In the eye of the storm
New publication: When the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) came to power, it seemed likely to act as a practical source of inspiration and learning for the construction of another world. But whilst the severe constraints of international finance and politics were always likely to weigh heavily upon Lula's government, its failure to extend the promise of participatory democracy and redistribution to a state level was far from predictable. In August 2005, Red Pepper editor Hilary Wainwright went to Brazil to find out 'what went wrong', and what positive lessons the Brazilian experience might hold for the future of the left. But on her arrival in Brazil, she found herself observing at first hand the unfolding of a political crisis, as revelations of systemic political corruption by elements of the PT leadership were uncovered. In the eye of the storm is, first and foremost, a collection of interviews with some key players in (and left- wing critics of) the PT, conducted as the crisis unfolded. Rather than expressing outrage at the moral lapses of their colleagues, the interviewees are concerned, above all, with how to protect the project of political transformation which, at its best moments, the PT had stood for. Essays by Sue Branford and Hilary Wainwright, and a preface by Geraldo Campos, set the interviews in the wider context of contemporary Brazilian politics. Download the pdf in English or Spanish
