What is the opinion of the mayor who implemented the free public transportation program?

By Arthur Voltolini, For Brazil 247 - Washington Quaquá, 43, born in the Caramujo favela in Niterói, is the re-elected mayor of Maricá – in the Lakes Region of Rio de Janeiro – and president of the PT (Workers' Party) in Rio de Janeiro state since 2013. He received the report from... Brazil 247 In his informal office, a beautiful hut-shaped house designed by Oscar Niemeyer for his friend Darcy Ribeiro, who spent the last two years of his life there. The office is located on Rua Cento e Dezenove, in the Cordeirinho neighborhood, facing the sea.

In the simply decorated rooms of the house, a picture of Fidel Castro adorns the wall leading to the room from where Quaquá governs the city and manages the alliances of the state PT party. It must have been from there that he signaled an alliance with Marcelo Freixo (PSOL) for the 2016 municipal elections, and from there that he radically changed direction and indicated the PT's support for the candidacy of the current mayor's chosen candidate, Eduardo Paes (PMDB), possibly federal deputy Pedro Paulo, from the same party.

Quaquá acknowledges that the PT (Workers' Party) in Rio de Janeiro has become, in recent years, almost a sub-party of the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), and says that this situation will change in the next elections: The PMDB will have to accept the 13 points that the PT is developing "to create a democratic, popular, and supportive Rio de Janeiro." Among them is the zero-fare public transportation system, which Quaquá is successfully implementing in Maricá and wants to see extended throughout Brazil. According to Quaquá, if there is no agreement on these points, the PT will run its own candidate.

In the interview, Quaquá also discusses the situation of the PT (Workers' Party) at the national level: "Either the PT returns to being a reformist party or we are doomed to end"; about the PT's participation in PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) governments in Rio: "What did the PT do in the Municipal Housing Secretariat? I don't know. If you know, tell me"; about the defeats of Alexandre Padilha and Lindberg Faria in the gubernatorial elections: "Garreta has on his resume having destroyed the two best PT candidates in a single election"; the attempt to create a framework for the impeachment of President Dilma: "If they impeach Dilma, we will organize the revolutionary transformation in Brazil"; and about his fight against private bus companies in his municipality.
 

Mayor, is it possible that you have the most beautiful office in Brazil?

Darcy Ribeiro lived here for a long time, until his death. He escaped from the hospital and came here. He stayed for another two and a half years; the doctor had given him six months. He wrote three books here, among other things. The Brazilian people.

What's it like being the mayor of a city the size of Maricá and also being the president of the PT (Workers' Party) in Rio de Janeiro?

I am a PT (Workers' Party) activist, above all else. I started in the PT when I was 14 years old. I was born in the Caramujo favela, in Niterói, and came to Maricá when I was nine years old. By 14, I was founding the PT here.

I first moved to the banks of the Mumbuca River, which is now a more middle-class neighborhood; the city has grown, but it was a poor neighborhood. I came here, joined the student movement, and was a member of the Workers' Party (PT) back in the 1980s. I was elected mayor in my first term without any support from the party because, for quite some time now, the PT has become too bureaucratic and has turned into a party of certain interests, of certain factions.

Is the PT (Workers' Party) going through a crisis of governance?

Vladimir [Palmeira] used to say that institutionalization allows us to change the lives of many people, but it also makes us pay a price: that of bureaucratization and bourgeoisification. So the party enters the system and the spaces of power end up becoming more important than the political struggle for the advancement of the popular struggle.

It's not that the PT isn't a party that transforms people's lives. I'm up for any debate with any left-wing party that claims to be more left-wing than us. Because self-proclamation doesn't mean real life. Many parties proclaim themselves left-wing, but when you see what actions the party takes to transform society, the PT is ten times better. We are still the great transformative party in Brazil. We became a reformist party, and today, only slightly reformist, and that's the PT's problem. Either the PT returns to being a reformist party or we are doomed to end. Not like Marta [Suplicy] said, that was a farce, but it could happen as it happened with all the European social democratic parties, which are ending due to a lack of political clarity, because they don't show themselves to the people as different from the others.

