Although President Geisel reacted to the deaths that had occurred in the dungeons of the DOI-Codi in São Paulo, he made no attempt to restrict the apparatus of repression. After all, it formed an important part of the state’s power, which he considered necessary – and at times convenient. He granted immunity to those who had committed the crimes, turned a blind eye to the denunciations of torture, and the political violence continued. There were still twenty-four more murders, fifty-one disappearances and 1,022 denunciations of torture.55 And in a very short period of time, three of the country’s most important civilian political leaders, active prior to the coup, had died: Juscelino Kubitschek, João Goulart and Carlos Lacerda. In August 1976, Juscelino Kubitschek died in a car accident on the Via Dutra, the highway that connects São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. In December 1976, João Goulart died on his farm in Argentina, allegedly of a heart attack. Carlos Lacerda died in May 1977, in Rio de Janeiro, one day after being hospitalized in the São Vicente clinic with symptoms of flu. Although the National Truth Commission concluded in 2014 that Juscelino Kubitschek’s death was a genuine accident, the suspicion that both João Goulart and Carlos Lacerda were poisoned by repressive elements prevails to this day.56
The policy of impunity created increasing difficulties for President Geisel and then for President Figueiredo. Between 1976 and 1981 the officers involved in the political repression executed terrorist attacks, bombing newspaper offices, bookshops, universities and institutions identified with the opposition.57 Members of the opposition were kidnapped and tortured. Between August and September 1976 bombs were exploded – or in some cases found and defused by the police – in the offices of the National Congress of Brazilian Bishops, the Brazilian Lawyers’ Association and the Journalists’ Trade Union – in addition to one that exploded in the residence of Roberto Marinho, the media magnate who owned the Globo newspaper and television channel. Mr Marinho had been one of President Geisel’s most powerful allies. In one of the dormitory towns in the greater Rio de Janeiro area, Nova Iguaçu, the bishop of the diocese, Dom Adriano Hipólito, was kidnapped and later abandoned, naked and tied up, in the middle of a street in the Carioca suburb of Jacarepaguá. Within the first eight months of 1980, during General Figueiredo’s government, there were forty-six terrorist attacks. Newspaper stands that sold alternative publications were blown up in the middle of the night, the legal specialist Dalmo Dallari was kidnapped in São Paulo, a bomb was found in the hotel room where Leonel Brizola was staying, and the house of the rural labour leader, Manuel da Conceição, was attacked and vandalized. On 27 August 1980, the eve of the first anniversary of the Amnesty Law, three bombs were exploded in a period of twelve hours in the centre of Rio de Janeiro. The first destroyed the offices of the pro-labour newspaper Tribuna da Luta Operária; the second wounded six people in the Municipal Chamber; and the third exploded at the head offices of the Brazilian Lawyers’ Association, mutilating a servant, José Ribamar, and killing Lyda Monteiro da Silva, the secretary of the association.
Then on the night of 30 April 1981 something went horribly wrong. A bomb accidentally exploded in the lap of a parachute brigade sergeant, Guilherme Rosário, while he was sitting inside a car, a metallic grey Puma, beside infantry captain Wilson Machado, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. The car was parked in the parking lot of the Riocentro – Rio de Janeiro’s largest venue for events and conferences. The sergeant died and the captain was seriously wounded – he was lucky to have survived. Both worked in the Internal Operation Detachments of the First Army. Inside the car there were three other bombs and two grenades. The two men were part of a group of fifteen soldiers from the Internal Operation Detachments and the Army Information Centre, distributed among six cars, who were there to execute a large-scale terrorist attack. If the attack had been successful, the devastation would have been indescribable. That night the venue was hosting a musical event to celebrate Workers’ Day, which had attracted an audience of 20,000 people to hear thirty of Brazil’s most popular singers. The event had been organized by the Centre for a Democratic Brazil (Cebrade), an institution with ties to the opposition. The plan was to explode a bomb in the electric generator, leaving everything in the dark, and then set off two more bombs close to the stage. Before detonating the bombs the terrorists had padlocked twenty-eight of the thirty emergency exits. They intended to blame the attack on the Popular Revolution Vanguard, an armed group that had been decimated by the army ten years earlier.
