Author: Luiz Otavio Cavalcanti *

Source: Jornal do Commercio - PE, 10/07/2009

Brazil is a country in transit. It goes from one economic-social stage to another. From analog to digital, from X-ray to MRI. But, not in politics. Since the Empire, we have faced three symbols of backwardness: oligarchies, corporatism and nepotism. The oligarchy has to do with clientelism practices that survive in national politics. Not only in the Northeast of ruralized clans. Also in the Southeast of colonized urban groups. Populist tradition of Paulo Maluf and neo-populist from Chaguismo to Garotinho / Rosinha.

In turn, corporatism has been linked to nepotism since the Empire. The transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio, in 1808, made the structure of the State a leafy tree under the shade of public and private interests, mixed patrimonially. Nepotism spans the 19th and 20th centuries, reaching the 21st. It burdens the bureaucracy of privileges that overlaps adolescent citizenship. It is a nationless state. In America, the state resulted from a civil pact produced in Philadelphia (1776), colonies producing independence. Nation building a state.

Conciliation policy is a Brazilian vocation. In addition to the method of political action, it is a trait of culture. It results from an ethnic encounter between whites, Indians and blacks. It penetrated smoothly into public and private organizations. It revealed itself in the Empire, crossed the Republic and anchored perpetually in the port of our political customs. Brazil is a land of great conciliation and little reform.

The Conciliation formula, as a political mediation, in the Empire, survived from 1853 to 1859. From 1861, the political crisis increased, the party framework fragmented. The Conservative Party has split into two factions: extreme conservatives and moderate conservatives. The Liberal Party has formed an alliance with moderate conservatives. They started to act together like Progressive Party.

Now, this scheme of dividing a party in two was used twice in the republican period. One, with the creation of the PP, by Tancredo Neves, in 1983, taking the PMDB band, to make his victory possible to the presidency of the Republic. Again, with the creation of the PFL in 1984, subtracting members of the PDS, also to guarantee the election of Tancredo. Senator Sarney as vice president. The survival of a group of former supporters of the military system was completed, by art of fate. Embarked on the transition to civilian rule.

In the 30/50, the various Getulios that Vargas became showed the conciliatory politician. He ruled, under the Constitution of 46, written to prevent him from returning. Came back. It transformed the state. But society has not changed. Juscelino was conciliatory, skilled in negotiation and optimistic, cultural elements that highlight the performance of Brazilian managers. Fernando Henrique disagreed with Gilberto Freyre's theses on Brazilian culture. However, FHC perfectly embodied the cultural traits of Gilberto Freyre's Brazilian man. What sociological theory refused, political practice accepted (History of conciliation in Brazil, Edições Bagaço, forthcoming).

President Lula is a conciliator in politics, a continuator in the economy and optimistic about the future. It does not promote reforms, to which it committed itself in the first term. On the one hand, the government finds the PT's corporatism. On the other hand, in Congress, there are former colonels of Brazilian politics with no commitment to change. According to Barry Ames, "the drama of the Brazilian system does not lie in the fact that it benefits the elites, the problem is that the system primarily benefits itself - that is, the politicians and the civil servants who administer it". The institutions end up constituting their own interests.

»Luiz Otavio Cavalcanti is a member of the Pernambuco Archaeological, Historical and Geographic Institute