Ciro's Last Stand: Implications for Brazilian Democracy

Ciro Gomes is running in his fourth presidential race and is poised to lose again. Ciro is an accomplished politician, a policy wonk and an effective public administrator who has often contributed to policy debates as a candidate over the years. From time to time, he enjoys a public political scuffle, always smiling as if to remind everyone that democracy should be enjoyed, not suffered. However, something happened to Ciro in October 2018 that would stain his democratic credentials and blast him toward a political orbit far removed from the threats to democracy and social welfare posed by incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

After two presidential races (1998 and 2002) and six political parties, Ciro finally landed with the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) in 2015. The PDT was founded in 1979 by the social democratic firebrand Leonel Brizola, a prominent opponent of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), presidential candidate (1989 and 1994) and Lula's 1998 vice-presidential running mate. Brizola went on to support Ciro's 2002 candidacy under the banner of the Socialist People's Party (PPS - Brazil's former Moscow-leaning Communist Party), eventually paving the way for Ciro's membership in the PDT years later.

Under Lula's first administration (2003-2006), Ciro served as minister of national integration and held on to his post despite the PPS's decision to leave the governing coalition in December 2004. In 2006, he ran successfully for federal deputy from his home state of Ceará. In 2010, Ciro angled for Lula's support for a third presidential run, but the latter chose to endorse Dilma Rousseff - former mines and energy minister and chief of staff - as the Workers Party (PT) standard bearer in the presidential election. Of course, Ciro was disappointed, believing he would be a shoo-in for the presidency with the popular incumbent's embrace. Did Ciro hold a grudge? Probably not, since he deferred to Lula in 2017, pledging that he would not run in 2018 if the former president was allowed amid the Lava Jato prosecutions. Lula was jailed, and Ciro ran.

Ciro's 2018 campaign was promising, while Lula was falsely convicted of corruption and imprisoned by former Federal Judge and Minister of Justice Sergio Moro. The PDT's candidate had to contend with the candidacies of the disruptive and social-media-driven Federal Deputy Jair Bolsonaro and Lula's favored son, Fernando Haddad, who inherited the PT's sidetracked presidential campaign in September 2018 days after Bolsonaro was stabbed in Juiz de Foro. Ciro called on Katia Abreu, senator from Tocantins and former minister of agriculture under Dilma, to try to forge a third way to surpass Bolsonaro and Haddad. Ciro polled well in the weeks before the first round balloting but trailed the frontrunners in the final tally, obtaining only 12.47% and finishing a distant third. Despite his loss, his party lifted its representation in the Chamber of Deputies from 19 to 28 seats, an impressive gain considering Brazil's highly fragmented party system.

In the immediate aftermath, Ciro did not cut his losses and throw his personal support behind Haddad in exchange for a ministerial post (for himself or his party) or high-level policymaking influence. Instead, Ciro went to Paris,?pledging his opposition ?to the future government of both second-round candidates. After losing his fourth presidential race, Ciro retorted that "Brazil needs to disarm the ticking time bomb of hate… that destroys the economy and aggravates the social condition of the population."

The 2022 elections are Ciro's last stand. All preliminary evidence indicates that he will fall short of his 2018 performance, likely obtaining 6-7% of the valid votes in the first round. Moreover, his party, the PDT, is likely to lose seats because its candidates cannot campaign with either Bolsonaro or Lula (most want to make public appearances with Lula to bolster their election chances). Most importantly, Ciro has the cards to guarantee that Lula wins in the first round, elevating his possible influence in a presumptive administration, but has decided to go it alone despite the odds.

Ciro will lose, and so will Brazil. Ciro's 2022 campaign looks like Marina Silva's 2010 presidential run with the Green Party (PV). Like Marina and the PV in 2010, Ciro's PDT will lose representation because of his losing campaign and all the political oxygen and financial resources it will exhaust. Both Ciro and Marina, as presidential election losers, failed to pick up the pieces and reconstitute a formidable force within a winning (and subsequently) governing coalition. Rather than aggregate, they disassembled constructive tissue of Brazil's body politic.

Ciro is too smart and young to move to Paris permanently. Still, his decision to try to prevent Lula's first-round victory this year will forever cast him as a spoiler, an egoist and a failed political leader who refused to negotiate the PDT's political capital for a bigger stake in Brazilian democracy. Bolsonaro's followers will likely want to see Jair at the head of their ticket in 2026 (should he lose or win and then remove the constitutional bar to his prospective re-election). Lula's followers will never forgive Ciro for his last stand.?

Brazilian democracy needs people like Ciro, capable policymakers and public administrators. However, at this critical juncture, amid Bolsonaro's not-so-veiled threats to the constitutional order, Brazil needs Ciro to throw his support toward the only frontrunner capable of winning at the polls and guaranteeing democracy for another four years. Don't hold your breath; he won't, and Brazilian democracy will suffer.