Brazil President a Symbol of ‘National Frustration’

A camera caught what looked like a tear sliding down President Jose Sarney’s cheek the other day, and the published photo quickly became a symbol of troubled times in Brazil.

Latin America’s biggest country is frustrated and demoralized by a withering combination of economic decay and political disarray. Politicians, economists, labor leaders, businessmen, editorial writers and others have joined a growing chorus of pessimism, decrying the crisis and criticizing Sarney’s ineffectiveness at a crucial stage of national transition.

With a population of 140 million and the West’s eighth-largest economy, Brazil has set its sights on advanced industrial development and full democracy. But, under Sarney, Brazilians are constantly and painfully reminded of their country’s economic and political weaknesses.

“He is the symbol of the national frustration,” said Guilherme Afif Domingos, a congressman who once supported Sarney.

In a blistering editorial earlier this month, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo echoed widespread dismay over “the absence of political initiative, the administrative disorganization, the degree of discredit and the whole twilight zone in which the Sarney government has become engulfed.”

To some extent, the president, a stocky man of 57 who dyes his mustache and wears double-breasted suits, has become a lightning rod for everything that has gone wrong in Brazil.

Inflation has soared to a double-digit monthly level for the third time since Sarney took office in March, 1985. The November rate was 12.8%, and the December rate is expected to be 14%, making for an annual rate of 360%.

Workers have lost buying power, and the hard times have meant increasing numbers of vendors, beggars and muggers in the streets. Urban crime has reached epidemic levels.

$113-Billion Debt

For 10 months, Brazil has not made interest payments on most of its $113-billion foreign debt, the largest of any developing country. Investment is stagnant, and economic growth is sputtering.

A constitution being written by the Brazilian Congress is an unwieldy hodgepodge so far, and the drafting process is far behind schedule.

The majority party, which once supported Sarney, is breaking up, partly as a result of disputes over how long he will stay in office. Sarney wants to delay presidential elections until late 1989, but a movement for elections next year is gathering steam.

“Sarney for ex-president,” urge bumper stickers that have appeared lately in Sao Paulo.

“You don’t need a very sharp nose to perceive that the Sarney government has entered a state of decomposition,” sociologist Luciano Martins de Almeida said.

Parliamentary Government

The Congress, acting as a constitutional convention, will decide when elections are held. In late November, the master drafting committee approved a proposal that would set up a parliamentary form of government in 1988, handing most of the president’s powers to a prime minister.

The committee also approved a provision that would cut Sarney’s term in office to four years, ending it in March, 1989, after elections next year. Sarney, who had lobbied persistently for a five-year term, was visibly upset, and in an emotional speech he vowed to work harder than ever.

“Now I am going to dedicate myself body and soul to the administrative problems of Brazil,” he said.

A newspaper photo, taken while he was making that speech, showed a glistening trail of moisture down Sarney’s cheek from the corner of his eye. Witnesses said it was a tear, but Sarney’s office denied it.

Dark National Mood

“The president did not cry; that was sweat,” Chief Minister Ronaldo Costa Couto said.

Nevertheless, a president in tears seemed to suit the dark national mood, which Sarney himself has acknowledged.

“If the people become lost today in that phase of pessimism and continue injecting that discouragement, they will be jeopardizing the future not of those alive today but of the generations to come,” he said.

In another pronouncement, Sarney complained that he was the most embattled president in Brazil’s history as a republic.

“I don’t have a day of truce, attacked by all sectors,” he said. But he emphasized that things could be worse. “If a man of my temperament, patience, understanding and responsibility were not in the presidency of the republic,” he said, “the country would be in dictatorship or terrorism.”

Coup Risk Could Rise

Nildo Masine, an official of the Sao Paulo State Federation of Industries, disagreed. He said: “If (Sarney) stays in office much longer, there will be chaos.” And with increased turmoil, he added, could come a greater risk of a military coup.

The armed forces have shown no sign of wanting to seize power, which they held from 1964 to 1985. They gave it up after a severe recession and a popular campaign for direct presidential elections.