General Figueiredo had learnt about the plan a month before, and had done nothing to prevent it.58 The army had no time to remove the evidence before the press arrived, and was thus forced to divulge the identity of the men who had been in the car, but alleged reasons of national security for giving no further explanation. The military also issued an official statement that convinced no one: the two officers had got into the car without noticing the bomb – a two-and-a-half-litre tin full of TNT – that had allegedly been put under the seat by left-wing armed militants. President Figueiredo maintained the official version and kept close watch over the investigations and the Military Police inquiry. No one was arrested. Sergeant Guilherme Rosário and Captain Wilson Machado were depicted as victims of left-wing insurgents and the case was shelved.
Politically this was the end of the Figueiredo government. Its double game was exposed during the investigation of the Riocentro bombing and the president lost his ability to conduct controlled abertura. The opposition now decided to mobilize the masses.59 They needed to unite. In 1983 the leadership of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement and the Workers’ Party united to demand a change in the rules for the election of General Figueiredo’s successor. They wanted a constitutional amendment to re-establish the direct vote for the president of Brazil. Draft legislation for the amendment had been prepared in March 1983 by a Brazilian Democratic Movement deputy who was unknown at the time, Dante de Oliveira, a deputy from Mato Grosso. It was a mere fifteen lines of proposed amendment, and the likelihood that it would not pass was extremely high. But it was picked up by the National Executive of the party. The Dante de Oliveira Amendment, as the law became known, led to the creation of a broad-based alliance between the parties – the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the Workers’ Party, the Democratic Labour Party and even the Brazilian Labour Party – as well as trade unions and workers’ movements. And, for the first time, there were dissidents from within the government party who supported an opposition initiative. Public demonstrations in favour of the law took place across the entire country in the largest display of popular opinion ever seen in Brazil.60
Despite the growing pressure from the public for direct elections, there was no chance whatsoever that the government would agree. It had a majority in the electoral college, made up of 660 deputies, and a majority in the National Congress. For a constitutional amendment to pass, a two-thirds majority was needed – 320 votes. There was only one thing the opposition could do to try to prevent President Figueiredo’s successor from being elected by an indirect vote: get the masses onto the streets. And this is precisely what they did. The ‘Diretas Já’ (‘Direct Elections Now’) campaign started in June 1983, with a political rally in Goiânia, the capital of Goiás. Around 5,000 people attended, which was enough to show the viability of a campaign to have the Dante de Oliveira Amendment pass in Congress.
The opposition had several advantages. The president’s credibility was further undermined by the extremely high inflation, which reached 211 per cent in 1983, and the consequent collapse in purchasing power. The government position was then dogged by a series of financial scandals that affected President Figueiredo and his closest advisers. Fraud had been proven in Brazil’s largest building society, the Grupo Delfin. There had been misappropriation of public funds by the financial conglomerate Coroa-Brastel, a scandal involving two of the government’s most powerful ministers, Delfim Netto and Ernane Galvêas, as well as the president of the Central Bank, Carlos Langoni. And there were irregularities i
n paying back a loan to Poland; there were suspicions that employees of the Planning Secretary had received money.61 This went down in history as the Polonetas scandal.
