Brazil: Presidential Elections 2018

The control of the electoral process by the judiciary and the conservative media is a fraud!

Statement by the Corrente Comunista Revolucionária-CCR, (Brazilian Section of the RCIT), January 28, 2018, www.elmundosocialista.blogspot.com

The coup d'etat of April 2016 opened a period of deep attacks on the historically fragile democracy in Brazil, materializing in loss of democratic and social rights. The notoriously corrupt and illegitimate government of Temer is spending billions of dollars to buy congressmen in order to stay in power and make neoliberal reforms. With regard to democratic rights, most of these attacks are expressed in attempts to further diminish the rights of citizens.

The prosecutors of the republic, who theoretically ought to ensure the compliance of the constitution, in a gesture of pure authoritarianism have even proposed the end of the right to habeas corpus. Suddenly, no further concrete evidence is required for the conviction of a suspect, now is enough to have the "conviction", that is to say, the judges began to make a moral analysis to give the verdict. The suspect becomes guilty, with very few rights to his own defense. From now on it is not the state that has to prove the culpability of the defendant; it is the defendant who has to prove that he is not guilty. This reminds us of the history classes on the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Although some acts of corruption have been proven, there are countless convictions based exclusively on allegations, convictions, many of them without concrete evidence, and the most scandalous example is being the case against former President Lula da Silva. The crucial question we ask is: should the rule of law and the minimum guarantees in favor of the citizens be destroyed in the name of the supposed fight against corruption?

The Judiciary, either because it is acting like coward or because it has an ideological accomplice of this neofascism, with the Supreme Court having an important role in this process, is also active in advancing the agenda that restricts rights and stifles democracy, giving legal backing to the coup-d’etat of this reactionary regime. The social class selectivity of the judiciary can be seen by the fact that it denies to put in jail Mr. Aécio Neves from rightist party PSDB, former presidential candidate against Roussef-PT, and that it is protecting President Michel Temer from losing his term. It has done so despite the fact that both of them were caught in audios with strong evidence of crimes, including with bags full of money! Contrast this with the fact that thousands of young people from the peripheries, blacks and poor whites, are suffering abuses by the police without any punishments. The mobilizations and demonstrations of the social movements in defense of their rights are being criminalized and brutally repressed.

Among the hundreds of people who are suffering from the abuse of arbitrary detention, coercive conduct, citizens anticipated considered guilty by the monopolized media, people condemned based on "moral convictions" and without evidences. The main target of this offensive is in the former President Lula da Silva. They are blocking Lula's candidacy because at this moment he has the support of 45% of the vote intention for the Presidential elections. By controlling the electoral process the judiciary and the conservative media is trying to have an election only with have their preferred candidates (Joao Dória-PSDB, Rodrigo Maia-DEM, Geraldo Alckmin-PSDB, Luciano Huck). This can only be called a Fraud!

But those who imagine that the only target is Lula and his Workers party-PT are mistaken about the reality. The target is the whole working class, the poor people salaried employee. If they succeed in arresting Lula, the path to repression will be open to all left-wing parties and organized social movements.

We are not discussing here about political support for the likely candidate Lula da Silva. We are discussing about democratic rights, in which all parties could launch their own candidates and that the Brazilian population can freely choose their candidates. We are also discussing the end of the regime of emergency which began with the destitution of President Roussef and resulted in taking away the workers' historic rights, such as a formal contract (Labour Reform) and retirement (Pension Reform), as well as our political and civil rights. These are important rights despite the well-known limitations which exist for the poor and oppressed in the so-called bourgeois democracies.

On the other hand, we can not confuse the defense of democratic rights with the defense of the program of the Workers Party-PT or the candidature of Lula da Silva. The Workers' Party has always had a social democratic political program, so it was never revolutionary, but it always defended the humanization of the capitalist system (as if that were possible!). In large part, the Workers' Party is one of the main forces responsible for the present difficult situation of the Brazilian working class.

Because of their great influence with the masses, the PT governments guaranteed several social rights, always within the narrow limits of bourgeois democracy. At the same time President Lula once declared that "entrepreneurs have never won as much as in my government!" Conclusion: It is a lie of conservatives sectors and the right-wing group MBL-Movimento Brasil Livre, along with the monopolistic media (Globo-Band-SBT) to define the PT as a “radical revolutionary” ready to install the "Bolivarian dictatorship."

The CCR calls the PT, from CUT, MST, MTST, CTB, PCdoB, PSOL to leave their immobility and do more work to mobilize the working masses with the objective not only of fighting for truly democratic elections, but also for canceling the structural reforms made by this putschist Temer government such as: labor reform, total outsourcing, the re-nationalization of the pre-salt oil basins, recovery and substantial increase of the minimum wage, the resumption of social public investments by canceling the law which permitted freezing social spending for 20 years, canceling the project for the pension reform , etc.

Above all, we understand the need to build a real workers' party with a revolutionary socialist program on a national and international level. Only such a party can give the necessary leadership for these struggles. Only such a party can transmit the socialist program to the masses. It is, therefore, the central task of all consistent revolutionary forces to focus on the construction of such a party. The CCR urges all fighters in Brazil to fight together for the founding of such a party.

* No to the interference of the judiciary and the monopoly and conservative media in the 2018 presidential elections!

* Resist and Fight for Democratic Rights: Free, Direct and Secret Elections!

* For the cancellation of neoliberal reforms: Labor; of High School, privatizations of Petrobrás and wells of Pre-Salt, outsourcing. No to the Destruction of Welfare disguised under the name of Reformation.

* No to threats of military intervention!

* For a true revolutionary workers party!