Brizola 1989

[nagachate]

Leonel de Moura Brizola was the PDT's presidential candidate in the brazilian 1989 elections, governor of Rio Grande do Sul in the 50s, and of Rio de Janeiro in the 80s, Brizola is one of the best "could have been" presidents.

In 1989, he narrowly didn't made it to the second turn, with Luís Inácio 'Lula' getting second place by less than 1%. So, what if this 1% went to Brizola instead of Lula?
If he wins the second turn, how would Brizola's goverment be? How would he deal with the inflation? Brizola certainly was no fool despite his populist rethoric and could very well reach a compromise analogue to OTL Plano Real(he tried to ally PMDB's Orestes Quercia in 1994, before settling as Lula's VP), and on top of that, if his goverment is successiful, would he try to instate the reelection amendment? Maybe elect his VP in 1994 and then run again in 1998.

 

[nagachate]

@Caio79 should i tag someone?

 

[nagachate]

The second turn would probably be just as polarized as OTL, with Collor presenting himself as a young and refined figure, and painting Leonel as an old, senile man with antiquated statist ideas and a dangerous inflamated rethoric.
Another matter is his relation with Lula, the PT and PDT had very tense relations through the 80s, sidelined during the PT-PDT-PSDB alliance against Collor. If they saw it as a positive opportunity they could leave Brizola's coalition to destabilize his goverment and favor themselves in the long run, as done during OTL Itamar's presidency.

 

[tonycat77]

Lula's plan also involved freezing bank accounts, i doubt Brizola would be much better than either Lula or Collor.
Long term i think Brazil would be worse overall,especially with no liberalization of the economy and the restrictions on imports that ended during Collor's time and a lot of young politicians who started their path on the impeachment protests in 92 would be butterflied away.
I don't see a populist goverment doing well until the mid 2000s commodities boom caused by a growing china.

 

[nagachate]

Lula's plan also involved freezing bank accounts, i doubt Brizola would be much better than either Lula or Collor.
Long term i think Brazil would be worse overall,especially with no liberalization of the economy and the restrictions on imports that ended during Collor's time and a lot of young politicians who started their path on the impeachment protests in 92 would be butterflied away.
I don't see a populist goverment doing well until the mid 2000s commodities boom caused by a growing china.

I wouldn't be too sure, Brizola was a huge opponent of the Plano Cruzado, i've tried to search for the PDT's goverment plan for 1989 but only found this(from 1994):
The PDT wants to "stanch" the transfer of national capital abroad. The external debt would be renegotiated at fixed interest and would be assumed as an average value between the nominal value (currently around US$135 billion) and the value recognized in the secondary market (which could cause a reduction of up to 50%). The payment of debt installments would be linked to economic growth.
The PDT proposes an audit for domestic debt. The debt papers would be mandatorily exchanged for others with a long-term maturity (from 15 years, according to the document).
The program proposes the monetization of the domestic debt (payment with printed money) accompanied by the creation of a new currency ("the conversion of savings in favorable terms guaranteed") and the imposition of strict monetary controls. This proposal would allow the government to negotiate in a favorable position the redemption of public bonds, since the program allows for "partial non-payment of the debt, guaranteeing savings".
The PDT plans to reduce federal taxes to four. Regarding agrarian reform, the project provides land for 20 million people with settlement in communities in areas adjacent to local roads.
While i think that an opening would happen, it would probably be slow, "careful" to his supporters and "sluggish" to his opponents.
PS: sorry that the bold part was translated with google, i really didn't felt like doing it myself.

 

[Caio79]

@Caio79 should i tag someone?

Yes, i think

 

[tonycat77]

I wouldn't be too sure, Brizola was a huge opponent of the Plano Cruzado, i've tried to search for the PDT's goverment plan for 1989 but only found this(from 1994):
The PDT wants to "stanch" the transfer of national capital abroad. The external debt would be renegotiated at fixed interest and would be assumed as an average value between the nominal value (currently around US$135 billion) and the value recognized in the secondary market (which could cause a reduction of up to 50%). The payment of debt installments would be linked to economic growth.
The PDT proposes an audit for domestic debt. The debt papers would be mandatorily exchanged for others with a long-term maturity (from 15 years, according to the document).
The program proposes the monetization of the domestic debt (payment with printed money) accompanied by the creation of a new currency ("the conversion of savings in favorable terms guaranteed") and the imposition of strict monetary controls. This proposal would allow the government to negotiate in a favorable position the redemption of public bonds, since the program allows for "partial non-payment of the debt, guaranteeing savings".
The PDT plans to reduce federal taxes to four. Regarding agrarian reform, the project provides land for 20 million people with settlement in communities in areas adjacent to local roads.
While i think that an opening would happen, it would probably be slow, "careful" to his supporters and "sluggish" to his opponents.
PS: sorry that the bold part was translated with google, i really didn't felt like doing it myself.

Don't worry for me at least, since i'm Brazilian.
Sounds great on paper, however it seems impossible to accomplish on congress much of this program, i'd also expect our credit ratings to drop a lot, since we're basically pulling a argentina in trying to renegotiate foreign debt.
Domestic debt sounds like a judicial quagmire that we would still be paying for in the 2000s like the lawsuits against collor's asset freezes.
Same of agrarian reform, but it could be done, not during his term of course.

Any delay in opening for imports would reduce productivity and make any industry completely obsolete, we were using mostly carburated cars with not more than 2.0 liters, using chassis and designs from the mids 70s into the early 90s, we still had things like fiat 147s and beetles long after they were discontinued in europe, Embraer would never had the success it had without access to better computers for CAD work, we were still using unreliable 8bit MSX computers in very low numbers by that time, while Windows 3.1 was just around the corner.