After the elections that renovated the House of Representatives, State Legislative Assemblies and one third of the Federal Senate, the Communist Party of Brazil views as positive its performance in those battles.
Along with those elections, the first round in the presidential and state government elections were also held. The presidential and 10 state government elections will be concluded with the runoff, to take place on October 29.
That was the first time that communists took part in an electoral process as a party supporting the federal government, headed by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running for reelection. The struggle to elect communist candidates for the Senate, the House of Representatives and Legislative Assemblies was determined, therefore, by the dispute on the routes facing the country in the next four years, either furthering the changes implemented by Lula or drawing back to neoliberalism with Alckmin. And that struggle is fought in a process that is sharpened by successive crises and the intense offensive by the conservative opposing forces – PSDB and PFL, sided by media monopolies – that try to retake power immediately.
The Communist Party and its candidates spearheaded the struggle to reelect Lula in order to further the changes and fight the neoliberal backtracking forces. For the first time since it turned legal in 1985, the Party made efforts to elect representatives in the Senate, achieving a position with Inácio Arruda in the State of Ceará, a significant victory. Moreover, it achieved a notable number of votes for Senate in the Federal District, in Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco. The communist candidates to the Senate in several states obtained 6,364,019 ballots, amounting to 7.53% of the number of valid votes in the country.
The Party elected 13 MP’s representatives in 12 states of the federation, obtaining more than 2% of valid votes for the Federal Parliament. The Party has elected for the House of Representatives in the following states: Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia (2), Pernambuco, Ceará, Piauí, Maranhão, Amazonas, Amapá and Acre.
The result in the state of Ceará stands out with the election of one Senator, one federal representative and one state representative. However, the Party suffered setbacks in other states, especially in São Paulo, where, despite the reelection of Aldo Rebelo with an expressive voting, it lost one of its positions in the House of Representatives, as well as two representatives in the local Legislative Assembly. As for the State Legislative Assemblies, the Party lost positions, electing 12 representatives as compared to 17 elected in 2002.
As a whole, the favorable result for communists in the first round must give leverage to the Party’s reinforcement and effort to reelect Lula and the allied candidates in state administrations in the runoff.
