Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s female leader was reelected as country’s President beating her arch-rival Aecio Neves in the tightest race in country’s history. The icon of Brazil’s poor and working class, Rousseff secured a hard-fought win over pro-business Neves promising not to abandon millions of low-income folks and challenging America’s global leadership.
Studio guest Sergei Utkin, head of Department of Strategic Assessment at the Center for Situation Analysis at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Zotin, observer of Dengi, Russia’s leading business weekly, Victor Heifitz, professor of St-Petersburg University, expert on Latin America, Georgy Toloraya, Executive Director of National Center for BRICS research, Russia, and Edgar Bellow, Professor of International Management at NEOMA Business School, France, expert on geopolitics and international affairs, shared their opinions with Radio VR.
Dilma Rousseff was reelected, did this come as a surprise to you?
Sergei Utkin: No, I don’t think it is a big surprise. She is still popular, as many other leftist leaders in Latin America. We can say that this is still a trend on the whole continent. We can expect this to change some time in the future, but still this will take years, because there are a lot of poor people living in the countries of the region, who think that the first and the foremost that the state has to do is to provide some social benefits to them. And this is the leftist agenda.
What challenges is Dilma Rousseff facing and what major battle is ahead of her?
Georgy Toloraya: The country is divided – poor people versus rich people. And this has to be resolved if Dilma wants to build on her powerbase. And for this the greatest challenge is economics. What kind of economic reforms she will follow and will she be able to do this, this is still an open question for me, although I'm not a specialist on Brazil, I'm doing the BRICS research. And what is important in terms of BRICS is that the course of cooperation of the BRICS countries will be continued.
Would you say that there is the rise of the left in Latin America and specifically in Brazil?
Victor Heifitz: Dilma Rousseff is exactly in the middle between the more socialist regimes of Venezuela and Argentine or Bolivia. She is in the middle because of the magnitude of the Brazilian economy. She cannot move too far to the left. She needs to keep the stronghold of the Brazilian economy. And as we know, Brazil now faces economic recession, less than 1% of growth of the GDP. She will not follow the path of Venezuela, she will still keep the left-centrist position.
To what extent do you think Brazil would be able to influence its neighbours?
Victor Heifitz: It will obviously influence the neighbouring countries. As the ex-American President Richard Nixon said – where Brazil is going, all the Latin America is going. As we know, in some weeks Uruguay will face the second round of elections. And Uruguay and Brazil are in dispute about the future of the South-American common market. Uruguay’s opposition has already declared that they would change the place in Mercosur to the Pacific Alliance.
And also the Brazilian elections will impact on the Argentinean elections, where, I suppose, in the next year the Government will not gain power once more, because the economic model of Argentine was a disaster. So, if Dilma Rousseff in her second presidential term would prove that she can keep the economic growth of Brazil, it will be a clear sign for the neighbours that the centrist economic policy gives more success than the socialist policy of Venezuela or Argentine.
What do you think of the Brazilian model for the rest of the Latin America?
Edgar Bellow: The last three administrations show the kind of public policy, especially on the economic level. 40 million of Brazilians coming from the poor classes have access to the middle class privileges, for example, which we can say is a kind of model today. But we call this a consumption class. Another privilege which was allowed by the last administration is the foreign investment. The last Government has somehow neglected the domestic investment, which we see in the weakness of the public service, like transportation, education and health infrastructure.
We’ve seen the clashes that happened last June just before the World Cup. Many parts of the population protested against Dilma Rousseff administration. Brazil lost the World Cup and the Brazilian economy immediately entered the recession and today in the controlled inflation, also. And I will not say that Brazil demonstrates a model, but anyway I see the positive aspects.
Aecio Neves has lost the election, does this mean that business investors in Brazil have missed out because of Dilma Rousseff’s reelection or is she actually going to offer something for them as well?
Alexander Zotin: I think these elections were a very Latin American story. On the one side, we have the leftist-communist-populist candidate and, on the other side, we have pro-business-oligarchic-aristocratic candidate. It is very typical for Latin America, because of the inequality. It was the choice between the economic growth and redistribution. For example, in the case of Europe, the US people prefer economic growth, because the structure of the society is more equal and more egalitarian. But in the case of Latin America we have a very high level of inequality. And in this case people prefer redistribution, because the poor frequently cannot profit from the economic growth. The population is very-very poor and only the rich will profit from the economic growth.
What do you think about the relations with the US?
Alexander Zotin: I think the relations with the US are very important for Brazil, of course. The US is the second trade partner of Brazil. But I think what is even more important for Brazil is the situation with the slowing economy in China, because the main trade partner is China. And if we look at the structure of the Brazilian export, on the first position is iron ore, on the second position is oil, on the third position are soy beans and then commodities like the frozen and fresh meat. So, it is commodities oriented export.
The first position – iron ore – is the future of construction in China and this construction is slowing rapidly because of the Chinese construction bubble and slowing up of the economy. So, the prices of iron ore are moving more rapidly than of oil. We know about the oil prices, but the price of iron ore is even more important for Brazil. And I think Rousseff will encounter very big economic problems. The ongoing recession is somehow dictated by politics, but also it is an external influence of China.
