Communist Party of Brazil

Brazil – Pandemic and Capitalist Crisis

Walter Sorrentino (Vice-President and International Relations Secretary)

11In Brazil, since the coup over President Dilma in 2016, there has been a systematic attack on the democratic rule of law and the promotion of social chaos. The Bolsonaro government, installed in 2019, completely aligned the country with the US strategy and led Brazil to isolation on the international stage. During the last six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic context has become even more unstable, with a profusion of facts and contradictions that literally play on people’s lives.

In the pandemic, Brazil leads, behind only the United States, the ranking of the number of dead with 130 thousand lives lost and more than 4 million people infected, behind the USA and India. It is more than the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean together, although we have just over a third of the total population. Among the several factors that spread this insidious infection, one of them is that, in Brazil, it was promoted by the federal government an open sabotage against social isolation, with the widespread and unscientific prescription of chloroquine, inciting the false contradiction between saving the economy and not life. During the crisis, two health ministers were dismissed and today the Ministry is militarized, with a general as interim minister. The president misinforms the population, minimizes the pandemic, and discourages the use of masks and social isolation, essential for the preservation of life. Even against a vaccine that does not even exist yet, Bolsonaro is already preaching discredit.

Another crisis experienced is that of the economy and its profound social consequences. The pandemic brought about an abrupt supply and demand shock, overcoming a pre-existing economic depression, with three years of recession and of stagnation. Unemployment reaches 13% and more than 700 thousand companies, mainly small ones, went to bankrupt due to the fact that the Bolsonaro government, contrary to what was done in most countries, did not use the resources of the national State to protect companies and preserve jobs. GDP fell 1.5% in the first quarter and 9.7% in the second quarter of year, with an estimated drop of up to 8% in the year. In the last few days, we have experienced a dramatic inflationary situation in essential items of the Brazilian basic food basket, such as rice and beans. The government proved to be incapable of guaranteeing the country’s food sovereignty, allowing the shortage and imbalance of stocks for import during the pandemic.

This situation constitutes a picture of national tragedy and, before it, what the appalled Nation sees is

12 a President of the Republic with repeated criminal conduct, which moves only by the ambition to be re-elected in 2022, aiming to materialize a project of authoritarian power. There is still a lack of tactical convergence in the opposition camp to put the interests of the nation and the working class at the top of the agenda. For the PCdoB, movements from broad fronts and institutions of the Republic, such as the National Congress, achieved important resistance victories, imposing a retreat to the anti-democratic offensive of

Bolsonarism with a broad front of democratic forces and guaranteeing the approval of emergency aid, from Fundeb (support fund to basic education), aid to cultural professionals, successes, even if partial in the face of the heavy attack against the rights of the working class, function as an emergency platform. We are working for this platform to point out the means, instruments and sources of financing for the country to control and overcome the pandemic, saving lives, and ensuring the functioning of the economy, creating conditions for the resumption of growth, with the generation of jobs, direct aid to micro, small and medium enterprises, and guaranteeing emergency aid to the poorest of US$ 100 until December 2020 and a permanent income that meets the needs of the vulnerable population. The PCdoB, supported by its Bench in the Parliament and also in its Maurício Grabois Foundation, has made contributions to this platform having as a vertex the role of the national State to leverage the resumption of economic growth with public investments. Brazil can enable the financing of this platform by the Central Bank through the purchase of

National Treasury bonds and carrying out a progressive tax reform that burdens financial capital and large fortunes. Flavio Dino (PCdoB), governor of Maranhao State, shows that this is possible. Even in an adverse situation, announced the Emergency Plan for Employment, the Celso Furtado plan, which will invest US$ 100 million in works, government purchases and sectoral promotion to eliminate the recessive effect on the pandemic in the State and create another 60 thousand jobs. The PCdoB, in this pandemic period, aligned itself with the scientific position of researchers and local health authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) who maintain the need for the epidemiological surveillance and intelligence protocol to be put into practice, which has as its focus on the active search for new cases, tracking your contacts and isolating in positive cases. These are successful measures to contain the current contagion, as well as to ensure that new waves of the pandemic can be controlled safely.

We are also currently experiencing the period of Party conventions with a robust electoral project, with candidacies for the city hall of capitals such as Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and São Luis, among others, leading the polls with Manuela Davila, in Porto Alegre, and a reasonable number of majority applications in cities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants, and also with an expressive number of electoral tickets to the City Councils, in all capitals and in hundreds of outback cities, especially in the largest and most important ones.

The Party alliances built for the 1stround of elections, and designed for the 2ndround, follow the political guideline of defeating Bolsonarism at the polls and strengthening the democratic and progressive field.

In the municipal elections in November, 2020, we will carry out a broad, massive, creative, engaging campaign, with a strong presence on social networks, with effective use of radio and TV time, wherever there is, and, according to the reality of the pandemic in each city, carry out, with obedience to health guidelines, face-to-face events that engage the people’s leadership in our campaign. We are going to fight to elect our candidates and our allies. We will fight for the victory of the political field of life, democracy, employment, rights, economic growth, and the defeat of Bolsonarism.

We are aware that the country’s agony may drag on even longer, persisting in the war of siege movements, increasing isolation and suffocation from the government, until the war of positions to definitively defeat Bolsonaro’s strategy and end his presidential power can be given. For this reason, we strive to build a democratic front to reinstate the democratic pact broken by the 2016 coup, as the first condition for the legitimate dispute of the project for the country and, equally, to unite the advanced social, left-wing and progressives, to build an innovative and daring program of solutions to the country’s crisis.

We also mobilize our energies for our internationalist commitments, which are part of our greater struggle for socialism. Thus, in the last period, we remained attentive and supportive of the Latin American peoples that have suffered the most attacks from the Empire, such as the Cuban, the Venezuelan, the Bolivian, and the Ecuadorian peoples. We also

continue to raise the flag for a free Palestine, repeatedly attacked by Trump and Netanyahu. Always in solidaritywith the struggle of the Iranian people and more recently with Lebanese people, due to the tragedy in the Harbour of Beirut. We have had many exchanges and expressions of solidarity. We reject all ongoing wars and act via the movement for solidarity and peace through Cebrapaz and the World Peace Council. We hope that soon EIPCO will be able to meet again to take stock of our performance during this period and project future challenges.

Greetings to all the fraternal parties! Long live Socialism!