Still lagging far behind the PT (Workers' Party) in the use of new communication technologies, the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) has in Fernando Henrique Cardoso, its honorary president, an enthusiast of new social networks as a political tool. A friend of sociologist Manuel Castells, perhaps the greatest expert on new media, the former president criticizes political parties that "have become complacent with practices, disdaining direct relationships with communities," without realizing that we are witnessing the beginnings of the fusion between "public opinion" and "national opinion."
For Fernando Henrique, it will be necessary to reinvent contemporary democracy, "making it transparent and accountable." "Spontaneous movements, interconnecting thousands and even millions of people through the internet, are capable of triggering rebellions that overthrow governments," the former president has warned, urging his party to modernize its political activity with the intensive use of new media.
The new president of the PSDB party, Senator Aécio Neves, is beginning to venture into this field, and all of his party propaganda, coordinated by marketing strategist Renato Pereira, is linked to a website (conversacombrasileiros.com.br).
The use of new means of communication with citizens has already led Aécio to hold a conversation this month with five voters through Google Hangouts, which was attended by 168 people.
The asymmetry in access to media between potential presidential candidates and the president herself, who is seeking re-election, has been highlighted by Aécio and others, such as the governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, who attribute President Dilma's lead in opinion polls to this asymmetry.
To try and counterbalance this, creating dedicated communication channels with the public is the solution.
Also in its internal communication, to unify the language, the PSDB is using a recently launched Social Portal.
With it, he intends to organize a network of information and debate around the challenges in the social area. Aécio says that, with innovative practices, public agents will be able to schedule online appointments to ask questions, schedule visits and, with that, value what is perhaps the most valuable raw material of an administration: time.
The first months of an administration are often lost due to a lack of information and experience. By having access to others' experiences and learning about solutions already implemented, the administrator saves time, and the population benefits from improved results.
With the added advantage that voters can also learn about the experiences of PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) administrations in various parts of the country.
These initiatives fit within a broader strategy by Aécio, the potential PSDB presidential candidate: to directly confront three issues that have been central to disputes with the PT in recent years, putting the party on the defensive: The PSDB is the party of privatization; FH was the president of the rich; the PSDB doesn't like the poor, it has no social project.
"My goal is to bring the skeletons out of the closet," says Aécio, "to bring to light issues that, by remaining in the shadows, end up strengthening the demagoguery of the PT." In its speeches, the PT disseminates the idea that it has a monopoly on social commitment to Brazilians, but it doesn't, counters Aécio. "The PSDB has innovative and successful experiences to offer Brazilians. I have provoked, on several occasions, the debate surrounding the origin of income transfer programs in the country not with a nostalgic objective of discussing the past, but as a way to revive, for many people, our legitimacy in this debate."
To get to what really matters, the debate about the future, the PSDB candidate says it's necessary to provoke debate around these three themes and thus "empty the PT's capacity to manipulate them." By changing the way of approaching controversial issues, the PSDB in Aécio's campaign intends to "remind people of the importance of the FH government for Brazil; explain what the privatizations we carried out were and what they are carrying out; and show the differences we have in understanding how we should face the social challenge in the country: they bet on tutelage. We, on overcoming."
Therefore, new means of communication, especially social networks, will play a fundamental role.