Tomorrow\u2019s the second and final round of the presidential election and no one is holding their breath. Dilma Rouseff is poised to win, buoyed almost wholly by disproportionate popularity in the North-east of the country. A northeasterner himself, Lula has tremendous pull in this area. The PT\u2019s popularity also owes much to the expansive success of a government program of conditional-cash-transfers, Bolsa Familia (send kids to school, receive cash from government). Meanwhile, the south and southeast of the country is expected to vote disproportionately for Jos\u00e9 Serra, by far the more proven administrator of the two. For what it\u2019s worth, both candidates appear to be sincerely concerned about Brazil.<\/p>\n
What is most worrisome about the election are not the candidates, but instead the balance of power. If Serra wins, he will have to move quickly to steal the PMDB from the PT, and even then he will be looking at a difficult legislature. If Dilma takes the prize, it will be the third consecutive term for a PT president and the third time the PT enjoys an assured majority. There will also be sufficient votes for the PT and its allies to change the constitution, if they can agree to do so.<\/p>\n
As I wrote in a recent newspaper editorial, governments that remain in power tend to become less accountable, especially ones with strong legislative control. Simply put, parties that remain in power election after election become more adept at co-opting powerful actors, whether they be the press, other parts of government, or even the opposition. The tradeoff\u2014continuity for diminished accountability\u2014can be a fair one, but it need be considered conscientiously. This has not occurred; the media has shed scant light on the issue of accountability during this election campaign.<\/p>\n
The lack of substantive coverage on issues of accountability, particularly prospective reforms, is extremely peculiar. Right now I\u2019m reading a Brazilian Classic, translated loosely as History of Brazilian Foreign Policy. I am amazed at how the same themes appear over and over again, especially the \u201cquest for development\u201d and accusations by foreign \u201cinterventionist\u201d governments that Brazil\u2019s root problem is bad governance and corruption. This accusation was typically rebuffed by alleging that the U.S. and its \u201cimperialist\u201d policies fostered dependence and generated bad government by directly or indirectly interfering in politics. Brazil can no longer fall back on these excuses, and indeed, bad government is undeniably a problem\u2014 just ask a Brazilian. I\u2019ll be working to address this issue in the coming years, whether by teaching or creating greater awareness surrounding the need for transparency reform. An immediate focus is the freedom of information bill currently awaiting final approval in the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tomorrow\u2019s the second and final round of the presidential election and no one is holding their breath. Dilma Rouseff is poised to win, buoyed almost wholly by disproportionate popularity in the North-east of the country. A northeasterner himself, Lula has tremendous pull in this area. The PT\u2019s popularity also owes much to the expansive success Read more about Tomorrow Decides Brazil’s Next 4 years<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1717,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}