The opposition had also been strengthened by the 1982 elections, which were the first direct elections for state governors since 1965. Governors from the Brazilian Democratic Movement were elected in nine states, including the four wealthiest, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná. And, much to the government’s chagrin, Leonel Brizola was elected leader of the Liberal Workers’ Party (PLT) and governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, although there had been attempts to steal the victory for the government candidate, Moreira Franco,62 who was running for the Social Democratic Party. The attempted fraud was known as the ‘Proconsult scandal’.63 It had been planned by the National Information Service (SNI) and the Federal Police, with the assistance of the Globo newspaper and television channel, which initially divulged the fraudulent result. According to the plan, those reported results would then be confirmed by the Electoral Court.64
Mr Brizola was suspicious of the vote count and widely broadcast his lack of confidence. The result was that he won the election and twice – once in the vote and the other time by force, as he liked to say. Now that the opposition controlled ten key states and had the people’s support, they had both the resources and the capacity to act. The first sign that the campaign was really going to take off came in February 1984, when Ulysses Guimarães, Lula, and the president of the Democratic Labour Party, Doutel de Andrade, left Brasília at the head of the Direct Elections Caravan, travelling 22,000 kilometres across fifteen states in the north, northeast and midwest, attracting almost a million people to their rallies. The campaign of ‘Diretas Já’ was a civic celebration of republican values. The editor Caio Graco Prado – son of the historian Caio Prado Jr – conceived the idea of making the colour for the campaign yellow. The idea caught on. People took to the streets wearing yellow T-shirts. Journalists from TV Globo arrived at work sporting bright yellow ties in protest at the television station’s official policy of ignoring the mass rallies. The artist Alex Chacon created the Direct Elections Dragon, made out of bamboo, printed cotton and papier maché and operated by nine people who danced in a zigzag pattern along the streets. Before the Direct Elections campaign, the directors of the Globo television network had believed that anything that they did not show on the news simply did not exist. The campaign woke them up to reality and they started to cover it. But neither TV Globo nor the opposition parties, not even Ulysses Guimarães – who had earned the nickname Sr Diretas – had any idea of the avalanche they had triggered. The first rally, in Belo Horizonte’s Praça Rio Branco, was attended by 300,000 protesters. During the second rally, in Rio de Janeiro, a million people descended on Candelária.65 And in the last rally, which took place in São Paulo, the crowd was estimated at one and a half million people.
An array of opposition leaders appeared on the stage of these rallies: Ulysses Guimarães, Leonel Brizola, Lula, Tancredo Neves, Fernando Henrique Cardoso66 and Franco Montoro.67 The crowds were in a state of euphoria. Many of Brazil’s leading intellectuals and artists made public their support, including Antonio Candido, Lygia Fagundes Telles and Celso Furtado, Chico Buarque, Maria Bethânia, Paulinho da Viola, Juca de Oliveira and Fafá de Belém, Fernanda Montenegro. Football players such as Sócrates and Reinaldo showed the public that they too supported the direct elections. The backing of these public figures was decisive in diffusing the ideals of a democratic project. The success of the campaign generated widespread optimism. People began to believe it could be victorious.
But however much credibility the government had lost, the armed forces remained determined not to allow any change in the rules. The Dante de Oliveira Amendment was put to the vote in the early hours of 26 April 1984. The atmosphere in Congress was one of apprehension. President Figueiredo had decreed a state of emergency in ten cities in the state of Goiás, and Brasília was surrounded by troops, 6,000 army soldiers occupied the Monumental Axis,68 and Congress was surrounded by troops from the Planalto Military Command. Although the amendment received more votes for it than against, it failed to receive the required two-thirds majority. There were 298 votes in favour, 63 against and 3 abstentions. A total of 113 deputies were absent. The amendment only needed another 22 votes to pass. The government party deputies had vetoed a political transition that they could no longer control.
STARTING TO PLAY THE DEMOCRATIC GAME (BUT WITH SOME DIFFICULTIES)
During the vote count, a huge election panel was erected to display the votes for and against the amendment. When it failed to pass, there was tremendous disappointment and frustration. If it had passed, Ulysses Guimarães would have been the opposition candidate for president. As a candidate he would have been virtually unbeatable. He had a popular base and was in a strong position to refashion the country’s political power structure. But in an indirect election he had little chance of winning. The Brazilian Democratic Movement decided it would participate in the elections, despite the fact that the next president was to be chosen by an electoral college. It chose the governor of Minas Gerais, Tancredo Neves, as its candidate.
