Leonel Brizola - Political Decline and Death (1989-2004)

Political Decline and Death (1989-2004)

After the 1989 election, there were still chances that Brizola could achieve his dream of winning the Presidency if only he could overcome his party's absence of national penetration. Therefore, some of his advisers proposed him a candidacy to the Senate in the ensuing 1990 elections, something that could offer him national highlights. Brizola, however, refused, preferring to present himself as a candidate to the gubernatorial elections in the same year, winning a second term as Governor of Rio de Janeiro by a first-round majority of 60.88% of all valid ballots. The second term of Brizola as Rio's governor was a political failure, whose hallmark were the various instances of disorganized management caused by Brizola's ultra centralism and distaste for proper bureaucratic procedure, being further marred by the support eventually offered by Brizola to the Collor administration in exchange for funds for public works, something that made Brizola to be charged with collaborating with the embezzlement schemes that would lead to Collor's 1992 impeachment.

Clearly emptied of national support and forsaken by close associates such as Cesar Maia and Anthony Garotinho, who decided to abandon Brizola's ship for the sake of their personal careers, Brizola nevertheless ran again for president on the PDT's ticket, amid the success of Minister of Finance and presidential candidate Fernando Henrique Cardoso's anti-inflation Plano Real. The 1994 presidential elections were a huge failure for Brizola, who scored a poor fifth place on an election in which Cardoso was elected in the first round by an absolute majority. It was the end of Brizolismo as a national political force, as expressed by the fact that, some weeks before actual elections, the kiosk in downtown Rio de Janeiro, around which Brizolandia cronies met, was torn down by City Hall officers, never to be rebuilt. Four years later, Brizola contented himself with a Vice Presidential candidacy on Lula's ticket: both lost to Cardoso.

In his latest years, however, Brizola took still another shift in his jagged relationship with Lula and the Workers' Party, refusing to support them in the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, supporting instead the candidacy of Ciro Gomes for president, while personally entering the race for a seat in the Senate. Gomes finished third, while Lula was elected president and Brizola lost his bid for the Senate, in what was his end even as a regional force. The PDT had a weak showing against new parties in Brazil's political scene, so Brizola became a secondary figure in his last two years. Despite supporting Lula at some periods during his career, Brizola's last public acts were criticizing Lula for what he termed neoliberalist policies and for neglecting traditional left-wing and workers' struggles.

Brizola died in 2004, after a heart attack.