of his own impoverished childhood – wreaks havoc on the poor most of all.
This vast transformation has not only generated a virtuous circle that strengthened institutional stability and social capital. It has also differentiated Brazil from other countries in Latin America, putting the country in the forefront in the region in terms of dealing with traditional social and economic injustices in a democratic way.
Yet the remaining challenges are huge, for Brazil remains the seventh most unequal society in the world – and severe violence persists. Sixty-four percent of Brazilian homes lack electricity and sanitation, and only 22% have electricity, a telephone, a computer, a refrigerator, a television, and a washing machine. In the poorest region, the North and Northeast, the numbers fall to 8.6% and 8.3%. Among the young, almost 37% of 18-24-year-olds do not finish high school. Only half the population over age 25 has more than eight years of formal education.
As for Brazil’s international role, a subtle competition is emerging with the US. America wants to conclude as many free-trade agreements in the region as it can, while Brazil favors expanding its custom union, Mercosul/Mercosur. The entrance of Venezuela into the Brazilian bloc, Brazilian leadership at the United Nations mission in Haiti, and Brazil’s role in the Honduran affair are all part of this emerging competition.
If Brazil is to remain on its prosperous path, it must continue to give higher priority to its social and economic programs than to foreign adventures. The construction of a major egalitarian, free, and democratic society that respects and works with the international institutions is the best thing that Brazil can give to the world right now.
Arthur Ituassu is Professor of International Relations at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org
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