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Part 11: First Reforms and 1962 Elections
1961 came and went without much worth of note, and those who hoped for a New Deal-esque string of groundbreaking new laws, reforms and government agencies all within a hundred days or less were left sorely disappointed. This did not mean, obviously, that the year was bereft of positive developments, quite the opposite: the army remained quiet and loyal, the minimum wage (which was kept artificially low for years despite massive increases in productivity and revenue) was gradually increased, directly improving the lives of millions of people in the process, and, finally, the end of police repression against the labour unions, which did the same, albeit indirectly. Years after his presidency, Brizola gave two reasons for his administration's "timidity" during its first year:
First was the lasting, even if lessened, presence of several conservatives in the Senate;
Second was the need to be completely sure that the reforms would not fail.
While the justification raises a few eyebrows to say the least since the upper house was presided by Pedro Ludovico Teixeira (one of the few supporters of Juscelino Kubitschek who didn't leave PSD), a sign that it wasn't as right-wing as it used to be, the second one is perfectly understandable since a failure would have disastrous consequences. Another, much more cynical explanation is that the federal government began to enact its most popular policies in 1962 because it happened to be an election year. Whatever cause the reader may choose, the Brizola administration became much, much more proactive from the beginning of its second year onward, signing law after law, project after project. The first big reform to be enacted was the implementation of the thirteenth salary, which was passed by both houses of Congress after months of debate and signed into law by the president in April 17, 1962.
The second reform, which is often overlooked but had consequences that were perhaps even larger than the first one, was the creation of the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast, or Sudene, on May 8, 1962 (1). A brainchild of Celso Furtado, the Minister of Finance, Sudene's purpose (in theory) was to serve as a vehicle through which the federal government could make large investments in the Brazilian Northeast, finally ending said region's chronic social and economic underdevelopment, without having to use the local coronéis as middlemen. Of course, it didn't take long for the new agency (and its counterparts in the North, Center-West and South) to become a cash cow that bestowed vast sums of money to states run by friendly governors while withholding said sums to those controlled by the opposition. Despite these issues, and the multiple corruption scandals that would plague the agency in the future, Sudene would play an important part in the implementation of the other Reformas de Base.
The next reforms to be put in place were the establishment of the Sistema Nacional de Saúde (National Health System) and the Lei de Diretrizes Básicas da Educação Nacional (Law of Basic Guidelines for National Education, or LDB for short), two ambitious acts which soon became some of the most important parts of the legacy left by the Brizola administration. The first law stipulated the formation of an unified system capable of providing healthcare to everyone who needed it regardless of their financial status, similar to the United Kingdom's National Health Service (2). The second one stipulated that the government had a duty to provide free and mandatory education to all Brazilian citizens, once again without taking their social position into account - a decades old demand of intellectuals such as Anísio Teixeira, the incumbent Minister of Education. It would take years for most of the population to feel the effects of these acts - many parts of Brazil, especially in the interior, didn't have any schools, hospitals or even running water and electric grids - but they would do so, eventually.
Anísio Teixeira was a lifelong defender of public education.
An element that is usually even more overlooked than the creation of the superintendencies was the role the governors (and mayors, to a lesser degree) played in ensuring the Reformas de Base were implemented in full instead of becoming a collection of half-measures and could-have-beens. Those among them who were progressives, like Franco Montoro (PDC - SP), Abilon de Souza Naves (PTB - PR), Abrahão Moura (PSP - AL) and Tancredo Neves (PSD - MG) were obviously interested in seeing the reforms succeed, since they supported its aims not only out of principle but because doing so would increase their popularity in their states' electorates (3). Those who were allied to groups opposed to the reforms risked their political careers by doing so, and would suffer the consequences in the upcoming gubernatorial races.
