And Lula said \”OI\”

Can a popular president do anything?

Lula, apparently, can. With elector\’s approval record and an economy that had never been so solid, he can even offer a law to his friends, and nobody will be scandalized. And, if this same law comes to benefit the company that made his son become a millionaire, does not matter.

After all, Brazil is investment grade, it has never sold so many automobiles and most of the population already wishes a third term.

In some years, historians will write about the President Lula\’s legacy. It is possible that they will be just arguing if the current president is powerful as Getúlio Vargas or Juscelino Kubitscheck. The \”big allawance\” will be a smaller chapter.

 And maybe the case Oi/Brasil Telecom will become just a page bottom note. Nothing more than this.

This episode can be considered irrelevant, but deserves, at least, a sociological approach.

Because, when he took office in January 2003, PT\’s important man did not hide from anybody his purpose about rewriting the privatization history – especially of the telephone companies.

Because its was done with public money, from BNDES and State Owned Pension Funds, the workers should bring back the control about their capital. And triggered the telephone company war. In the first stage, with assistance from the Federal Police, they took  Brazil Telecom. Then it would be Telemar\’s time, re-baptized as OI. And when the old Telebrás was finally rebuilt, but under the fund\’s command, PT would have in its hands a permanent source of political financing. This was the project.

However, in some moment, President Lula decided to change the route. Instead of following the plan traced by Labor Party(PT), he opted for favoring his campaign sponsors, that, by chance, also patronized Gamecorp, his son\’s company. Days before, the history entered in the penultimate chapter, when BNDES helped the groups Andrade Gutierrez and La Fonte to consolidate OI\’s control. In the next step, with more public money, they will buy  Brazil Telecom.

The only thing left is to change the law. OI bets that the president will do that in 90 days.

But there is an enigma in the history. Why did Lula decide to compose with his sponsors, and does not with his party? The answer is crude. Plutocracy is much more easily handed. Companies  knows that Lula can do anything. It can offer the whole world\’s wealth, as well as can withdraing it. And people from the Labor Party (PT) that believed in initial script of this long telephone war will have to be pleased with a unfair role: the betrayed husband of the story.

 Magazine: Istoé/2009 – 07/05/2008