by Bill Edwards

First of all, a quick word on the Brazilian Workers party or PT, Partido do Trabalhadores.

Whilst socialism was declining in the west at the end of the 20th century, three socialist organizations were being born from the ashes of a brutal military government in Brazil at the end of the 1970' s, the CUT , Confederation Unica dos Trabalhadores - a strong trade union organization, founded by left trade unionists to combat the employer/government unions installed by the extreme right wing military rulers. The Movimento dos Trabalhdores Rurais Sem Terra, the MST or Landless Rural Workers Movement. The third and most important was the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Brazilian Workers Party , a political organization embracing all those on the left who cared to sign on, a type of Socialist Alliance. Often membership and leadership was across the three organizations as they all shared the same dreams -social transformation across Brazilian society and culture. It must be stated that the PT is not, and has never been a revolutionary body, it sometimes defies definition, it is not like the British Labour party, although founded by trade unionists it does not rely on the unions for financial support, it is Leninist in structure with an elected central committee and highly disciplined in following policy decisions but is supported by many catholic activists even though it campaigns for homosexual equality and supports abortion under less liberal conditions than the UK. It is not a populist party but a party ofthe left working within what is possible.

After a slow start with some electoral success, most notably in the southern city Porto Alegre, capitol of the state of Rio Grande do SuI, a state with a vivid history of revolution and revolt against the federal government stretching back to the beginning of the 18th century. the PT won two landslide electoral victories in the beginning of the 21 st century , in 2000 electing an impressive number of mayors in major Brazilian cities and then in 2002 getting it's clarismatic main leader and founder member, the former metalworker, Luiz lnacio Lula da Silva, elected President at the fourth attempt, albeit without a majority of his party, neither in the congress or senate.

The rise of the these left groups during the military dictatorship, starting with lightening strikes in the Ford, VW , and Chevrolet factories in the industrial ABC area of greater Sao Paulo is a story in itself, maybe I will attempt this in a future presentation. but this evening I am concentrating on social participationary democracy during the PT regime in the city of Porto Alegre.

However I must mention the founding manifesto of the party . “The Workers party is born out of the workers desire for political independence. Workers are tired of serving as electoral fodder for politicians and parties representing the current economic. social and political order … workers want to organize themselves as an autonomous political force. becoming a mass movement committed to full democracy exercised directly by the masses.”

It is interesting to note that founders of the PT. the vast majority of whom came from participation in the armed struggle (those that survived) and from Marxist groups of all tendencies -Leninist. Trotskyite, Maoist, Castroist, others backed by the Algerian Liberation Movement. armed catholic liberationists. that all these radicals decided to accept open political debate including participation in bourgeois political institutions rather than revolution. The only powerful left group that did not sign up was the Moscow orientated PCB -Brazilian Communist Party. The PT is not only a political party but also a nucleus of a network of popular movements. Here it is influenced by Gramsci, believing in the gradual conquest of political space and construction of popular hegemony.

Porto Alegre is a city of about 1.3 million people, an industrial, financial and service center. It is the capitol of Brazil’s southern most state, Rio Grande do Sul. It was an important center of resistance to the 21 years of the military regime (1964-1985), the city's neighbourhood associations provided refuge for persecuted dissidents and safe passage in and out of Brazil for many revolutionary leaders of the armed struggle through the Uruguay route. The city has always been an important source of support for the PT since it began contesting elections in the mid 1980's. The PT took full control ofPorto Alegre in 1989 but had been ruling in coalition four years before this date since 1985, with the election as mayor of the charismatic bank clerk, Olivio Dutra, losing control after many internal disputes, going against the vast PT electoral success in 2000.

During these eleven years of PT control, and the present out of power period is considered but a hiccup by the local party , one of the main democratic innovations was the introduction of the participatory budget, an example of social participatory democracy perhaps not seen anywhere else in the world.

In 1985 about one third of Porto Alegres population lived in farvelas or shanty towns. homes built of waste materials without running water. sewerage or electricity , unless stolen by illicit connections to overhead power lines. At the same time, fifteen families owned all the land available for development in greater Porto Alegre. Previous municipal authorities and their leaders( often from the fifteen families) had vested interests in supporting this inequality, which lead to corruption on an endemic scale -this process was repeated on all levels throughout Brazil.

The local PT thought the only way to challenge this and bring about real change was to open up the secretive practices of local administration, especially the finances, to a process of popular democratic participation.

So when the PT gained power it invited citizens to participate in the decisions about the city's new investments. The PT calls this the orcamento paticipativo, or participatory budget, which is a fonn of, shared power and co-decision making. Through a series of meetings in which they elect delegates, citizens decide on the priorities for the municipal investment budget. The delegates argue for the relative importance of investment in projects of public works, services and the social

economy. As citizens learn that controlling the purse strings is the most important step to social development, the idea and principle of popular participation spread more widely through the city administration.

