[A-List] Brazil: Subterfuges, tergiversations and deceits

[Jorge Figueiredo <jfgf.consult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Subterfuges, tergiversations and deceits

José Reinaldo Carvalho(*)

Every time Finance Minister Antonio Palocci approaches the people with
all pomp and circumstance, especially in interviews based on interests
that are convergent with those of the group that controls communication
in our country, he greatly favors the ?market? at the same time as he
brings annoyances to the people, losses to the productive nation and
apprehension to the progressive forces that support President Lula?s
administration.

It is a natural fact that the Minister is trying to correct his own
mistakes and put out the fire caused by the disastrous decision made by
the neoliberal staff under his command in the Ministry of Finance and the
Central Bank, keeping the interest rates unchanged and going against the
trend being developed during the previous six months and the expectations
of workers and businesspeople. It is acceptable that he used his
authority as one of the administration?s main ministers to cheer up the
population and the economic agents as he manifested his belief that a
period of consistent economic growth would begin in 2004. 

But it is not natural and it is not something that corresponds to the
people?s expectations the fact that the most important governmental
authority regarding economic policies reaffirms that the ruinous and
suicidal policy effective till the present days will remain unchanged. It
is a startling affirmation in a moment when there is a growing healthy
and fruitful debate, both inside the government and among the allied
political forces, on the course Brazil will follow: either the
establishment of a new economic model based on national development and
the valorization of labor, with justice and social progress, or the
maintenance of a model characterized as a financial casino, with an open
market, a paradise for deregulated capitalin a few words, the maintenance
of a neoliberal economic and financial policy coined by the previous
administration and applied in the name of the interests of the financial
capital. The debate on those two alternatives is not only necessaryit is
inexorable and already following its course. Two or three appealing
sentences rehearsed in the fashion of media tergiversation will not
obstruct it. Today there is not a single accountable voice that is not
raised whenever it is time to criticize the economic policy applied by
Minister Palocci. It has led Brazil to a dead-end and the macroeconomic
indicators praised by the Minister are those that correspond to that very
model?s stability, those that guarantee the solvency of commitments the
country has made with the international speculative bank, contradicting a
policy that favors sustained economic growth. It is for that reason that
the promise of growth, in the evasive terms expressed by Minister
Palocci, is nothing but an appealing sentence that tends to prove itself
empty. 

According to the principles of that model, which has been effective for
so many years, a model that bitter experience proved to fail wherever it
was imposedand most significantly in Brazil, there will be no national
development. Another issue is the complexity of the national and
international situation, the difficulties in the correlation of forces
and the understanding that the government must be cautious and avoid
adventures or the illusion of an easy victory over neoliberalism. If it
lacks the certainty that there is the need for changing the modeland the
necessary political will to do thatthe considerations on the correlation
of forces will be just another element of tergiversation. On the other
hand, if both the government and society are convinced that it is
necessary to change the model, and therefore the orientation, the people,
government and supporting political forces will be wise and find the
means, paces and political times to accomplish a successful
transition.

Maybe it is that uncertainty, or the certainty that we must persist in
applying the current model, that has led the Minister to leap from
inconsistent promises to deceit in the same interview when he said that
he has carried out the adjustment without burdening the people last year.
Are not economic recession, increasing unemployment, decreasing income of
salary people, fiscal surpluses tied to a tightened budget, leading to
the paralysis of investments and the degradation of public services, cuts
in the rights of civil servants included in the social security reform
and the increase of the debt as compared to the GDP sacrificing to the
people? It is precisely due to the fact that the harmful effects of Mr.
Palocci?s economic policy are so evident and tangible, reaching the
limits of the bearable, that the people cry louder for a change in policy
and course. 
---------------------------
(*)  Journalist. Vice-president  of the Communist
Party of Brazil  PCdoB, responsible for International Relations
Secretary.