That's not exactly the case with the PT (Workers' Party), because we are an anti-neoliberal government. What can they accuse us of? If we made some concessions, they were concessions for governability, but the essence of the policies that the PT implemented in Brazil are anti-neoliberal policies. So much so that Syriza in Greece – which everyone says is a radical party, the big novelty – has the PT in Brazil as its central example. And the Greek prime minister idolizes Lula.

We are the great party of change in Brazil, an example for the world, but this model we created of top-down alliances, of compromising with the right to reach power, and with a conservative left-wing alliance with the conservative sector of society to make the changes we made that improved people's lives, this model has run its course, also because the bourgeoisie no longer tolerates anything more than that: "Up to this point we tolerated it, but from there on we will not tolerate it, we will not tolerate the wage bill growing more than capital income, we will not tolerate interest rates being lowered, public debt being reduced," because that is a direct transfer of resources to the bourgeoisie. So there comes a point where it is no longer possible to compromise as we did. Now the time has come to sustain deeper changes through a new power bloc, this power bloc must be a bloc made up of social movements and the entire left.
 

Has the Workers' Party (PT) resumed dialogue with social movements?

I believe so. Rui [Falcão] has played a very important role in the PT presidency. Although this PT leadership has many weaknesses, the PT presidency has many qualities, and Rui has fulfilled this role, even having faced difficulties. I think Lula's visit, some time ago, to the 25th anniversary celebration of the MST training school in Belo Horizonte, sent a very beautiful message. Lula's entry into the game helps us a lot to, let's say, rebuild the PT's ideology.

I became president of the state PT largely because of this bureaucratization of the PT. I've been president of the PT in Rio de Janeiro state since 2013. I decided to fight to debureaucratize the PT, which was very much in the hands of the PMDB here in Rio. The PT had become almost a sub-party of the PMDB in the state.
 

The Workers' Party (PT) went a long time without fielding its own candidates. What's your opinion on Lindberg's candidacy for governor?

Lindberg performed poorly in the election, due to several problems and many errors on his part in assessing the election, many errors.
 

Did the national Workers' Party (PT) support Lindberg's candidacy?

Rui allowed him to come, he gave him some support.
 

But didn't Lindberg have to put some pressure on him?

We applied pressure, of course. Those who don't apply pressure don't get anything. If we had stayed quiet, we'd still be with the PMDB today, but we can't say that the national leadership didn't help.
 

Lula only recorded one video of support.

But he recorded it, right?
 

But he also only recorded one video for Lobão Filho, in Maranhão.

Yes, but it helped. We had problems, but it helped us here too. We can't complain. If the entire national leadership came here to the streets, in tow, would it solve anything? It didn't solve anything with [Alexandre] Padilha in São Paulo. There were mistakes in management. Padilha is my friend, one of the best people the PT has, there were mistakes in campaign management.
 

The communication strategy for Padilha's campaign seems to have had some problems.

It was the same as ours. That guy who ran our campaign here. [Valdemir] Garreta has on his resume having destroyed the two best PT candidates in a single election. It was awful. Lindberg was dressed in black, he, a young, fighting guy, looked like he'd been packaged up on television. Garreta made a lot of mistakes.

But Lindberg played a role. For example, in the municipal elections, we are becoming an alternative pole of attraction to the PMDB, something we never were before. The PT wasn't in the power game in Rio. I have been approached by a series of political forces in opposition to the PMDB in the cities, who were previously afraid to approach the PT because they said: “We're going to fight, our fight is with the PMDB (or with Garotinho). If I go to the PT, they'll hand over our candidacy to the PMDB, and I won't go back to the PT.” Not anymore. Today it's known that this is a pole of resistance; if you come here, there will be a fight, there will be a dispute. Even in a process of rapprochement that we are having with Eduardo Paes, especially aiming at Lula 2018. This is because we don't have a candidate for mayor of Rio, nor for governor, because our main figure, Lindberg, was weakened in these elections. We are not training new candidates; we need an average period to train new candidates for the electoral contest, candidates that we don't have right now.

