Electorate hopes for a government that unites growth with inclusion, says professor

Leonardo Avritzer

Gabriel Manzano – O Estado de S. Paulo, 8/4/2014

For Avritzer, the challenge of the candidates for the Planalto is to show that they can better the economy without putting social achievements at risk.

The Brazilian electorate is communicating to the candidates for Presidency two clear messages: it wants growth, but without discontinuing the enlargement of social inclusion. “The candidate that convinces the voter that it will continue to stabilize the current (economic) crisis in a manner of greater inclusion and greater increase of the job market will most likely be the one who receives the greatest support,” notes the political scientist Leonardo Avritzer, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and president of the Brazilian Association of Political Scientists (ABCP).

His evaluation constitutes, in practice, a challenge for the three main candidates for the presidency. In short, President Dilma Rousseff (PT) valued inclusion but the country didn’t grow. Aécio Neves (PSDB) promises changes in the economy but his agenda for inclusion still is unclear. Eduardo Campos (PSB) speaks of reconciling the two halves but has not yet “sold” the message.

For this electoral scene, the impact of the economy on the polls and the social agenda are in the center of discussions of the 9^th National Congress of Political Scientists, promoted from today until Thursday, in Brasilia, by the association presided over by Avritzer. The event will bring together 1,100 people in more than 800 lectures and roundtable discussions. In a conversation with O Estado, it created an intersection of the themes of the campaign with those of the meeting, which will receive scholars from Argentina, Chile, and the USA, among others. Following are the main excerpts from the interview.

Brazilian president first woman to open round of UN General Assembly speeches

Mercopress, 09/20/2011

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff will become on Wednesday the first woman ever to open the round of speeches marking the beginning of the United Nations General Assembly, according to Brazilian sources.

“On the 21st, the President becomes the first woman since the foundation of the United Nations to address, with her speech, the opening of the General Assembly”, pointed out the Brazilian Foreign Affairs ministry.

President Rousseff’s activities in New York begin Monday at a special meeting on chronic diseases chaired by the former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet who is currently head of the Woman Office in the UN.

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Brazil’s ‘big tent’ politics

Rodrigo Nunes – The Guardian, 11/06/2010

In the 1970s, economist Edmar Bacha popularised the term “Belindia” as a description of Brazil: a little bit of Belgium and a lot of India, the country was very rich for some and very poor for most.

The self-image of the inhabitants of the Brazilian “Belgium” consists in seeing both sides of the coin without their necessary connection. For them, the true Brazil is theirs – white, well off, well educated. The lawless “India” outside the gates not only exists on its own account, without any causal relation with the wealth inside, but is also what drags the country down: were it not for the plebe, so the thinking goes, there would be only Belgium. The poverty of the poor is not the result of bad wealth distribution: on the contrary, they are to blame for their own poverty. And the country’s under-used potential has nothing to do with the systematic exclusion of the majority of the population from education, rights, income; it’s because of “these people” that the country lags behind.

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