The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff reacts during her impeachment trial at the Federal Senate in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 29, 2016. Eraldo Peres/Press Association. All rights reserved.The conclusion of the impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff, elected president of Brazil for the second time in 2014, is a watershed in the country’s recent history. Its passing in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate will prove traumatic in the long run, despite the easy majorities it mustered, since it meant a partial rupture of the 1988 Constitutional pact. This goes well beyond the actual event, however, in that it condenses the end of three different political cycles undergone by Brazil since the 1970s.
Political cycles
The longest cycle to be taken into account is that which started in the positive initial stages of the struggle against military dictatorship. Within the left there had been a debate about the limits of the Brazilian Communist Party’s (PCB) ‘reformist’ perspective. This led to the mushrooming of guerrilla groups, easily smashed by the regime. Eventually the democratic front strategy, bringing together popular, left-wing forces and the liberal opposition, paid off. The 1974 congress electoral defeat of civilian forces that supported the regime (elections never stopped in Brazil, despite their extremely restricted character) was the beginning of a long process of democratization. Amnesty in 1979, elections for state governors in 1982 – mostly won by opposition forces – and especially the election of a constituent Congress (turned into the National Constitutional Assembly) and its outcome, the so-called ‘citizen Constitution’ of 1988, all were hallmarks of this long cycle of democratization. Fernando Collor de Mello was elected president in 1989, against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Worker’s Party (PT) main leader, on a neoliberal platform, but was impeached due to corruption charges (true but not really ever proved). Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the lauded sociologist, was elected twice thereafter on a similar but more moderate platform, with more consistent social policies and some success in stabilising an economy long in crisis.
