The intimate collaboration between "social movements" (particularly the MST) with the PT government, and vice versa, has led to one of the most important and grave denunciations ever to be published by the press.
In an article in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo titled "O Plano R" [The R Plan], Denis Lerrer Rosenfield, professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and a former PT member, shows that a concerted plan is being implemented by the PT government and MST, the leading "social movement."
According to Mr. Rosenfield, the tandem tactic is nothing new, as it was used by communist parties in many countries to seize power.
He affirms that Lula would never have won the elections if he had shown an intention to subvert democracy.
However, once the elections were over, the government began to show the profound affinities between the president in power (and his party) and the MST.
"It seems, however, that we have now entered a new phase in this process, in which MST no longer needs to play the election games of distancing itself from the government while acting in concert with it. The distancing, albeit cosmetic, is manifested by disobedience to democratic rules. We have seen an increase in 'pre-revolutionary' actions that grow in intensity and pick different targets. . . .
The working in concert with the PT takes place through tolerance - rather than encouragement - of these revolutionary actions" (7/28/2003).
The Lula da Silva government thus deepens yet more the profound ambiguity that has characterized it from the beginning: while repeatedly affirming it no longer adheres to many theories and practices of the left, its ideology and praxis remain basically unaltered.
In an interview given in Caracas alongside Hugo Chavez, Lula went to the point of saying that he never liked to be labeled as a leftist.
Many commentators took that statement with a rather large grain of salt. They pointed out that Lula and Chavez - old buddies of Fidel Castro - actually are the left in South America, as they try to create an alternative to the so-called neoconservative model.
An editorial in the Folha de S. Paulo noted that Lula has had a leftist career influenced by the kind of politicized Catholicism that strongly marked the PT - a clear allusion to Liberation Theology, so influential in Lula's career and in the present administration.***
From a specially prepared classroom at Miraflores Palace, the former paratrooper and schoolteacher's son lectured teen-age and adult students from an impoverished Caracas neighborhood on the importance of reading and writing.
"Reading helps us to interpret the world," the populist president said, before taking a roll-call of his students, writing words on the blackboard for them to read, and drilling them in punctuation and spelling.
Infuriating midday television viewers across the South American nation, his government interrupted all normal television and radio programming for more than two hours to broadcast the presidential literacy class live.
Venezuela's telecommunications laws allow the president to do this at his discretion. But critics of Chavez, who accuse him of ruling like a dictator, say he frequently abuses this right to make marathon propaganda broadcasts.
The class was organized to promote a government campaign to eradicate illiteracy in the world's No. 5 oil exporter. The campaign was launched two months ago with textbooks, videos and educators provided by Cuba's Communist government.