Initially Ulysses Guimarães refused to accept the defeat of the Dante de Oliveira Amendment and wanted public pressure on the government to be maintained, forcing a second vote in Congress. But Tancredo Neves, who was determined to be a candidate whatever form the election took, thought differently. He thwarted the direct vote movement on more that one occasion. In April 1984, the day before the vote on the amendment, all the parties had agreed that if it failed to pass they would join forces to find an alternative solution. Tancredo Neves called a press conference at which he announced that he would be happy to take the lead in negotiating with the military government, if, as a result, the generals agreed to receive a delegation from the Brazilian Democratic Movement.69
Compared to Ulysses Guimarães, who never missed an opportunity to needle the government, Mr Neves must have seemed like a relatively palatable candidate to President Figueiredo and his supporters. Nevertheless, to do him justice, he was a moderate politician who, since 1964, had been consistent in his opposition to the dictatorship. He had not had his mandate annulled nor had he been deprived of his political rights. He proved to be an astute and experienced leader of the opposition, having been elected federal deputy from Minas Gerais in the 1960s and 1970s, senator in 1978 and state governor in 1982. He had been in politics for fifty-one years – his first elected post was as a town councillor for São João del-Rei. Moreover, he had an impeccable curriculum vitae: Minister of Justice in the last Vargas government and prime minister during the parliamentary government of João Goulart. He was always loyal to those who had helped him in his political career.70 And he was a master in the art of politics in the Minas Gerais style. He was a skilled negotiator who knew exactly when to come out of the shadows and seize an opportunity.
It is difficult to know whether Tancredo Neves foresaw the amendment would not pass, or whether he was playing a balancing act: concealing his agenda, to be named the opposition candidate, while actively engaging in the rallies and planning his next move. But one thing is certain: he knew that if he were to be the compromise candidate, he would be successful. He must have calculated that the 298 votes in favour of the amendment were a clear indication the opposition could achieve a majority; moreover, the vote revealed the government party was no longer united, and the dissent could be worsening. Thus, he concentrated on winning the election in the electoral college, and to this end he set about getting the support of deputies from the Democratic Social Party (PDS) in an attempt to upset the government’s parliamentary base and establish his own channel for negotiations with the military.71 The circumstances were in his favour. First, General Figueiredo was trying to find some means to extend his term of office and had rejected all the potential candidates suggested by the Democratic Social Party. Second, there was no candidate capable of uniting the government suppo
rters. Internal feuds were tearing the Democratic Social Party apart. Third, the candidate they finally chose, Paulo Maluf, was a disaster. Mr Maluf was a product of the dictatorship: a voracious and reactionary politician who had become synonymous with corruption during his terms as mayor and governor of São Paulo, but who nevertheless had been elected federal deputy in 1983 with a record number of votes. He had his own method of making friends and convincing traditional politicians from the Democratic Social Party that he should be the next president of the Republic. He worked aggressively, one on one, to get each deputy’s vote. It was simple: he distributed gifts, pledged government posts, and made generous promises for the future.
Not everything went as Tancredo Neves would have wished, but he had calculated correctly that his chances of winning were greater than his chances of losing. He achieved what had previously seemed impossible, which was to reach an agreement with a faction of government supporters. He persuaded enough deputies to vote against their party to ensure his victory in the electoral college. As a result, in 1985 a group of deputies from the Democratic Social Party split away and founded the Popular Liberal Front (PFL). The Popular Liberal Front party was conservative, with an uncontrollable appetite for opportunism.72 Meanwhile, Tancredo Neves networked with important members of the military. He spoke directly with General Geisel, who was now in the Reserve, and was still greatly respected within the armed forces. And he announced publicly that his government would not question the armed forces, nor investigate the crimes that had been committed during the dictatorship. While welcoming the support of the dissident faction of the Democratic Social Party, Mr Tancredo built a broad-based political alliance among the opposition called the Democratic Alliance. This strong alliance included members of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the Democratic Labour Party, the Brazilian Labour Party, and even members of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB).73 He prudently introduced his programme as a change in government rather than a clean break with the political system. And the programme included three strategic points essential to the opposition in the re-democratization process: direct elections at federal, state and municipal levels; the summoning of a Constituent Assembly; and the promulgation of a new constitution. For vice-president, Mr Neves chose Senator José Sarney from Maranhão, who called a press conference and declared that he was resigning as president of the Democratic Social Party to join the Democratic Alliance. Tancredo Neves then adopted the slogan ‘Change Brazil’ and began to travel the country promoting his candidacy and accepting any support that came his way, from whatever quarter.
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