AN HISTORIC VICTORY

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Brazil's Lula wins huge mandate in presidential runoff:
AN HISTORIC VICTORY

Luis Inácio "Lula" da Silva won Brazil's presidency in the runoff on Sunday with a huge mandate. With 98 percent of the official ballots counted, Lula had won 61 percent of the vote. WDIE salutes this historic victory and sends its congratulations to Lula and the Brazilian popular forces. We reproduce herewith the Statement of Renato Rabelo, National President of Communist Party of Brazil - PCdoB, on the presidential election.

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was elected President of the Republic of Brazil achieving almost 60 million votes. He is the only Brazilian to achieve a ballot of such magnitude in a presidential election. Broadening the plebiscitary character of the first round of the election, the more than 60% valid votes confirm a strong desire for change against the current administrative policy. This oppositional sense was the predominant character of the elections in 2002.

The triumph of the candidacy of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva expresses the victory of the political and social forces – the popular and middle strata who were never represented in the central administration of Brazil – allied to sections of the dominant classes interested in another direction for Brazil. The movement of workers, the popular organisations and the democratic and patriotic entities constituted the main supporting base of the victorious candidacy. This is an historic event which will reverberate all over the world. It will be placed among other remarkable moments of our political history, given the particularities of each period, that have opened the way to a new stage of social progress such as the abolition of slavery, the proclamation of the republic and the revolution of 1930.

The election of Lula for president has a sense of continuity with respect to the development of the democratic, popular and patriotic struggles of the Brazilians for a national model of development. The success achieved on this October 27 gives life to the refrained hope for a new era, opening the way for building a sovereign and influential country in the international context, a democratic country that follows the path of social progress.

Brazil is passing through the end of a cycle. Especially during the last twenty years, the great historical impasses were aggravated as never before – dependence, social inequality – worsening a condition of recurring crises. The many sectors of the dominant elites that have taken their turn during the last two decades, especially during the 90s, have perverted the possibility of a national project and clearly failed to carry through a project of development based on foreign capital, intensifying financial crises, stagnating the economy and taking the country’s foreign vulnerability to extreme levels. The social reality has deteriorated, resulting in an unprecedented situation of increasing violence and in the expansion of organised crime in urban centres.

The struggle of the workers and lower strata to resist the dominant neo-liberal policy gained in breadth and culminated in such levels as in 1998, during the March to Brasília. The growing unemployment, the expansion of underemployment, the continuous decrease of the income of salaried workers, the increase of inequalities and poverty and the historical predominance of large territorial properties in the fields have all led to successive manifestation of broad social sectors in opposition to the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The awareness that change was imperative in the course imposed by this government was manifested all over the country.

The Workers Party, as the greatest winner of this electoral battle, spearheaded by the great popular leadership of Lula, and the other opposing parties became the focus of the desire for change expressed by the vast majority of the Brazilian population. The Communist Party of Brazil took part and also helped outline the course and the development of the trajectory that resulted in the current victory. With the journey that started in the election in 1989, passing through the elections in 1994 and 1998, and now in 2002, PT and PCdoB compose a constant nucleus that is committed to searching for a new solution with a democratic, popular and progressive meaning to Brazil.

Under these circumstances, PCdoB has played a relevant role concentrating the aspiration for change of the workers, the progressive youth, women who fight for their emancipation and other oppressed sectors. The Party achieved 9 million votes for its candidates to the Senate, the House of Representatives, state assemblies and for the Party itself. Communists will persistently make efforts during this moment to further develop the political sphere in order to consolidate the forces most interested in defending Brazil, retaking national development, with broader political freedom and social justice.

Brazil is entering a decisive and unique moment. The victory won by the democratic, popular, patriotic and progressive forces under the leadership of Lula places before them a great challenge: constituting the new administration with the character of a front supported by the political majority; maintaining the endorsement of the popular and advanced movement; and beginning the transition towards the fulfilment of the project of change. The result of the electoral campaign has shown that, under the current conditions, Lula concentrates the political means necessary to unite the majority of the Brazilians with a view to fulfilling the new project of nation building.

The new government inherits impasses of a structural nature and constant crises that are mainly the result of eight years of the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The extreme foreign vulnerability of Brazil, the constant risk of an exchange collapse amidst a world situation of war threats are factors tending towards recession, which exacerbate the domestic economic instability and leave the country hostage to international financial circles and the imperialist system of power. Such a situation will demand from the new leading forces clearness and firmness of purpose. Under the current conditions of Brazil and the world, the fulfilment of the new project demands dialogue and, at the same time, the mobilisation of the numerous segments representing society in order to overcome the resistances and obstacles that will be found.

We are aware of the scale of the project of change desired by the majority of the nation. Building it will not be an easy or a simple task and there will be no room for self-centred impulses. But we cannot stop at the beginning or halfway. Trust in the power of our people, the understanding and the command of Brazil’s huge potential, are the driving forces necessary to reach that most desired stage of sovereignty, democracy and social justice. A new era is beginning. This is our conviction.