But even with this rapprochement, we will never again be a satellite of the PMDB here in Rio, especially during our administration. Our projects, our proposals, such as the zero fare, become one of the elements of the PT's way of governing in Rio de Janeiro. Social currency with a solidarity economy becomes one of the main banners of the PT's way of governing, along with democratization, which is already a historical banner. We will face an election here, whether in the capital or anywhere else in Rio, with a renewed PT way of governing, with zero fares, confronting the transport mafia, which no one in this state has had the courage to do.
 

Your style of governing seems completely different from Eduardo Paes's style. From the "Minha Casa, Minha Vida" program, which in Maricá is close to the city center, with education and transportation infrastructure, to the very idea of ​​zero fares, Eduardo Paes didn't confront the transportation mafia in Rio.

Paes is a member of the PMDB, which is a center-conservative party. We are a left-wing party. It's natural that someone from a left-wing party would form a left-wing government, and someone from a conservative party would form a more conservative government. Although Eduardo originated in the Brizolist movement, he later joined the PSDB... His trajectory is, let's say, winding. But he's not doing a bad job. The BRT he's building on Avenida Brasil is a spectacular gain for urban mobility in Rio de Janeiro.

I spoke with him and said: “Look, the PT can do anything here in Rio. It can have its own candidate, it doesn't have a name yet, but it can have its own candidate. We can launch Wadih [Damous] from the OAB, Robson Leite, we have some people to launch, although with little electoral experience.
 

Wouldn't you be a candidate?

No, I am the mayor of Maricá until 2016, I have a commitment to the people here. And I don't even want to be a candidate. Politics isn't just about winning elections, it's not just about running for office. I am not a candidate.
 

I have the feeling that Rio de Janeiro has been, for some time now, handed over by the national leadership of the PT (Workers' Party) as the jewel in the crown to close national alliances and guarantee governability. This practice has shaken the party's image, and in this vacuum of left-wing representation left by the PT, the PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) in Rio de Janeiro has grown. Marcelo Freixo appears as a very strong name for 2016. Wouldn't it be more coherent for the PT to form an alliance with PSOL, nominating the vice-presidential candidate?

PSOL is very arrogant. I proposed supporting Freixo, I declared it publicly. The next day, Freixo goes to the newspapers and says he doesn't want the PT's support.
 

I interviewed Congressman Marcelo Freixo during the 2014 elections, and he told me that PSOL would be open to an alliance if PT changed some of its positions.

If the PT becomes PSOL, we don't need to be PT, we need to be PSOL. To form an alliance with them, we didn't ask them to stop being radical from the South Zone; I didn't say I would only support Freixo if he broke his alliance with [Jorge] Picciani (PMDB) in the Alerj (Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro) to win the Human Rights Commission; that [Congresswoman] Janira [Rocha] shouldn't take money from her advisors; that Cabo Daciolo shouldn't be a right-wing guy, and that they should expel him. I didn't ask them to change PSOL, they can't form an alliance asking the other party to change. We are the PT, not PSOL. An alliance is not a merger. If they want to form alliances with like-minded people, they should go to a mosque and find a bunch of Muslims who think like them. You can't be fundamentalist to form an alliance. They are at least learning how to form alliances. We are a party that has learned how to form alliances. We learned far too much...

What does PSOL expect from PT to finalize this alliance?

I don't know. We expected them to receive our support with happiness. A party like ours supporting a smaller party like PSOL. If it were us, we would gladly accept: come on, let's discuss it. But they don't. They said we had to bathe in the Jordan River. We're not going to bathe in the Jordan River. We are one party and they are another. Since they don't want our support, we'll go our own way. We can have our own candidate, we could support PSOL, and we can support Eduardo Paes's candidate.

