Latinnews Archive
Brazil and Southern Cone - 6 July 1989
Collor far ahead of presidential rivals; STRAGGLER GUIMARAES SAYS TAKE-OFF POINT NEARING
The Fernando Collor de Mello electoral bandwagon is rolling on at an accelerating pace, with the former governor of Alagoas now far ahead of his presidential rivals -- 10 at the last count -- in public opinion polls.
Starting as a 'no-hoper', Collor has more than quadrupled his support in little more than three months, from 10% in February to 43% in the most recent opinion survey conducted by the Instituto Brasileiro de Opiniao e Pesquisa (Ipobe).
Support for Collor's closest rival, the Partido Democratico Brasileiro (PDB)'s left-wing populist Leonel Brizola, the former frontrunner, has tumbled to just 11%. The hopes of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT)'s Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, who, after his party's surprising success in last November's municipal elections, was being described as a serious contender for the presidency (RB-89-01), appear to have evaporated. The Ipobe survey gives Lula just 8%, followed by the Partido do Movimento Democratico Brasileiro (PMDB)'s veteran leader, Ulysses Guimaraes, with only 5%.
* Not a 'soap bubble'
Until very recently Collor's rivals treated him as a shooting star who would 'inevitably' burn out long before the mid-November presidential elections. They pointed out that his mass of supporters is 'formless' and that his recently created Partido de Renovacao Nacional (PRN) lacks grassroots organisation and a national structure to sustain a serious 'assault' on the presidency. Senator Mario Covas, the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB)'s candidate, dismissed Collor as "too inconsistent' and predicted that he would 'not resist' once campaigning began in earnest.
Now they are being forced to acknowledge that Collor is a serious threat to their presidential hopes. 'He is not just a soap bubble that might burst at any moment,' deputy Jose Genoino, a PT leader, has reluctantly admitted.
The rising tone of his rivals' invective reflects their recognition that Collor is a real threat. Brizola, who has admitted that Collor's advances 'among the depoliticised voters of the interior' are 'worrying', has attacked him as 'a political son of the dictatorship' -- an allusion to Collor's past membership of the Partido Democratico Social (PDS), created by the military in their bid to establish a bipartisan system.
Lending weight to Brizola's charge is the fact that some military right-wingers have publicly applauded Collor's rapid rise. One of these is Colonel Joaquim Portela, director of the daily Letras em Marcha, considered the mouthpiece of the military 'hardliners'. Portela has claimed that Collor has the support of 'more than 80%' of the military.
Brizola and Lula have now launched an all-out attack on Collor, who critics have described as a 'playboy opportunist'. 'We are going to tear him apart with our militancy in the streets,' Lula has promised. Brizola's PDB is conducting an 'in-depth' investigation into Collor's personal and political background, hoping to unearth something to tarnish his image as an enemy of corruption.
* The Collor 'phenomenon'
One political analyst says that trying to understand the 'Collor phenomenon' has become a national sport.
A political columnist has attributed the 'phenomenon' to the fact that 'the people are not interested in ideologies, what they really want is something which promises to change everything, government, parties, politicians, the source of their suffering.'
Another has emphasised Collor's highly publicised reputation as the Cacador de Marajas -- the 'hunter' of overpaid political appointees and civil servants -- when governor of Alagoas. By implication, he says, Collor is also seen as being against everything for which Brasilia now stands in the popular imagination: incompetent patriarchal government, mercenary politicians, influence peddling, cronyism, corruption at all levels.
* Lacklustre rivals
Some political analysts see Collor's popularity as reflecting more the people's dissatisfaction with all other candidates than a clear idea of what he stands for. The influential columnist Carlos Castelo Branco has noted that Brazilians reject Leonel Brizola's caudilhismo, Lula da Silva's unpreparedness, Ulysses Guimaraes's advanced age, and Janio Quadros's instability.
Guimaraes, for one, is not prepared to accept this judgment. He says that his candidacy is only now nearing the take-off point. His strategy, spelt out in a document distributed to his campaign managers, is not to compete with Collor in projecting a 'new' or 'modern' image, but to persuade the electorate that he is the only candidate well enough placed to orchestrate a 'national pact' to overcome the country's economic and social crisis.
Guimaraes's campaign is expected to emphasise his reputation as the solid and responsible leader who piloted the constituent assembly to a successful conclusion in drafting the country's new constitution. The explicit message will be that he is now, as he was then, the only candidate capable of making disparate political forces pull together around a national objective.
At present, only his most ardent supporters believe Guimaraes will succeed.
* More join the race
Mario Covas, who left the PMDB in mid-1988 to become one of the founder-members of the PSDB -- he and other dissident PMDB colleagues complained that the party had made 'moral concessions to corruption and patronage' (RB-88-07) -- is another candidate whose campaign, supporters say, is now at the take-off point.
His backers suggest that Covas is the man to beat Collor, arguing that he enjoys considerable 'space' with his image as a modern politician, espousing moderate left-of-centre ideas and untainted by corruption.
Meanwhile, two more hopefuls have officially joined the presidential race.
In mid-May the national convention of the PDS selected Paulo Salim Maluf, the former governor of the state of Sao Paulo and the party's presidential candidate in the 1985 elections, as their candidate.
As a result of Maluf's nomination, party leader Jarbas Passarinho asked to be relieved of his position. 'I can't lead the party in the presidential campaign because of disagreement with maluf,' explained Passarinho, who was replaced as party leader by former finance minister Antonio Delfim Neto.
At its national convention in early June, the Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL) confirmed Aureliano Chaves, former Vice-President and mining and energy minister, as its candidate. In the party primaries, held in late May, Chaves easily defeated Marco Maciel, the former head of President Jose Sarney's civilian household, and deputy Sandra Cavalcanti.
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