Sarney, a veteran power broker and patronage politician, had supported the military government until its end was obviously near. Then he led a mutiny in the official party and became the opposition’s compromise candidate for vice president.

Direct presidential elections were not permitted, but an electoral college of congressmen and state legislators picked opposition leader Tancredo Neves for the presidency. Neves died before he could take office, and Sarney assumed power in his place.

Illusory Good Times

Sarney’s popularity hit a high point in 1986, when government-decreed wage increases and a price freeze fueled a consumption boom and rapid, but superficial, economic growth. Just about everyone now agrees that the good times were illusory.

For one thing, Brazil’s healthy trade surplus and foreign currency reserves were gobbled up in the spree. For another, the freeze policy worked temporarily as a dam against inflationary pressure, but the dam eventually burst.

Then, last February, as dollar reserves slid dangerously low, Sarney declared a moratorium on payments to Brazil’s private foreign creditors. After difficult negotiations, Brazil is scheduled soon to resume interest payments to the American, European and Japanese banks, while more talks on a long-term debt agreement continue.

Last June, inflation hit a monthly high of 26%. A new price freeze decreed by Sarney that month gave only temporary relief.

‘Shocks’ Unsuccessful

The unsuccessful price freezes, called “shocks,” have irritated businessmen and eroded the credibility of official economic policy.

“I hope the government doesn’t try another shock on the economy, because there is a risk that we will all be electrocuted,” said Horacio Cherkasski, president of the National Assn. of Paper Manufacturers.

The freezes and the unpredictable inflation have discouraged savings and capital investment. Economic growth has slumped from more than 8% in 1986 to an estimated 3.5% this year.

“Every middle-size company in Brazil has plans to invest--they see good opportunities in Brazil--but they are afraid to invest because of this inflation,” said Carlos Langoni, a prominent economist.

Deficits Blamed

Langoni said that Brazil’s troubles result from the exhaustion of a development model in which the investment of borrowed money by the military government led growth. Now the money is gone, and to stay afloat, the bloated state sector of the economy is running up huge, inflationary deficits.

Langoni and other economists prescribe major surgery as the only cure for the economic illness: radical reduction of the government’s deficit and its role in the economy. Langoni predicted in an interview that the painfulness of the current crisis will force the government to take such measures.

“I think it is a serious illness, but I am absolutely convinced that the illness itself will create political conditions for a solution,” he said.

So far, Sarney has been unable or unwilling to carry out promised cost cuts. He is weakened not only by his lack of a popular mandate but by his apparent lack of management skill.

‘Spur of Moment’ Decisions

“His biggest problem is that he has trouble making decisions,” a foreign diplomat said. “He doesn’t make many, and when he does, it is off the top of his head or on the spur of the moment.”

Sarney has become increasingly isolated as the crisis has deepened. Although he is a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the majority party in the Congress, he gets little support from it.

In October, he circulated a petition among congressmen asking for a pledge of support for his administration, but the unusual appeal drew more laughs than signatures.

That was only one of many attempts by Sarney to seize a leadership role in the constitutional convention. The attempts have contributed to interminable wrangling that has delayed the convention’s work and divided the Democratic Movement’s delegation.

Cumbersome Draft

The constitutional drafting process, begun early in the year, was scheduled to be finished by now. By current estimates, the work will take at least until March.

As it stands, the cumbersome draft constitution contains 350 articles, some of them more than 50 paragraphs long. Most analysts say the document is too convoluted and complicated to be an effective national charter.

The work of the constitutional convention has moved from the master drafting committee to the full assembly of 559 members. The committee’s draft may be changed by a majority vote, and there is no strong indication yet of how the convention will decide such questions as a system of government and an election timetable.

Sen. Marco Maciel, leader of the Liberal Front Party in the convention and a former minister in Sarney’s Cabinet, recently joined those who want elections in 1988.

“I understand that the country is going through an unprecedented political crisis resulting from a deteriorating economic and social situation,” Maciel said. “The only way to create conditions for avoiding and overcoming the crisis is through elections.”