Lulism: the Evolution of a Political Phenomenon

The year began with the anticipation of the world crisis. Already 70% of North-Americans were living in a scenario of recession. The crisis in the United States was taking place throughout the first semester of the year. It was also affecting relatively less the economies of Brazil and China, two of the BRIC countries, the four emerging powers: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The federal budget for 2008 was approved in the month of March, by the National Congress. At the beginning of January, the federal government announced the increase of taxes over the financial system, in 10 billion reais, through the increase of the Financial Operations Taxes, FOT, in the percentage of 0,38%. The FOT affected all operations with exchange rates and insurances, such as lending money to people physically or through operations. Also, the government promised to cut spending by 20 billion reais. In the weeks that followed, not everything that was announced in the first week of the year was accomplished. The federal government was preoccupied with the increase of importations with respect to the progressive increase in value of the real. In effect, at the beginning of the year a surplus of 40 billion reais for the commercial balance was announced, for the period of 2007 in relation to 2006.
On a different political note, the federal government stated a widening of the program Bolsa Familia, through a provision measure: a bonus of 30 reais for families with children of 16 and 17 years of age. In the last week of January, the Ministry of Development announced 41 billion reais reserved from the 2007 budget, to be allocated for the Accelerated Development Plan. This resource generated much debate among parliamentarians, both governing and of the opposition.
This was the scenario built by the federal government, albeit in the first days of the year, to consolidate Lula’s era. It was not about an oratory figure. Lula strengthened managing at the federal level the biggest coalition in the history of 36 Brazil. Outside this coalition, were the parties PSTU and PSOL, with little political representation, and DEM, PPS, PV and PSDB. Lula’s government severely attacked the base of the party DEM.
The policies for the budget were directly tied to the management plan of a strong political power. The research conducted by the IBGE indicated that the social programs arrived to 10 million Brazilian families, 18,3% of the total. Income increased, as well as the consumption of appliances. The purchase of telephones, for the population receiving subsidies from the federal income programs, increased from 34% to 51%, in two years. The purchase of refrigerators increased from 72% to 77%, in the same period; and washing machines increased from 7% to 10%, as well as personal computers. It is true that among the population with a per capita income of one quarter the minimum wage, living in extremely poor conditions, 1,8 million families in 2008 were still not receiving any financial aid. There also is a great deficit in the infrastructures for the families that do receive the federal aid: a little less than 30% of the families that receive aid, do not have access to drinkable water, 54% are not attended by an adequate health care and 30% are not attended for the pick up and dispersal of garbage.
Over the vicious circle that the aid programs were blamed of stimulating, the data of the IBGE confirmed the dependency of the less well-off sections of society in relation to the general wellbeing. In 2004, 52% of the population that was aided by the programs said to have a functional job. In 2006 this index continued on the same track. Worth noticing that for those families that do not receive aid benefits as federal income, the occupational index rose from 57% to 60%. The selective character of the program Bolsa Familia had always represented a taboo for the federal government to resolve, holding as data that only 75 thousand families positively were able to exit the program. As was hoped for, the families that received aid were younger in age, the population up to 17 years represented 46% of the receivers, and considering that the same age bracket on a national scale represents only 31% of the population. In political terms, this meant that this section of population was growing under the protection of the income programs under the Lulism coordination.