buritobr
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« on: May 30, 2013, 08:56:52 PM » |
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Brazil´s GPD per capita is 1/4 of the USA´s GDP per capita, its electoral system is different: the winner is the candidate who has the absolute majority of the popular vote. If in the first round no candidate reaches 50%, there is a runoff election between the two most votes candidates three weeks after. However, it is possible to establish some comparisons between American and Brazilian presidential elections. Both are continental countries with many inequalities among states, federative republics and both countries have high diversity of ethnic groups. Unlike the USA, Brazil had slavery in all its territory until the late 19th century. However, slavery was stronger in the Brazilian northeast. The south and the southeast watched during the late 19th century european immigration, free labor and industrialization. The Brazilian northeast can be compared to the American south: warmer, poorer, more rural, more social conservative. The Brazilian southeast and south can be compared to the American north: cooler, richer, more industrialized and more urban (Brazilian south and southeast are still poorer than American south). I gave some initial explanation in order to introduce the topic: the opposite directions of the electoral realignment in Brazil and in the USA. In the USA, even when the Democratic Party was more leftist than the Republican Party, democratic candidates like Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Carter were more strong in the south than in the north. Since 1988, however, (or 1992 or 2000), the democrats are stronger in the north and the republicans are stronger in the south - the poorest places of the country are more conservative than the richest places of the country. An opposite phenomenon happened. Traditionally, the poorest states in Brazil were electoral strongholds of the right. This alignment took place in the first democratic period in Brazil (1945-1964), in the right-wing military dictatorship (1964-1985), when the party that backed the regime was very strong in the north and in the northeast and in the first elections of the New Republic (1985-present). The presidential election of 1989, when the right-wing candidate Fernando Collor defeated Lula, showed a social and geographic division very similar to the republican-democratic division of the USA in the 2000s. The result of the Brazilian election in 1989 looked like the result of the US election in 2004. Collor defeated Lula by a narrow margin, but the electoral map was almost all blue because Collor was very strong in the rural areas specially in the north and in the northeast. There were only small red points in the map representing the majority held by Lula in many big cities. Only two states had a red area bigger than a blue area: Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro, in the south and in the southeast respectively. These states have income higher than the Brazilian average. After being defeated in 1994 and in 1998 by wider margin, Lula was elected for the first time in 2002, by a 61-39 margin against José Serra, the conservative opponent. He had 80% of the votes in Rio de Janeiro by tied to his opponent in the rural areas of the north and northeast. Everything changed in 2006, when Lula was reelected. During his first term, Lula lost some supporters in urban middle class because of the corruption scandals in which members of this Workers Party (PT) were involved. However, he gained the support of the poorest people in the poorest states in Brazil because he increased the minimum wage and because his program of income transfer was sucessful. So, the election of 2006 was a realigning election. Lula was the winner by the same margin 61-39 against Geraldo Alckmin, the conservative opponent. However, the geographic and the social composition of Lula's supporting based changed a lot. Lula had more than 4/5 of the votes in the rural areas of the north and the northeast, where he had fewer than 1/5 in 1989. Rio Grande do Sul was one the few states that voted for Lula in 1989 and voted against Lula in 2006. In the richest places in Brazil, Lula was the winner only in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Brasília. Lula lost in São Paulo and in the south. His sucessor Dilma Roussef was elected by a narrower margin in 2010 (56-44) against José Serra, but the division of Brazil in 2010 was the same of the division of 2006. The victory of Lula in 2006 and the victory of Dilma in 2010 can be compared to the victories of Franklin Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter. In all of these elections, the winner candidate had large support in the poor states of the country - including conservative voters - but had also support of the urban working classes in the rich states. So, both in Brazil and in the USA, the left moved to the north and the right moved to the south. But in Brazil, the left moved to the poor places of the country and in the USA, the left moved to tha rich places of the country.
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