The facts of history show that, as the struggle between the political forces of the right and the left grow up, dictatorship is imposed as a solution for those who are in power to impose by force their will on the nation. Faced with the impossibility of electing a president of the Republic to ensure democratic practice and social peace, we can only hope for dark times in Brazil.

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DARK TIMES IN BRAZIL
Fernando Alcoforado *
This is perhaps a mission impossible to fight for social peace in Brazil after the second
round of the presidential election, whatever its winner in the face of the confrontational
climate that is dividing the Brazilian population and causing the rupture of relations
even between family and friends. First of all, it must be said that social peace is a state
of balance and understanding among the inhabitants of the same country, where respect
between them is acquired by the acceptance of differences and conflicts are resolved
through dialogue, the rights of people are respected and their voices heard, and all are at
their highest point of serenity without social tension.
The antithesis of social peace is the civil war which is characterized by being an armed
conflict between groups organized within the same country. Civil wars (also known as
internal wars) are very serious conflicts for the nation involved, whether in the political,
economic or social spheres. These conflicts are responsible for the death of a large
number of civilians, as they are characterized by the active participation of the people in
the fighting. The main victims are children, women and the elderly, who, even without
fighting in conflicts, are the most affected by the attacks.
One fact is indisputable: Brazil is a politically divided country. On the one hand, there
are those who want the return of PT (Workers Party) to power and, on the other, there
are those who want the defeat of PT. It is quite clear that right-wing political forces
consider the rise of Fernando Haddad to be unacceptable to the power that would mean
the return of the PT and its allies to the Brazilian government, and the left-wing political
forces, especially the radical ones, consider the right wing in power unacceptable,
especially if Jair Bolsonaro wins the presidential elections. The country may be
convulsed in these circumstances. This means that neither Bolsonaro nor Haddad will
acquire the conditions of governability.
Between these two positions are those, as the author of these lines, who wish that the
political conflict does not trigger a civil war, which means the war of everybody against
everybody or a bloodbath among the population. In a situation of civil war, there would
be no Democratic Governability which can only be achieved when the executive branch
has the support of the majority of Parliament, the economically dominant classes and
the vast majority of the population. These are the conditions for a government to
exercise Governance which, in short, expresses the possibility of the government of a
nation to carry out public policies with the support of Parliament, the productive sectors
and the population. Bolsonaro can count on the support of the economically dominant
classes and the majority of the Parliament, but will have the opposition of a significant
portion of the population. Haddad, for his part, will have the support of a significant
part of the population and part of the Parliament, but will not have the support of the
economically dominant classes. This means saying that Bolsonaro and Haddad if they
rise to the Presidency of the Republic will not be able to exercise Governability
democratically.
Those who think that Brazil can be immune to the political-institutional rupture now or
in the future are totally mistaken because the political dispute has turned into a war in
which Bolsonaro's extreme right makes it clear that his objective is to effectively

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destroy political capacity of his opponent, the PT, and of the leftist parties. The extreme
fascist right-wing advance in Brazil is a consequence of the failure of the neoliberal
economic policy put into practice by the PT governments that led the country to
bankruptcy with the biggest economic recession and the highest rate of unemployment
in history, of unbridled corruption in all the spheres of the governments Lula and Dilma
Rousseff, and also the bankruptcy of the political system inaugurated with the 1988
Constituent Assembly. Bolsonaro, who is a far right politician, totally unprepared to
exercise the Presidency of the Republic, appeared only as a solution for the country
counting on the support of a large part of the population because its discourse has the
objective not only to sweep the PT and its leftist allies from the political scene, but
democracy itself if it opposes his designs. Who opened the way for the advent of
Bolsonaro and fascism in Brazil was, therefore, the PT and its allies.
In practice, the extreme right adopts in Brazil what Clausewitz considers as the
objective of the war, presented in his work On War, that would be to disarm the
opponent, that is, effectively to destroy the opponent's ability to fight. It is not easy for
the extreme right to destroy the PT and the leftist parties in Brazil because the more
determined they are to fight for survival, the harder it will be to remove them from the
political scene in Brazil. It is also Clausewitz's claim that "war is a continuation of
politics by other means". This means that when there is no room for the exercise of
politics, war becomes the means to be used to impose its will on the enemy. It was in
this way that ruled Hitler and Mussolini. This is what can happen in Brazil with the
victory of Bolsonaro.
The British political philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that the human being lived in
permanent war. Hobbes is the thinker of the authoritarian state, of repression, of
absolutism and of all forms of dictatorship. His best known text, The Leviathan,
expresses concern about the legal and institutional order of the State in accordance with
this conception. He affirmed in this work published in 1651, that the human being, in
his "natural" state, would live in permanent war. In the book, Hobbes states that this war
occurs because each man rationally pursues his own interests, without the result
satisfying the collective interest, a fact that would lead to the war of everybody against
everybody. To avoid the war of everybody against everybody, Hobbes advocates
instituting a strong and absolute power capable of inducing men by the fear of
punishment and repression to respect the laws and the holders of power. This is what
can happen in Brazil with the victory of Bolsonaro. The facts of history show that, as
the struggle between the political forces of the right and the left grow up, dictatorship is
imposed as a solution for those who are in power to impose by force their will on the
nation. Faced with the impossibility of electing a president of the Republic to ensure
democratic practice and social peace, we can only hope for dark times in Brazil.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 78, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Merit, member of the Bahia
Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the
University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business
planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues
such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The
Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific,
Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.