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Bahia was one of the many northeastern states still under the boot heel of oligarchic factions traditionally divided between PSD and UDN, but their grip over its politics was slipping, and fast. The incumbent governor, Juracy Magalhães (UDN), was a political titan who first ran the state from 1931 to 1937, and won a second, non-consecutive term in 1958 thanks to a split within PSD. Although in cahoots with the people who executed the 1960 coup attempt, he was subtle enough while doing so to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability, not that this would increase his popularity among the groups who were most energized by the reforms instituted by Rio de Janeiro.
These groups rallied behind Waldir Pires, a federal deputy who began his career as a member of the cabinet of Régis Pacheco, who served as governor from 1951 to 1955. One of the few northeastern members of PSD to support both of Juscelino Kubitschek's attempts to become president, Pires bolted the party and joined PTB in 1960 after the former governor's second candidacy was nipped in the bud by the party bosses. His name was floated as a potential Minister of Justice for the Brizola administration when the cabinet was in the process of being assembled, but he refused the post in order to focus all of his energies into campaigning to become the next governor of Bahia.
His main opponent was the two-time mayor of Jequié, Antônio Lomanto Júnior, who served as a state assemblyman in the four year gap between his mayoral terms and was surprisingly prominent nationally thanks to his persistent and vigorous defense of municipal autonomy. He was supported by UDN (though he belonged to a different party) and most of the interior, still full of powerful coronéis who were not at all excited about the possibility of someone completely opposed to their interests occupying the state's top executive position. Much more than a battle between two ideologies, the 1962 gubernatorial election was a dispute between the rural and urban halves of one of Brazil's largest states, a dispute that repeated itself in many other places.
Lomanto's margins in the interior, though impressive, weren't enough to offset Pires' crushing victory in Salvador and its suburbs. Power was gradually changing hands in Bahia, away from the semi-feudal oligarchs of old and toward a new ruling class - not always progressive - which drew its power from the state's growing urban centers, like Salvador, Feira de Santana, Vitória da Conquista and others.
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Results and Aftermath
Chamber of Deputies:
PTB: 132 seats (+48)
PSD: 76 seats (-27)
PR: 32 seats (+18)
UDN: 28 seats (-37)
PDC: 23 seats (+13)
Minor Parties (PSP, PSB, PST and so on): 118 seats
President: Fernando Ferrari (PTB-RS)
Senate (two thirds):
PSD: 17 seats
PTB: 17 seats
UDN: 7 seats
PDC: 3 seats
PSP: 1 seat
President: Pedro Ludovico Teixeira (PSD-GO)
All in all, the 1962 elections were, above all else, a referendum on the policies embarked by president Brizola after a year and a half in office, and the results suggested that most of the electorate not only approved of them, but in fact wanted more. PTB's massive gains in the Chamber of Deputies ensured that its presidency fell on the hands of Fernando Ferrari, a leading moderate who argued for closer relations with the Christian Democrats, whose caucus also increased by a fair amount thanks in no small part to Franco Montoro's prestige. PSD, which held a plurality in the lower house since the restoration of democracy in 1945, suffered some damage but not as much as could have, since the party still had a considerable amount of establishment weight despite its internal troubles. Its foundations were weak, however, and they would erode at an alarming speed as time went by (4).
UDN, meanwhile, was gutted, not only because of the incumbent administration's popularity, but because of the party's association with Carlos Lacerda and his attempt to overthrow Brazil's democracy. Most middle and upper class voters, which formed the backbone of the udenista base, defected en masse to the Republican Party (PR), whose caucus more than doubled in size as a result. It was a sign of what was to come, for while the once tiny newcomer would become Brazil's foremost right-wing party as the years passed, UDN would eventually fade into the background and then vanish completely.
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Notes:
(1) IOTL Sudene was created in 1959, during the Juscelino administration.
(2) IIRC Brazil only got an unified, public healthcare system in 1988.
(3) IOTL Souza Naves suddenly died before he could be elected, while Abrahão Moura and Tancredo Neves lost their respective gubernatorial races.
(4) The power of the coronéis who support PSD is on the decline, and other parties are encroaching on areas that were once their traditional stomping grounds.
