The debris of the PT, by Aldo Fornazieri
Municipal elections have reduced the PT to little more than rubble. There was no shortage warnings, especially from 2013, that the party was heading for disaster. Criticisms were collected by PT in two ways: the arrogant contempt by those who held power and direction and charges for much of the militancy that, too arrogant, classified as critical PIG, moralists, leftists etc.
The power did much harm to EN: the party structure and leaders become corrupt, militancy is tamed and social movements that orbited the PT began to orbit around the state, being co-opted and losing combative energy in the struggle for rights and justice. The PT has become the party of palaces, offices, luxury and arrogance. No one promotes such a move without collapse on him, sooner or later, the nemesis of the people.
PT fed the same belief that conservative historical elites fed from colonial times in Brazil: that society can be shaped and transformed from above, from the state. This practice always engendered domination, not freedom and citizenship. While this belief remain in force, Brazil will remain forever deficient in its national and popular content and will require society to Republican corporate bonds, oriented to the common good and the public interest. Those who come to power always become representatives of groups and particularistic interests, to get hold of public funds to the detriment of universalizing character of interest. It will always be the old paternalism dressed in new clothes.
The PT is unfazed by the most carefree affair mistake that left have committed since the twentieth century: corruption. Corruption has been, over the decades, the sword in the hands of the right and the media to roll heads left. Voters show is intolerant to corruption of the left, because they want to see in them a moral reserve of society, an example of the proper administration of public affairs, a cement ethics in society. When the left is corrupt, voters feel betrayed.
Little by little, the PT was moving toward that more undesirable condition of politics: to be hated. This was already visible in the 2014 elections Since then, the party ‘s image was deteriorating, either because complaints have proved dire, either because the attacks of his enemies were devastating without there being a line of resistance and counteroffensive. While that is destroyed, the party is left to destroy.Every attack, the party leadership reacted with bureaucratic and protocol notes, was losing credibility and left of sporting virtues and moral force capable of mobilizing the militancy. As already said, the PT leadership has become a committee without army generals office and militancy became an army without generals.
“Being hated” is the absolute condition that must be avoided in politics, Machiavelli teaches. As antimaquiaveliano party that is, the PT, when going from the square to the palaces left to look at reality with the eyes of the square, left to lie on the plain and began to look at the people with the gaze angle of the palaces. But I did not play the game of palaces and came to believe allies that were and are greedy, ambitious and simulators. They lent prestige to PT members as they were useful to them and betrayed them unceremoniously at the consummation of the coup. Blow that the PT itself has helped build is the succession of political errors, incompetence, and be by the lack of support for President Dilma at delicate moments in the government walked to drift.
The disastrous conduct that PT has had in recent years, the party leadership should resign in the first days of this week. An interim committee should be formed with the task of convening and conducting a partisan Congress before the end of the year. If no gesture is made in this respect, the more likely is that the PT walk to an irreversible division. It is unacceptable that the disaster drivers continue tocommand a party that was the hope of the Brazilian people and drowned in their own mistakes. There, around the current leadership, political skills, moral and intellectuals who are able to take advantage of the crisis.
What to do?
This old question that needs to be replaced, today raises more doubts than certainties to left. First of all, the left must unite around what’s left of this devastating election: Freixo in Rio de Janeiro, John Paul in Recife, Edmilson Rodrigues in Bethlehem, Edvaldo Nogueira in Aracaju etc.
With many divisions, with low propensity to drive, with a set of ideas disconnected to the contemporary world, with authoritarian and bureaucratic organizations, with a rhetoric that does not dialogue with society, with a huge crisis in their worldviews, the left living a defensive world , while growing rancor and the neo-fascist hatred.
The crisis of the left aligns with the very civilizational crisis that is getting worse in several dimensions: environmental, social, economic, human. The world of the near future, say economists and more attentive analysts, will be a world without jobs, with people who live increasingly. In contrast, the concentration of income and wealth is increasing. Democracies are less and less legitimate and increasingly incompetent in providing answers to the problems of societies.
Brazilian left stopped in time. Discuss problems and rhetorical paradigms of the twentieth century, perhaps, of the nineteenth century.In recent years there has been an abandonment of incipient democratic governance experiences that were being developed. In the municipalities, states and the federal government, governors, secretaries and ministers have dictated their “truths” to companies. At the same time that rights are no longer guaranteed, not invested in innovation and quality of services and rights. Governments continued analog to digital societies. Crucial reforms, either in the macro or micro level plan, were not even contemplated.
The idea to unite the left in front, to ensure unity in plurality, gains strength in the face of weaknesses and recent defeats. The construction of this front, if it comes to fruition, however, requires a broad process of definition of program content and driving methods of internal processes. The prospect is that this front agglutinates parties, political and social movements, individuals and civic groups, a new type of organization and political relationship without the hegemonic and bureaucratic control practices, so common to the left.
The electoral defeat, coupled with the coup and the prospects of setbacks in rights, was overwhelming. Underestimate it, persist in error and do self-criticism means contributing to the consolidation of a conservative design that is emerging. At this time, the challenge of the left is paradoxical need to build your unit at the same time promoting a reckoning.
Aldo Fornazieri – Politics Professor of Philosophy.