The fundamental point is that we in the PT (Workers' Party) are writing 13 points to create a democratic, popular, and supportive Rio de Janeiro. And we will present these proposals to society. These 13 points include zero fares; a social currency in the communities, with a new popular economy; full-time education; and combating tuberculosis. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, 700 people die from tuberculosis every year. This is a disgrace. It's almost like the Iraq War killing tuberculosis victims here. We will present the 13 points, and we may have our own candidate or support Eduardo Paes's candidate.
 

Wouldn't supporting Eduardo Paes's candidate go against some of the points you just mentioned?

If they agree to incorporate them, no. What's the difference that has always existed in the electoral process here? It's that we went to the PMDB in exchange for a position in such and such a department, in such and such a company. And everyone stayed there, and no politics were discussed. What did the PT do in the Municipal Housing Department? I don't know. If you know, tell me. They didn't go beyond bringing houses from the "Minha Casa, Minha Vida" program, which is a federal program, and boxing people into the houses.
 

Many of these condominiums were built in areas far from the West Zone, lacking adequate urban infrastructure for the population, such as transportation, schools, leisure facilities, and healthcare. Not to mention that a large portion of these residents have suffered, and are still suffering, arbitrary evictions.

That's something [Carlos] Lacerda would do. I take the poor person from where they bother me and shove them to the fifth circle of hell, with nothing. It was a mistake. The PT cannot be in charge of a Housing Secretariat that doesn't discuss the issue of the city as a whole.

Pezão is proposing a deal that I find interesting, and we're going to get into that debate, which is to create an urban consortium for the Porto region, from Leopoldina to the North Zone, taking the land from all those deactivated factories and transforming it into housing. If they do that, it will be a spectacular deal.

Will these be affordable housing units or housing for the middle class?

They said it will be coordinated, which is good, the game is all about coordination. If you create the "Minha Casa, Minha Vida" program for income brackets zero to ten, covering the middle class and the most popular income bracket, it's spectacular. You solve the housing problem of the city of Rio de Janeiro, perhaps even the state.

This is a discussion we want to have. Because, understand one thing: Being on the left isn't just about proclaiming theory. It's not about saying you're the best, pure and simple, that you want this or that. Being on the left is about transforming people's lives. Social transformation only happens through popular organization. You only organize the people with dignity. Those who are screwed, without housing, without food, don't organize. Except in banditry, outside of society. To organize the people for social transformation, people need to have minimum living conditions. So we have to build policies that provide housing, increase wages, generate employment, or encourage popular entrepreneurship. We have to provide education and training for young people. That's what advancing the popular struggle is all about. So if we're going to form an alliance with Eduardo Paes, and that allows these policies to be implemented, I see no problem. Zero problem.

But would he radically change his ideals?

Are we going to join if he doesn't change? Why would we form an alliance if he doesn't incorporate our 13 points?

I can't imagine Eduardo Paes's group implementing zero-fare public transportation in Rio de Janeiro. They seem to have a very close relationship with the owners of the bus companies.

But we're going to propose a zero fare. In the only conversation I had with him, it seems that's the direction BRTs are heading... We'll present the proposal and wait.

In both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, bus companies, controlled by a few families, are major campaign donors. Wouldn't it be necessary to break ties with them?

Sure, to break through... Here they are big donors against me. They were defeated. But they donate to my opponents. You need the political will to confront the economic power of the bus companies. They have a lot of money, they finance politicians, they finance the entire political system, especially in municipalities and states.

How does campaign financing work? Let's say I own a bus company, and I contribute donations to your campaign, and you get elected. If your government goes against my interests, what form of pressure can I use?

The pressure tactic is this: the guy comes to you, right after you win the elections, and says: “I’ll give you one hundred thousand reais a month if you don’t touch the buses, don’t let vans in, don’t change the system. Don’t do anything, leave it as it is. You’ll have one hundred grand a month to buy milk for your children.” It’s direct. As soon as you sit down at the table here, you receive the offer. Those who want to accept it do.

What if Eduardo Paes doesn't accept the 13 points?

