The indirect election for the Presidency of the Republic turns 40 next Wednesday (15) as a kind of reminder for defenders of democracy. The Minas Gerais politician’s appeal for the civilizing forces not to disperse is still seen today as a current speech.
The Electoral College vote that in 1985 chose Tancredo to be the first civilian president after 21 years went down in history as a milestone in Brazil’s redemocratization. It symbolized the hope of the end of the leaden years and the triumph of the democratic rule of law.
In practice, the paths were more tortuous — before and after the election in which deputies gave 480 votes to the candidate of the then PMDB against (PDS), the favorite of 180 of the voters.
The indirect election only occurred because, despite being successful in national mobilization, failed in the central objective of winning direct elections. The Dante de Oliveira Amendment, which provided for the return of the model, was defeated in 1984 in Congress.
A possible solution within a series of behind-the-scenes agreements between politicians and the military, the indirect vote did not end the issue. Tancredo was hospitalized on the eve of his inauguration, in March 1985 — and would die on April 21 of that year, leading his vice president to take over as president.
“Sarney fulfilled what Tancredo had agreed towards a negotiated transition that would lead to the end of “, says Airton Soares, a former deputy who voted for Tancredo and was therefore threatened with expulsion by his party at the time, which took over the Diretas flag and delegitimized the indirect election.
Soares and two other PT members who voted for Minas Gerais (Bete Mendes and José Eudes), contrary to the absence guideline, ended up anticipating exclusion and left the party. “I don’t regret it. I contributed to the country in some way with my vote”, says the former parliamentarian and lawyer.
Therefore, saying that the dictatorship was buried once and for all is an exaggeration, not only from the perspective of Soares, but also from other characters and observers of the Brazilian political situation.
“We have now gone through an attempted coup”, says the former deputy about the plot in the government (PL) to contest the result of the 2022 election and prevent the inauguration of the president (PT).
“Instability still affects the military”, says Soares, for whom “the coup impetus” on the part of the officers is currently under control, but requires permanent attention.
In his famous victory speech, when citing different contributions to the stages of democratic transition, Tancredo praised the Armed Forces for “the decision to remain aloof from the political process, respecting its developments until the alternative of power”.
The president-elect also said that “never has the country depended so much on political activity” and that Brazilian society expressed in Diretas rallies that it was “tired of arbitrariness”. He saw the need to institutionalize the State and approve a government, which would be done in 1988.
“Let’s not disperse. Let’s continue to gather, as in public squares, with the same emotion, the same dignity and the same decision”, urged Tancredo, in a cry for civic unity against authoritarianism.
Democratic surveillance was activated again during the Bolsonaro government in light of the politicization of the Armed Forces and the risk of rupture. were considered a buffer.
The work of the (network with more than 200 entities), the Arns Human Rights Commission, the Rights Já! and from business and political sectors, alongside initiatives such as the two, are cited as examples of this mobilization. Representatives say the worst is over, but that .
The Pact launched this month, when , a document that proposes 38 actions for , such as depoliticization of security forces and defense of the electoral system.
“Elections happen on one day, but democracy happens on every other day”, says , researcher at Cebrap’s Law and Democracy Center. For her, the preservation of the regime “depends on a daily effort by the forces united around it”.
The political scientist says that democracy in Brazil “going through hard times” is nothing new. “So much so that he couldn’t even take it on and shortly afterwards, in 1992, we had two fire tests for the system within a short interval”, she recalls.
According to , 69% of Brazilians prefer democracy as a form of government, a rate below that recorded in October 2022, when 79% gave this answer, at the peak of the historical series that began in 1989.
Today, 8% consider that a dictatorial regime is acceptable under certain circumstances and 52% see no chance of Brazil becoming a dictatorship. The survey also showed that 68% believe there was a risk of a coup after Bolsonaro’s defeat to Lula.
For Marina, the discovery of what she calls “traps” to prevent the elected government from taking office reinforces the concern, since “the relationship between civil power and the military remains a critical point” and the country has faced “four years of attempt to destroy” the democratic fabric.
But there are reasons to celebrate 40 years of democracy, ponders the researcher. “We have to recognize the progress since Tancredo’s election and celebrate, because a democracy will never be perfect. It is a process, it is a construction that never ends.”
