Brazil Strives to Forge New Constitution : Historic Document Will Define Democracy for 140 Million People

Antonio da Cunha Bueno, a member of the assembly now writing a new constitution for Brazil, longs for the days of the Brazilian monarchy, when an emperor was on the throne and counts and barons attended the court.

“It is a more stable form of government than the republic,” he argued.

Few of the National Constituent Assembly’s 558 other members agree with Cunha Bueno, 37, but that’s the way it goes. The assembly is a free-for-all of widely varied ideas, interests and arguments. As proposals and counterproposals are weighed and sifted, many fall by the wayside.

Like the U.S. Constitutional Convention 200 years ago, the Brazilian assembly vibrates with a sense of history in the making. As the United States commemorates the 200th anniversary of its Constitution, Brazil is starting over.

It is a process of ideological struggle and political maneuvering that, for better or worse, will change the basic framework of national life in Latin America’s biggest country. It reflects a major moment of transition for Brazil and its 140 million people. After living under an authoritarian military government from 1964 to 1985, the country is reaching for full democracy.

To Be Finished This Year

What shape that democracy takes will be outlined by the new constitution, which is scheduled to be finished before the end of this year.

“All of the established things are going to be discussed anew,” assembly member Roberto Brant said in an interview. “That means the very structure of the country.”

For Brant, the key to success is giving every idea its hearing and every member his say.

Brant and many other members of the dominant Brazilian Democratic Movement Party favor at least some features of parliamentary democracy in the new constitution. Many others, however, like the presidential system that Brazil first established in 1891.

So, after five months of deliberations in the Brazilian spirit of compromise, the assembly is working to devise a mixed system. It probably will include both a parliamentary-style prime minister and a popularly elected president.

“I think a somewhat hybrid system will prevail,” Brant said.

But Marco Maciel, the president of the Liberal Front Party and also an assembly member, warned that mixing presidential and parliamentary features is a recipe for failure.

Mixture Could Be Monster

“When we transplant organs from one system to another, we end up creating a monster,” Maciel told a press conference not long ago.

Brazil’s first Constituent Assembly was a dismal failure that was unable to compromise or create anything. It was convoked by the Emperor Pedro I in 1823, the year after Brazil declared its independence from Portugal. Dom Pedro was the son of the Portuguese king, Dom Joao VI.

Those were tumultuous times, when some Brazilian factions wanted reunification with Portugal and others wanted parliamentary democracy. Political conflict within the assembly added to the turmoil of armed conflict outside. After six months, the emperor disbanded the assembly. Later, he ordered his council of state to draft a constitution to his liking.

That document, enacted by decree in 1824, established a parliamentary monarchy in which the emperor was the “moderating power,” authorized to appoint the Senate, dissolve the elected lower house and choose the Cabinet.

After Dom Pedro’s death in 1831, the monarchy survived under a three-man regency. The late emperor’s son, Dom Pedro II, succeeded to the throne in 1840 at the age of 14.

Was Enlightened Ruler

Dom Pedro II turned out to be an enlightened ruler with a liberal outlook. He delegated powers to the chief minister and allowed Parliament to legislate freely. Among political parties permitted to function was one that campaigned actively for a republican form of government.

An 1889 military coup against the government’s chief minister, the Viscount of Ouro Preto, was not intended to change the system of government. Nevertheless, the monarchy crumbled, Dom Pedro was sent into exile and a republic was declared.

Since then, Brazil has had five constitutions, written in 1891, 1934, 1937, 1946 and 1967. Only one elected civilian president has finished his term in office and left peacefully.

The current constitution was dictated by the military government to a docile congress in 1967 and was heavily amended by executive decree in 1969.

In 1984, two decades after taking power, the armed forces allowed an electoral college to choose a civilian president. But Tancredo Neves, the president-elect, fell sick and died before taking office, so the presidency was assumed by Vice President Jose Sarney.

Sarney’s Term an Issue

According to the current constitution, Sarney’s presidency expires in 1991, after a six-year term. But the term may be shortened by the Constituent Assembly, and that is the hottest issue in the ongoing debates.

Many assembly members, including some who belong to Sarney’s Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, favor a transitional clause in the new constitution that would set presidential elections next year.

Sarney is forcefully lobbying against 1988 elections but has recently said he will settle for a reduction of his term to five years.

The Constituent Assembly is formed by the combined membership of Brazil’s two congressional houses, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. They were elected by popular vote last November.

After opening in February, the assembly divided itself into eight committees and 24 subcommittees, each with the task of drafting specific segments of the constitution.

The subcommittees finished their work in May and the eight committees finished last month. Now, a ninth committee is preparing a draft constitution for debate by the assembly as a whole.

Open to Amendments

At each stage in the process, articles can be added, removed or amended. “Popular amendments” can be proposed from the public by submitting a petition with 30,000 signatures with each proposal.

Conservatives want the constitution to sharply limit the government’s role in the economy and to expand the freedom of private enterprise. Liberals and leftists want clauses that would mandate redistribution of land to poor peasants, guarantee workers’ job security and their right to strike and would strictly control multinational companies operating in Brazil.

Assembly member Benedita da Silva would like a constitution strongly influenced by socialist ideals, but she knows that it won’t be.

“I think it will come out as a constitution of a bankrupt capitalist system,” she said. A black, 45-year-old grandmother who comes from a hillside slum in Rio de Janeiro, Silva belongs to the leftist Workers’ Party. Leftist parties are a minority in the assembly, which is controlled by the mainly centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and its center-right ally, the Liberal Front Party.

Lobbyists at Work

Working to influence the assembly are lobbyists from private enterprise, the labor movement, churches and other interest groups.

“The only ones not lobbying are the taxpayers,” remarked assembly member Guillerme Afif Domingos.

The Brazilian armed forces have sent officers to “advise” assembly staff members.

“You could go behind the scenes in almost any subcommittee and see two or three military lobbyists,” said David Fleischer, an American political scientist at the University of Brasilia.

The armed forces have made it clear that they do not want the assembly to reduce their important role in Brazilian government under the new constitution. The military controls the National Intelligence Service, has decisive influence over the National Security Council and has a military Cabinet minister for each of the three service branches. The armed forces also are constitutionally responsible for Brazil’s internal security.

Fleischer predicted that the military’s role will not change significantly under the new constitution. And even if the constitution gives civilian officials more control over the armed forces, he said, that will not guarantee against military intervention in government.

Wary of the Military

“Everyone from the left to the right agrees that the constitution is just a piece of paper, and that the military has the coercive force to do what it wants to do,” he said. “That’s a reality that everybody accepts.”

William R. Long, chief of The Times’ Rio de Janeiro bureau, is at present on assignment in Haiti.