Consolidating civilian Brazil

Abstract

Political transitions, as changes from one type of regime to another, are inherently complicated. Not only are the individuals and possibly some organisations (the armed forces, political parties, groups and associations) which were formerly in power replaced by others, but the very format of the regime is also transformed as is its legitimacy and bases of support. In the contemporary phase of transitions from dictatorship to democracy in Southern Europe and South America surely no country is more complicated than Brazil. Between May 1984 and March 1985 the process initiated by the military government in 1974 as a controlled opening from above has broken its bounds and now promises to result in liberal democracy with a new constitution and direct presidential elections in 1988. Brazil's transition has been similar to Spain's inasmuch as the liberalisation was initiated by the government itself by granting civil and political rights to an emerging opposition, while at the same time retaining control of the timetable and extent of the political opening. This process is in contrast to the cases of Argentina, Greece and Portugal where defeat, or the prospect of defeat, in war resulted in the collapse of authoritarian regimes and the establishment of civilian democratic governments. Brazil's transition is, without a doubt, the longest in the current process, one which was begun by President Geisel in 1974 as a 'slow, gradual and sure' opening.1 The last ten years have been characterised by periods of progress in areas of amnesty, censorship, civil rights and political organisation, but only slight improvement or stagnation in citizens' rights and the prospects for a transfer of power. By means of a wide variety of special measurescasu[smos-the government maintained power even while allowing a regular schedule of elections. The opposition, mostly centred in the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), negotiated and participated in the political game as some link to power, however tenuous, was better than nothing at all.