The Latin American socialists are a rare breed — communists with a truly revolutionary past taking to bourgeois democracy and making an absolute success of it by adapting the Marxian ideology to their people’s aspirations and needs — and moving ahead with the spirit of the times. They didn’t imbibe Marxism from text books and therefore they could reject the doctrinaire approach once in power and would combine the “pro-poor” policies with the market. They don’t whine about the anomalies of the capitalist system, but work within it diligently and at the end of the day their syncretic approach enabled them to widen their mass appeal among their countries’ multitudes of impoverished people as well as the middle class and even the established business.
They have had no use for ‘lumpenism’ masquerading as left politics. The politics of violence, killing or maiming of political opponents or adversaries in the democratic ring? Most certainly, not.
Brazil is the most shiny example here, perhaps, and that is why there is such phenomenal attention being paid to the presidential election in that country — at least, it is one of the main reasons. I just read that Brazil’s election is the most talked about in the social network’s history.
It inspired 346 exchanges on Facebook — by far exceeding the 227 million in the election in April-March in India. What made last Sunday’s election in Brazil so engrossing? First and foremost, of course, the persona of President Dilma Rousseff, who is seeking re-election for a second term that the country’s constitution allows her before mandatorily retiring (like in the US, Iran, Turkey or France). Rousseff’s revolutionary pedigree is impeccable. She fought as a Marxist ‘guerilla’, was captured and subjected to unspeakable torture by the pro-American military junta, survived to enter democratic arena and coasted to a magnificent victory in 2010 as the successor to the legendary socialist-president Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, himself a towering trade union leader.
Second, her re-election is by no means a done thing, although it is highly probable. There is a massive rallying by the so-called ‘pro-market’ forces, as the last-minute surge by the right-wing candidate Aecio Neves shows.
Neves polled 24 percent as against Dilma’s 40.6 percent, which makes a runoff necessary on October 26. But politics is never simple arithmetic and everything depends on how the 21.4 percent votes polled by the enviormentalist candidate Marina Silva gets shared between Dilma and Neves in the runoff. A Reuters report suggests that the runoff will be a close call. Brazil’s politics is not all ideology, too, because Neves also has a reputation for initiating ‘pro-poor’ reforms while in office as a hugely successful provincial politician — except that first he found the resources for it by the innovative method of slashing salaries of state employees (including himself) and bridging the budget deficit. Rousseff, on the other hand, is more a conciliatory mainstream politician today than a radical Marxist activist.
Having said that, if Dilma wins, as Guardian newspaper estimated, it is to be primarily attributed to the fact that “the majority of Brazilians got what they voted for.” In sum, what happens in the Brazilian runoff will resonate far and wide and will impact the ‘co-relation of forces’ not only in Latin America but in the wider world as well.
Take India or Indonesia. Brazil’s democracy holds lessons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indonesia’s newly-elected Presidenr Joko Widodo (popularly known as Jokowi). Perhaps, Indonesia is closer to India’s predicament than Brazil.
There are striking parallels in the ‘humble origins’ of Modi and Jokowi, in their familiarity with the world of business and their meteoric rise as ‘outsiders’. They are leading their countries when the two economies are sluggish, income disparities have sharply increased and unemployment stalks the land. There the comparison ends. Yet, Modi’s image is that he’s ‘business-friendly’, whereas, the thrilling expectation about Jokowi is that he could be ‘pro-poor’. Now, there is one other way India should keenly watch Brazil’s runoff two weeks from now. The BRICS isn’t going to be the same without Rousseff. Neves is a votary of the Wall Street and one cannot imagine him to be in any great hurry or earnestness about reforming the Bretton Woods system.
Conceivably, Neves’d align Brazil with the US rather than with Russia. (China is an entirely different story for Brazil, given the imperatives of trade and investment.) Rousseff and Lula brought Brazil close to India (and BRICS), whereas, Neves (and his fashion-model wife) would be more at ease in the French Riviera or Santa Barbara, California than in Delhi.
The BRICS already faces an identity crisis with Modi replacing Manmohan Singh, and if Neves enters the scene, the American interests will be truly well-represented within the BRICS tent. Maybe, Russia and China have been far-sighted to consider Argentina’s membership? (Listen here to the fiery speech by the Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at the current UN General Assembly session.) But to my mind, the right thing to do would be to invite Jokowi to join the BRICS. | 
