Readers will have seen the petition initiated by Socialist Resistance in defence of senator Heloisa Helena and other Workers' Party (PT) deputies threatened with expulsion. The PT leadership published a response to our petition in the Brazilian press before the expulsions went ahead. They obviously felt that the petition, together with initiatives in Brazil itself such as the creation of the "Friends of Helosia" group were receiving so much attention from their supporters that they had to respond publicly. We here reproduce a shortened version of that response, together with our repl, which was obviously written after the expulsions had taken placey. We also include a statement from the Socialist Democracy Tendency (DS) of the PT to the expulsion from the party of Heloisa Helena and others on l4 December 2003. DS are launching an appeal against the expulsions and calling for it to be heard at an extraordinary meeting of the party. Letter from the PT leadership in response to the petition initiated by Socialist
n relation to the manifesto published by
the paper Sociafist Resistance, according to which the PT is indicating to the international left that it has given up its tradition of democracy, pluralism and tolerance, I would like to say the following.
...In the PT, today as always, everyone is free to express his/her opinions and the party's positions are the result of a clash of ideas. However, those who think that the PT is a debating circle or a social club are mistaken. On the contrary, it is a party that takes pride in its internal democracy as well as its unity of action. That's why the PT has always guaranteed broad internal debate with the understanding that positions approved by the majority will automatically become the party's positions...
In 1993, Luiza Erundina, former major of Sao Paulo and who, at the time, held the highest public post the PT had up until then elected, accepted a ministerial post in Itamar Franco's government against the wishes of the party. She was suspended from the party while in office...If we are today the main political force in Brazil, it is because we have the merit of combining internal democracy with the defence of democracy as a universal principle and with the understanding that there is no party without unity of action. Freedom of expression, yes, but not a state of chaotic indecision.
...Freedom in democratic parties like ours means sharing and accepting these limits collectively. The PT is...part of a multi-party political system. Probably, our dissidents, who've been traditionally in favour of exemplary punishments within the party, have a dream of the barbaric idea of a single party system. The PT prefers plurality.
We consider it malicious and slanderous to try to confuse the functioning of a transparent and democratic party with the political Great expectations: mass turn-out for Porto Alegre environment under a dictatorship. It's natural federal employees was 23 billion reais. that those who agree with our policies stay in the party. It is also natural that, in a country led by the PT, everyone has the right to create their own parties. But it is not loyal to stay in the PT to combat it systematically from within, claiming to be guardians of genuine PT virtues... The four members of parlia ment currently threatened with expulsion are clearly trying to present themselves as victims, when in reality they have committed an act of aggression by breaking with internal unity, although they have every right to express their opinions inside and outside the party. They prefer to exercise short-sighted and disloyal opposition to the PT government's policies. Perhaps because they don't have any proposals to offer themselves in the present circumstances, they put their efforts into discrediting the party before public opinion..
It is important to clarify that the pension reform, already approved by the chamber of deputies, and at an advanced stage in the Senate, has nothing to do with pressures from the IME. It is a demand born out of the need for social justice, and is the result of a plan, adopted by the PT more than ten years ago, to create a basic universal pension.
It is impossible to draw any comparison between the pension system in Brazil and those of Europe. The Brazilian system is a monster and it is difficult to imagine that anyone could be a left wing person in Brazil and seek to conserve it.
To give an idea, the general pension system in Brazil, which provides for 21,100,000 retired people and relatives of those who have worked in the private sector, received in 2002 17 billion reais as a subsidy from the state. While in the same year the public sub sidy to finance pensions for 952,000 former Official projections suggest that, without the changes proposed by the Lula government, in 20 years time this subsidy would reach 304 billion reais every year. This would certainly cause the system to collapse long before then. Furthermore, you should remember that 57 per cent of Brazilian workers have no pension at all. The reforms proposed by the Lula government seek precisely to include these excluded sectors,
Dear friends, the PT did not promise miraGet the Viewpoint!
A monthly review of news and analysis from the CAer TAL cles and is not delivering miracles. We are, however, very much aware that we have been able to avert an imminent collapse of the Brazilian economy, which would not have helped anyone. We are sure we are holding onto and putting into practice our original and profound commitments to social change and freedom, at the pace and in the direction best suited to the present circumstances.
Under the leadership of President Lula the PT has developed step by step. It does not encourage the illusions of impatience or insist on unnecessary differences - features which lead some on the left to become obsessed with infallible predictions and a fear of seeing the majority of the population benefit from economic development. This latter is a task that part of Europe and the United States already carried out at a high social and historical cost to the rest of the world. This economic development is maintained to this day by fierce protectionism and the selfish limitation of rights that prevents our develop. ment as a country and is at the root of these misunderstandings between allies.
Yours sincerely, Paulo Delgado,
Secretary for International Relations,
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Socialist
perform miracles. Indeed we expected none. We understand that the situation facing the PT government, at home and abroad, (is begiert is complicated. JIN Brazil: expulsions from the Workers Party (PT) oclalist reststance January 2004 21