Runoff: Presidential hopeful Aécio
Neves and the incumbent, DilmaRousseff.
Neves, who is in a dead heat with Rousseff,
fills leaders of the Latin American
left like Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Bolivia's Evo Morales
with dread.
Specter of a Dilma Defeat Puts Fear into Latin
American Left (Folha, Brazil)
"'Of
course it's a concern that the right might return,' says Bolivia President Evo Morales. Aecio has announced an approach toward the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia), a notion that Evo rejects outright. He argues that the Pacific Alliance is 'an instrument of the United States,' that seeks to 'privatize water, electricity and the telephone.' Clearly, economists from the Aecio
camp would introduce ideas that are incompatible with Bolivarianism."
The re-elected president of Bolivia, Evo
Morales, has expressed his reaction to the prospect of a presidential victory
[in Brazil] by Aécio Neves, which Folha also heard from others,
informally, at the summit of UNASUR (the Union
of South American Nations):
"Of course it's a concern that the right might return,"
Evo told El
País.
At UNASUR, the phrase that is most used is "a certain
nervousness," which is easy to explain: some of UNASUR's
most active leaders are travel companions of [former Brazil President] LuizInácio Lula da Silva, and [current President] DilmaRousseff.
So they know perfectly well the game the two play.
Aécio has announced a different
game, for example, an approach toward the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Peru,
Mexico, and Colombia), a notion that Evo rejects
outright. He argues that the Pacific Alliance is "an instrument of the
United States," that seeks to "privatize water, electricity and the
telephone."
For Venezuela, UNASUR is such an important instrument that
it is forming a commission of economists from member countries, including
Brazil, to work with the Caracas government on a package to resolve its severe
economic crisis.
Clearly, economists from the Aécio
camp would introduce ideas that are incompatible with Bolivarianism, which
tends to reduce or even eliminate the positive role that UNASUR has recently
had during the Venezuelan crisis.
Ernesto Samper, former President of Colombia who took over
the post of UNASUR secretary general two months ago, reminds that UNASUR
mediation managed to put a break on violent opposition protests in the country.
That mediation has been suspended, but the group of
chancellors that propelled it, formed by Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, hasn't dissolved.
Samper defends the thesis that it is essential to expand what
he calls "pre-negotiation" between the government and moderate
sectors of the opposition, so they can come back to sit at the table in "discrete
and concrete dialogue."
He wants an expansion, not only of the agenda but of the
actors, to include labor and business organizations, without whose cooperation
Venezuela will not emerge from acute crisis.
That is where nervousness over an Aécio
victory enters into it: looking at this logically, an Aécio
government would tend to support sectors of the Venezuelan opposition led by Leopoldo López, leader of the Popular Will Party who is
currently in prison. [Venezuela] President Maduro
rejects participation of what he considers to be opposition radicals committed
to toppling him by force.
This would obviously create an impasse in mediation, which
would affect the role and importance of UNASUR.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
That would be a mistake for any new government: for all the
democratic deficits clearly exposed in Chavista
Venezuela, the Maduro government is legitimate. It is
in Brazil’s interests for it to emerge from the crisis, even if only to see the
debts it has toward Brazilian companies paid.
This is even more the case now that upon accepting the UNASUR
commission of economists, the Maduro government is
giving clear signs that it recognizes the magnitude of the crisis and
implicitly admits that its claim that an "economic war" led by the
opposition is responsible convinces no one.
Clovis Rossi is a special correspondent and
member of the Folha editorial board, is a winner of the Maria Moors
Cabot award (USA) and is a member of the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism. His column appears on Thursdays
and Sundays on page 2 and on Saturdays in the World Notebook section. He is
the author, among other works, of Special Envoy: 25 Years Around the World
and What is Journalism?
