Local Election Returns in Brazil Boost 2 Leftist Leaders

Results from Brazilian municipal elections have given the country’s two most prominent leftist leaders early boosts for next year’s scheduled presidential race.

The Workers’ Party of Luiz Inacio da Silva, who is known as Lula, won the mayoral vote in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city. Leonel Brizola’s Democratic Workers Party won the mayor’s office in Rio, the second-largest city.

Both Lula and Brizola are already running hard for next November’s presidential vote, which will be the first since 1960 in Latin America’s largest nation. Lula’s party is a labor-based movement that includes several Marxist-oriented factions. Brizola’s party is based on his socialist ideas and populist style.

Although returns from Tuesday’s polling in 4,000 municipalities were still being compiled Friday, it is clear that victories were spread among a mosaic of parties, with none achieving national pre-eminence. In most state capitals, winning candidates were emerging with pluralities rather than absolute majorities.

It was also clear that the big loser was the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which had dominated Brazil’s political arena since the end of military rule in 1985.

A coalition of moderate forces that had opposed the military government, the Democratic Movement won a congressional majority and 22 of 23 state governorships in 1986 elections. But in this week’s municipal voting, it appeared Friday to have mayoralties assured so far in only two state capitals.

A major handicap for the party was its association with Jose Sarney, who has been Brazil’s president since the armed forces gave up power in March, 1985. Sarney’s ineffectual administration has been unable to hobble runaway inflation, which reached a record monthly rate of 27% in October.

As purchasing power has faded, labor unrest has flared. Three workers were killed when army troops clashed with striking steelworkers Nov. 9, raising anti-government sentiment to a crescendo on the eve of the elections. A strike in government oil refineries triggered fears of gasoline and diesel shortages, adding to the discontent.

Voters expressed their unhappiness by voting for opposition parties on both the left and the right. The outcome so far has deflated the hopes of several Democratic Movement politicians with presidential aspirations, including Congressman Ulysses Guimaraes, the party chief.

At the moment, the only presidential contenders whose stars seem to be rising are Lula and Brizola.

Lula, 43, is the black-bearded former leader of Brazil’s automotive workers. He became nationally known when he led strikes against the military government in the 1970s, and now he is a member of Congress. His Workers’ Party won only 5.7% of the national vote in the 1986 congressional elections, but its polling power has obviously surged since then.

Luiza Erundina, a round-faced social worker with city council experience, was elected mayor of Sao Paulo for Lula’s party with about 30% of the vote, according to incomplete returns. The Workers’ Party also won the top municipal post in two other state capitals, Porto Alegre and Vitoria, and in a still-unknown number of other cities.

Brizola, 66, was regarded by conservative military men as a dangerous rabble-rouser in 1964 when his brother-in-law, President Joao Goulart, was overthrown by the armed forces. After the military government allowed him to return from exile, Brizola was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro state in 1982.

Marcello Alencar, the mayoral candidate of Brizola’s party in Rio, was elected with about 30% of the vote, and the Democratic Labor Party also won mayoral races in two other state capitals.

Since the elections, Brizola has been promoting the idea of joining forces with Lula’s party in a “natural alliance” for the 1989 presidential elections. If the dark clouds of voter discontent do not break up by next November, a united left with Brizola and Lula as running mates could make a strong ticket, at least in the first round of voting.

But under Brazil’s new constitution, a runoff is required if no candidate wins more than 50% of the votes; and despite its gains, the left did not come close to a national majority in the municipal elections.