Uncertainty Gripping Brazil Before Election

Brazil is stirring with tremors of political uncertainty as the country, Latin America’s largest, moves toward its first direct presidential election since 1960.

The worst inflation in Brazilian history, catalyzing popular discontent, shows no sign of abating. President Jose Sarney’s unpopular transitional government hangs on with little apparent direction or public support. Leftist parties gather strength in a rush for power, and conservatives grasp for a way to brake the momentum.

Adding to the agitation are frequent flurries of speculation that a military coup may interrupt the democratic process before--or after--the presidential vote, scheduled for November.

Brazil’s 1964 coup was a military reaction to left-leaning populist policies and economic disorder under civilian President Joao Goulart. Inflation then was about 100% a year.

Raging Inflation

Under Sarney, inflation has raged at monthly rates of more than 16% since the beginning of 1988 and about 27% since the beginning of last October. Compounded, 27% a month would soar to 1,660% in a year.

But George Brown, a lawyer and former U.S. diplomat who works as a consultant in the capital city of Brasilia, said that racing inflation obviously irritates but no longer shocks Brazilians and is unlikely to trigger a military coup if it stays in the range of 27% a month.

Sarney, 58, is a career politician who took office in 1985 after a long alliance with the armed forces. His failure to control inflation, together with a widespread impression that his administration is inefficient and corrupt, have undermined his support and left him vulnerable.

A Senate commission on corruption initiated impeachment proceedings against the president last week. The letters of impeachment charge Sarney with exceeding his authority in several presidential decrees, violating laws on the federal budget and making irregular allocations of public funds.

The action is an example of deep disappointment in the first civilian-led administration since 1964. The unhappiness also has undermined confidence in a democratic future for this nation of 145 million people.

Speculation on Coup

Several times in the past year, speculation about the possibility of an eventual military coup has surged through the country, obligating high officers to reaffirm support for constitutional rule.

In a recent newspaper interview, Sarney warned that if political centrists do not join forces for the scheduled presidential election, the left will rise to power.

In nationwide municipal elections Nov. 15, leftist parties won mayoral votes in nine of 24 state capitals, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s two biggest cities. The results reinforced the presidential ambitions of prominent leftist politicians Luis Inacio da Silva, a former labor leader known as Lula, and Leonel Brizola, a former governor of Rio de Janeiro state and brother-in-law of the late President Goulart.

Lula’s Workers’ Party includes Marxist-oriented factions that advocate socialist revolution, while Brizola portrays his Democratic Workers Party as social democratic.

The centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which has been the country’s largest party for years, is in disarray. Its alliance with Sarney’s administration cost it millions of votes in the municipal elections, and the chances of party chairman Ulysses Guimaraes in the presidential sweepstakes appear to have plummeted.

Sen. Mario Covas, a center-leftist leader who bolted the Democratic Movement Party and helped form the new Brazilian Social Democracy Party, is now being touted as a possible “consensus” candidate who could defeat Lula and Brizola. But centrists and conservatives are considering other candidates, including Silvio Santos, a popular television personality and owner of a TV network; Antonio Ermirio de Moraes, a wealthy industrialist, and Gen. Leonidas Pires Goncalves, the current army minister.