The Coordination Committee for Relations with the Community

The CRC employs 20 coordinators all of whom are active PT party members, all had been active in the community , they are workers, intellectuals, teachers, professionals, sot1le are students taking gap year( s) from their studies. 16 of these coordinators work in one of the 16 regions that the city has been divided into. The other four work with~ youth, race relations, women and older people. They are paid an average middle class salary, I would guess in the region of about four or five hundred pounds a month. The coordinators who work in the regions do not work in the region they reside in, this is stop them getting personally involved. All of them have to be extremely skilled communicators as their role is crucial to developing the people's power to control the local state government. They have to be able to exert authority with government departments whilst at the same time teaching ordinary people to develop their own power and capacity to organize.

A series of open plenary meetings are held in each district in March of each year. At these meetings top local government officials along with the regional coordinator and flanked by elected regional delegates, report back on the previous years spending, explain the timing, whys and wherefores, quality of delivery, has it gone according to plan, if not, why not? The plenary meeting can criticize and call for heads to roll if the previous years undertakings have not been fulfilled. This is rare, and difficult to understand for people like us who usually find ourselves in conflict with local authorities, but in Porto Alegre everybody is working on the same side towards the same ends. The plenary meetings will also elect regional delegates for the next stage of the proceedings which are the delegate's forums, at which each region will formulate and establish it's priorities. The plenary meeting also elects two delegates to actually sit on the budget council.

Before the elected regional delegates get together at the delegates forum they meet with all the local groups and community associations in their region to get their views before deciding on regional priorities. Views will be expressed on such things as road building, sanitation, sewage and drains, schools, health provision, street lighting, economic development including the formation of economic cooperatives, leisure, sports facilities. This is where the regional coordinators skill is vital, negotiating with local groups whose aims are often very different but who must be funded from the same, but limited budget. These meetings may often be weekly or fortnightly until each regions delegates have formulated the proposed priorities to the satisfaction of most of the local residents, you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

The elected delegates from all 16 regions then get together at the delegates forum, the second tier of democratic decision-making. Here they negotiate and work out budget priorities for their region by combining two objective criteria -population size and statistically measured need and one subjective criteria- the priority given to the different issue by the community .They then apply a mathematical weighing system so that quantitive weights can be given to different areas of investment. The same criteria are applied across the whole city. This weighing system, sometimes called the 'budget matrix' plays a crucial role in creating awareness of the needs of each different region and the city as a whole. This budget matrix takes into account the relative wealth of the different regions and the fact that some projects such as road building and sanitation projects can cut across many regions.

One word on both delegates to the budget council and delegates forums, no delegate can be elected for more than two consecutive years, after two years they must stand down. This prevents the formation of cliques or vested interest groups trying to take control of the process.

Besides the plenary meetings at regional level, the municipal government also holds special common interest plenary meetings, to help decide policy and investment in Education, Health. Culture and Economics. These special interest thematic plenary also elect a delegate to the budget council.

The full budget council starts meeting in about July/August time to negotiate the final investment decisions with the city council, on the basis of the inputs from the regional and thematic plenary .The city council can also put forward projects for consideration. Through a process of constant negotiation and reporting back, the budget council draws up a final document and puts it to the mayor and city council for final agreement.

However, this process did not evolve overnight. Initial attendance at plenary meetings was sparse, often only PT activists and other more radical community workers. In the first years in the early 1990's delegates were elected at the ratio of one delegate to every five people at the meeting. Ten years later this had risen to one delegate every 80 participants which shows an increase in attendance of over 16 times. It is now estimated that about 20% of the population now regularly frequent plenary meetings. These percentages are higher in the poorer regions than the wealthier middle and upper class regions. Also for a part of the country always known for its 'machismo' it is interesting to note that a slight majority of participants and elected delegates are female. Over 85% of the population says they are aware and agree with the aims of the budget council, and this is in spite of a very hostile national and local capitalist media.

Delegates complain of sometimes, intolerable pressure from local single issue activist groups and sometimes reverse pressure from the city council but very few delegates actually desist or do not stand for re-election for a second term.

The local population, after a hesitant and somewhat disbelieving start, have now discovered that now they really do have grassroots power to change things for the better in their local region, that the city council can be made to listen and act in favour of the majority and not the rich minority as has always been the case in Brazil.

An important footnote, it must be mentioned that the budget council does not control 100% of the city budget, according to federal law , a certain percentage of tax revenue must be spent on education, certain amount on health, a percentage has to be sent to the federal government coffers, the council actually controls about sixteen percent of tax income plus some considerable central government grants.

The transparent and open nature of these public negotiations ensures that it is widely respected and supported. It is perceived to have legitimacy distinct from the electoral institutions of the city council and mayor. Even though the PT lost total control of the city council in 2002 due to an internal dispute, the budget council still continues to operate under the new administration, any move to close the process down or to alter it's democratic nature would cause an eruption from all sectors of Porto Alegre's community.