—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília, Brazil
It is not simple to characterize the phenomenon of mass protests and their outcomes. In particular, the connection between a protest and subsequent political or regime changes has been much
—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília, Brazil
It is not simple to characterize the phenomenon of mass protests and their outcomes. In particular, the connection between a protest and subsequent political or regime changes has been much discussed by scholars of constitutional law. The links, however, are not always obvious. Paradoxically history has shown that after mass protests, subsequent elections tend to yield a conservative backlash rather than the fruition of the social catharsis. In 1968 de Gaulle and his right-wing coalition won a landslide victory in the French Parliament after the famous demonstrations that May. More recently in 2011 Spain underwent a right wing takeover of its Parliament despite thousands of students protesting against the economic crisis. Brazil is no exception. Right on the heels of the demonstrations in June of 2013, the country now seems to be headed towards conservatism, based on the most recent congressional elections. This paradox, whereby popular uprisings demand a new future but the traditional machinations of politics cling to the past, raises the question: Why do social catharses and subsequent elections always seem to move in opposite directions?
During the Confederations Cup in June of 2013, thousands of protesters stormed many of the largest cities in Brazil. From the streets of cities like São Paulo, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, and Rio de Janeiro to the roof of Congress in Brasília, the protests included people from all different societal strata and with widely varying demands. The demonstrations had nominally begun from raising bus fares, but quickly exploded to include a wide variety of agendas in which all different sorts of social, economic, and political issues were raised, including conflicting ones. Calls for social justice and rights for historically oppressed groups stood right next door to calls for banning gay marriage, preserving the ban on abortion or drugs, condemning the quota system in Brazilian universities, or advocating for harsher criminal punishments.
Under the spotlight of international press and the events of the Cup, the protests lost their focus. Their demands went from specific issues to generalities, such as putting an end to corruption, or decrying inflation, or the poor allocation of public funds, or the privatization of government services. “Brazil now seems to be pivoting toward a new phase of interaction between demonstrators and political leaders with its wave of protests,” claimed the New York Times, yet despite this bold claim the protests proved ineffective. Although some political leaders did respond to the protests, no lasting “phase of interaction” ever developed.
Reacting to the protests, for example, President Dilma Roussef proposed a risky change to Brazil’s constitutional amendment procedure for the purpose of promoting political reform. By simplifying the rigid amendment rules and creating a “fast track” for political reform, she was trying to respond to the spirit of the protest. Her proposal, nevertheless, proved unsuccessful. Altering a constitutional structure is never easy, and in particular the stability and successes of the Brazilian democratization made it even harder to argue for the necessity of the new procedures. Indeed, there was an intense backlash from many constitutionals scholars to the proposed change. The proposed “exclusive constituent assembly” never materialized. Ultimately, as the protests died down no lasting structural changes had occurred – as should be little surprise, since politicians have a wedded interest in the status quo. The predicted “new phase of interaction” never came to be. Alfredo Saad-Filho lamented that “it is disappointing, but also sobering, to conclude that Brazil is not going through a revolutionary crisis, and that the current political mobilizations are unlikely to trigger one.” The importance of these events notwithstanding, they failed to “shift the political balance in the country,” at least not in the intended fashion.
Brazil utilizes a two stage election process every four years. The president, state governors, senators, and federal and state representatives are all chosen at this time. The first round occurred October 5, during which the senators, federal and state representatives, and thirteen of the twenty-seven state governors were elected. The office of the president and any state governors are contested in the second round, on October 26, if no candidate reaches a majority in the first round, as was the case for the presidency and fourteen governors. As has become typical in Brazilian politics, the choices were largely polarized between two coalitions. The center-left coalition was led by the Worker’s Party (PT), which has been in power since the rise of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2003. The Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) headed up the center-right coalition, whose last president was Fernando Henrique Cardoso, elected in 1994.
With regards to the Brazilian Congress, at least, the movements of June 2013 failed to bear fruit despite what was predicted by journalists, experts, and scholars worldwide. Instead of the anticipated “new phase of interaction between demonstrators and political leaders,” that might spur valuable debates over political renewal and the expansion of social rights, the conservative right saw an increase to their power and influence. The religious, military, rural, and other typically conservati