Translated "Avante!" article by Albano Nunes, Member of the Secretariat of the CC
Dilma Rousseff, having had 42% of the votes, won the presidential elections’ first round. The second round battle, in October 26th, promises to be particularly though. But, within an international framework, marked by an imperialism violent offensive, a real possibility of, against a vast scope of oppositions, from the far-right unto the far-left wings, Dilma Rousseff ought to present herself as a probable winner, is in itself, of major political significance, not only for Brazil, but for Latin America and the world.
Our sympathy and solidarity towards the candidature, supported by the Workers Party and other left-wing forces, in which the Brazil Communist Party is included, does not ignore difficulties, contradictions and limits of the change process, in progress, within this huge continent. Nor ignores, that, side-by-side with the presidential elections, other elections, for the different states’ governors, deputies and senators, have taken place, and besides, having introduced alterations, which ought to be submitted, the resultant force correlation, is globally unfavourable to the left-wing forces. And is aware, that holding the presidency and other important positions amid the state apparatus, is different from holding power. Dilma’s victory is an evidence, that does not in itself ensure the proceeding and deepening of the change process, begun in 2002, with the first Lula’s election. As last June 2013 demonstrations confirmed, only with the support of the interested popular strata, it ought to be possible to break down the capital resistance and advance with the economic, social and constitutional modifications, which the Brazilian society claims for.
In these elections, what is at stake, is really a lot. It is enough to observe how the electoral campaign took place, the incidents and turnarounds big changes which happened, namely, in the sequence upon Eduardo Campos, the PSB candidate’s tragic death. The right-wing and the great capital forces, supported by the great media, indulged in avoiding Dilma’s victory, and having even , pragmatically, underestimated Aécio Neves, the PSDB right-wing official candidate, concentrating in a shameless promotion of Marina Silva, the “hurricane”, who ended up by unmasking this candidature demagogic populist dimension and its genuine class nature.
These elections’ dilemma is clear, to advance or retrocede along the process which – upon two decades of a military dictatorship and several years of neo-liberal models ( Collor de Melo and Fernando Henriques Cardoso) – begun in 2003. A process that, holding limitations and contradictions, signified a democratic advance, social programmes, which withdrew 36 million Brazilian from misery and attacked the monstrous social injustices of one of the most unequal and insecure countries in the world, as a rejection of a heavy neo-liberal inheritance, a fundamentally independent foreign policy and participating in the anti-imperialist Latin-American integration current. A process that the Brazilian reactionary forces and the North-American imperialism do not give up to try to revert, what would open up the way of re-launching a frontal offensive against the revolutionary and progressive processes, in progress, within Latin America and the Caribbean, such as the Bolivia case, where elections will take place next Sunday, silenced by the international media, as Evo Morales and the MAS are expected to win another victory.
