[MST Informa #127] The Uneasy Calm Continues. By: MST's Joao Pedro Stedile

The Uneasy Calm Continues

Now that Carnival has passed, we are beginning another political year. But looking at the horizon, what follows is a disturbing calm in the Brazilian political sitution, in which nothing appears to change the routes of the ship and the hegemony of the political and economic command of the country.

The second term seemed to bring us new winds, with the increase in political debate and with the more active participation of the various social sectors that were involved in the electoral struggle as a way of defeating the return of the neoliberal right represented by Alckmin.

Now that the electoral period and the expectation for changes have passed, many people return to being skeptical in the face of the sameness of national policy. But, more than looking for culprits or personalizing the reasons for this situation, we need to reflect on the historical context in which we are living.

There is a general apathy in national politics because we are living through a long historical period marked by some conditioning factors in the correlation of forces that the electoral battle and the re-election of President Lula did not succeed in changing. What factors are these?

First came a process of political defeat for the Brazilian working class, starting with the elections of 1989. The Collor and Cardoso governments represented the consolidation of the hegemony of a sector of the ruling class that abandoned any project of national development and completely subordinated itself to international finance capital. The result was the “privatization