[Marxism] Workers Party developments

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, October 9, 2005
Scandal Forces Brazil's Top Party to Regroup
By LARRY ROHTER

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 8 - Until a few months ago, Brazil's governing 
Workers' Party was seen as Latin America's most successful example of a 
political movement on the hard left migrating toward moderate social 
democracy. Now, stained by the biggest corruption scandal in the country's 
history, the party is frantically trying to regroup and head off a crushing 
defeat at the polls next year.

But the choices confronting the party's 800,000 registered members, who 
elect a new party president on Sunday, are unpalatable. They can either 
vote to reconfirm the existing scandal-tainted leadership or empower a 
reform slate that claims to be morally pure but is also calling for a 
return to economic policies that voters have repeatedly rejected.

The economic hard-liners have already moved into a commanding position on 
the party's national directorate after balloting last month. They argue 
that the party can only regain its integrity by returning to its 
doctrinaire socialist roots and abandoning the market-friendly policies 
that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has favored.

"The situation is totally contradictory and schizophrenic, and will tend to 
become even more so," said Denis Rosenfield, the author of the book "The 
Workers' Party at the Crossroads" and a political scientist. "The party is 
moving toward the left, and while the government is moving toward the center."

The favorite in the vote is Ricardo Berzoini, until recently the minister 
of social welfare. But he is seen as little more than a stalking horse for 
José Dirceu. Mr. Dirceu was Mr. da Silva's all-powerful chief of staff 
until he was forced to resign in June over corruption allegations, but he 
continues to control the Majority Camp faction, which has dominated the 
party for the past decade.

"Dirceu is the one who will continue running things, though in a less showy 
manner," if Mr. Berzoini defeats Raul Pont, leader of a Trotskyite faction, 
Mr. Rosenfield said. "Berzoini has no stature of his own. He's a union 
leader used to taking orders and will do whatever Dirceu wants."

After news reports and congressional testimony linked them to a 
multimillion-dollar slush fund and other illegal practices, the Workers' 
Party's president, secretary general and treasurer all resigned. But the 
party has not punished them, content with talk of political "mistakes" 
rather than violations of the law.

The party's former secretary general, Silvio Pereira, said last week that 
all 21 members of directorate of the party knew that Mr. da Silva's 2002 
presidential campaign was financed by the slush fund, which is now the 
subject of a congressional inquiry. Other members of the directorate have 
issued denials, but there has been no official statement explaining the 
origins of the slush fund.

Rather than fight on from the inside, more than 400 founding members of the 
party have decided in recent weeks to decamp. The number includes several 
members of Congress, most of whom have joined a new left-wing grouping 
called the Party of Socialism and Liberty.

As a result, the Workers' Party no longer has the largest delegation in 
Congress and has had to give up the privilege of having one of its members 
serve as the president of the lower house.

"The party has been completely disfigured," said Hélio Bicudo, one of those 
who has left. He predicted that other defections would occur, mainly among 
social movements linked to the Roman Catholic Church.

Mr. da Silva, apparently worried that the scandal would taint him 
personally and affect his chances for a second term, has also tried to 
distance himself from the party that he founded. The president, criticized 
early in his term for mixing party and government by wearing a lapel pin 
with the party's red star, did not cast a ballot in the election's first 
round and explained his absence with the enigmatic response, "I didn't vote 
because I didn't vote."

That does not augur well for the party's future. Many experts predict that 
its congressional delegation could shrink by as much as half in next year's 
election because of voters' disgust with the scandal.

"To build a leadership as strong as Lula's would take a long time, and 
there is no place from which it can emerge," said Francisco de Oliveira, a 
sociologist and founding member who has left the party. "Lula knows that he 
is bigger than the party, which didn't allow other charismatic leaderships 
to develop, so I think the Workers' Party needs to prepare for a long winter."


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