Brazil: Out of the Past

“Jusceli-no! Jusceli-no!” chanted a handkerchief-waving throng of 3,000 at Rio’s Galeão international airport. Then from the doorway of an Air France 707 came the man, still trim and agile despite his 63 years, his face split in a toothful smile, his right arm swinging in a familiar jaunty wave. Brazil’s former President Juscelino Kubitschek—still admired by the people but loathed as a symbol of corruption by the present revolutionary government—had returned home after 16 months of self-imposed exile. Said he: “I have come back at zero hour.”

Almost Unbearable. The moment that Kubitschek chose to return was precisely when the government was engaged in its first test of popularity since Brazil’s military seized power early last year. The day before he arrived, 9,000,000 Brazilians in eleven of the country’s 22 states had gone to the polls to vote for new Governors. In those elections, the government discovered that it had failed to win substantial popular support in spite—or because—of all its tough efforts to root out Communism and corruption. The big winner was the P.S.D. Party of Kubitschek, who from 1956 to 1961 gave the country a strong surge of development accompanied by dizzying inflation, economic upheaval and graft.

His successors have not even given Brazil development. First, the erratic Jànio Quadros let Brazil’s boom falter, then resigned in a fit of pique. Next came the leftist João Goulart, who only compounded the troubles until the military stepped in, grimly determined to sweep out all the old politicians.

The new regime stripped Kubitschek of his political rights for ten years, but his party was allowed to campaign, spurred on by his behind-the-scene direction from Paris. Its victory constituted an almost unbearable provocation for Brazil’s military. At one point last week, army units went on combat alert across the country, and in front of the War Ministry in Brasilia appeared a quickly scrawled sign: THEY SHALL NOT RETURN!

Actually, in seven of the nine small states, candidates favorable to the military regime won. The upset came in two major states. In Minas Gerais, Kubitschek’s home state, his P.S.D. man led the candidate identified with the revolution by 200,000, with 1,500,000 votes counted and another 1,000,000 to go. In Guanabara (Rio), the outcome was even more striking. The state has been considered a private fief of Governor Carlos Lacerda, the mercurial politician who has proved a gadfly to every Brazilian President since Getulio Vargas in the 1950s. Lacerda now has presidential ambitions of his own in the elections scheduled for next year. But to have a chance, he first had to secure his base by installing a hand-picked successor as Governor of Guanabara. La cerda chose a presentable crony, campaigned furiously for him. Nevertheless, Kubitschek’s candidate defeated him at the polls—527,184 votes to 437,075.

Tightening the Grip. As the impact of the elections sank in, the military mutterings grew so loud that President Castello Branco was forced into a move that would only make his government even more unpopular. In return for not interfering with the results, the stern linha dura (hard line) officers won the promise that Castello Branco would send new proposals to Congress tightening the revolution’s hold on the country through military courts and police. Most important, the military wants to change next year’s presidential elections from direct balloting by the people to indirect balloting by Congress—which would almost certainly ensure the election of a pro-government candidate.

Whether Castello Branco will actually send such proposals to Congress, and whether Congress can be pressured into passing them, remains to be seen. What is clear is that Juscelino Kubitschek, the man who built the new inland capital of Brasilia and thrilled the country with a thousand other dreams, has re-emerged as the major political force in Brazil.