Mood:
celebratoryTopic: FORUM
A Tale of Two Opposition Candidates
Brazil, Venezuelan challengers have similar backgrounds
Alfredo Ascanio (askain)
Gerardo Alckmin, a 54 year-old middle class doctor, abandons the governorship of the State of Sao Paulo and becomes the main opposition candidate in the campaign against the incumbent president of Brazil, Lula Da Silva. Manuel Rosales, a 52 year-old politician, also resigns his governorship of Zulia state to run against the present president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
Alckmin, of the Social Democrat Party, was a councilman, then mayor or manager of the city of Sao Paulo, and then governor of the State of Sao Paulo. Rosales, also of the Social Democrat Party, he was likewise councilman and mayor of the City of Maracaibo and then governor of Zulia state.
These two politicians qualify as low profile if compared with the prominence and the rhetorical speech of Lula and of Chavez. But although these two politicians are perceived as uninspiring, they have achieved, in little time, a percentage of intention of the vote between 30-35 percent due to their persistence and due to voters' responsiveness to their criticism of the incumbents.
Lula and Chavez both have around 50 percent support from likely voters, but are on a downward trend. The candidates Alckmin and Rosales are denouncing the several failures of their governments and the serious problems of high corruption, unemployment, poverty, lack of opportunities, insecurity, and the abandonment of promises.
Some aspects of these political campaigns that have received comment are the popularity of Lula and Chavez among the poorest class of the population and the growing disinterest of the middle class in voting, although in Brazil voting is obligatory and in Venezuela it is voluntary.
Alckmin and Rosales are optimists and they want to continue their campaigns to the end (October and December); therefore they are tireless workers, and they recall how in similarly difficult situations they gained votes due to the success of their educational, health, infrastructure, and social projects.
Alckmin and Rosales are both well-liked by businessman and bankers, because they place importance on the market economy and treat problems with transparency and with diplomacy. Their programs are very similar. The strategy of their campaigns are of resistance and not of force, as well as to add political power at a serious moment of public insecurity.
These two candidates have fought the mafia institutions that misappropriate public funds and traffic influence.
One of the most serious problems in the political campaign in Brazil and in Venezuela is that the poorest are easily swayed by populist and emotional speech. Both Lula and Chavez know how to manipulate speech to attract the popular masses by offering them "virtual" political power but few real solutions.
These politicians are perceived as typical Social Democrats; that is to say, they are tolerant and although also charismatic, they feel compelled to improve the social surroundings in a state of equality and justice.
Although both candidates desire to fight corruption, their political advisers know that that is not a subject that mobilizes the masses and excites them. For that reason they recommend focusing on the issue that always recur in the countries of Latin America; that is to say, strategies for solving poverty.
The short-term strategy is based on giving low-income families additions to the minimum wage, but granted without intermediaries so that they receive the income directly.
For example, the Venezuelan, Rosales, is offering in his campaign a debit card with the popular name "the Black Card" (the color of petroleum). This debit card would be given to around 2 million very low-income families.
The financial source for this first temporary solution would be one-fifth of the country's oil income.
This complementary welfare program would be combined with other social projects and an aggressive promotion of public and private investments with the medium-term objective to create jobs and new opportunities for small companies. But the more long-term project would be more integral and would consist of fiscal macroeconomic actions, monetary reform, and rational use of the government budget to obtain progress.
This strategy already has been implanted in Chile and in that country it has had many results, to such an extent that today the country exports more goods and services to the European Economic Community and to the United States and many countries of Latin America.
This integral strategy has still not been embraced by Alckmin, but it is the approach preferred by Rosales, and it is possible that this is the only difference that exists among them and between the Social Democratic parties that they represent.