If he doesn't accept our points, there's no way to form an alliance without a political agreement. An alliance isn't based solely on positions, although positions are part of it, to enter the government. We need to have a clear, mixed policy to discuss with any government, whether it's with Paes or any alliance we form, including with our own candidates. There's no point in criticizing Eduardo Paes if there are a lot of PT mayors who do exactly the same thing, who govern conventionally.
 

Which mayors would those be?

I'm not going to rat out my colleagues, but I can say that this is the case for most of our mayors. They don't democratize, they don't implement aggressive social policies, they don't fight with bus companies, they don't increase the presence of the Welfare State. PT governments can't do what just anyone can do.
 

Haddad conducted a major audit of the bus companies in the city of São Paulo, which uncovered irregularities in the companies' profit margins and the number of bus trips. Do you believe this is part of a plan to achieve free public transportation?

Haddad is a left-leaning guy, and he's a great mayor who has brought new discussions to the city of São Paulo, which is a complex city. Obviously, implementing zero fares there isn't the same as implementing it here in Maricá, which has 150 inhabitants, but it's possible to implement.

This is a national discussion. President Dilma, who created the "Mais Médicos" program and confronted the doctors' union with Padilha, should create an urban mobility plan for medium-sized cities, those with between 100 and 300 inhabitants. She should implement zero-fare public transportation in those cities initially, and gradually expand to larger cities, implementing zero-fare public transportation in some peripheral areas. She could take the West Zone of Rio and say, "There will be free buses," indicating that in eight years she will implement zero-fare public transportation throughout the entire city. This would require federal funding. Haddad himself proposed this – which is a good proposal – that the CIDE tax, that contribution on gasoline, be returned to the municipalities that implement zero-fare public transportation. She could create a payroll tax, since in areas with zero-fare public transportation, employers would no longer pay for transportation vouchers, to help subsidize the system. In other words, what needs to be done is to take the system out of the hands of private companies.

Public transportation is a right, like health and education. We want to build a Welfare State in Brazil, but different from the European model. There, the subsidy was divided into three thirds: one for businesses, another for the State, and the last for workers. But there, workers had a very large purchasing power, they accumulated wages, and they could help subsidize the system. Not here. Here, transportation has an immense impact on the worker's budget and income.
 

With the fare at R$ 3,40, a family of five from the Maré favela complex, paying the full price for the two necessary rides, would spend R$ 68,00 to go to and return from a beach in the South Zone.

She won't go. In Maricá, if you walk around you'll see. They're buying bread with the money they have left over. So it has an impact on life, on family budgets. Zero fare is a fundamental right of this new Welfare State that we are painstakingly building in Brazil. So this should be embraced by the Federal Government, along with municipalities and states that want to participate, as was the case with the Mais Médicos program.
 

Isn't President Dilma under too much pressure right now to endorse a project that affects so many vested interests?

But that's exactly what she has to do. If she wants to get out of the corner, she has to go on the offensive. She has to show the people what she's made of.
 

Do you believe impeachment is possible?

I think the right wing is getting worked up. But impeaching Dilma means ending Brazilian institutionalism. A large part of us will go underground. I, for example, will leave the institutional struggle. If they impeach Dilma, we will organize a revolutionary transformation in Brazil. They want to break the institutional pact in Brazil? We're in. They will break it, and we will organize the people in the streets. Then the bourgeoisie can go to hell. If they stage a coup against Dilma, we will organize the people for a fight.
 

Many criticize the social advances of the PT's 12 years in government as merely "passive revolutions" that did not alter the structure of society or the concentration of capital. Could this be an opportunity for the PT to become more left-leaning again?

I think there are moments in life, as Gramsci said, when the war isn't one of movement, the war is one of position. You build gradual transformations. We are living through this moment in Brazil, insofar as you have institutions, reasonably free elections, although the weight of capital is very large in elections. But we have also learned to capture private resources; there is a certain balance in the electoral contest. So you have the means to contest society. Although the media is practically all monopolized by the bourgeoisie, you have minimum conditions for institutional contestation. As long as this exists, it's great, let's go for institutional contestation. When this is broken, as they want to do with the military coup, the left goes to mass struggle, to struggle outside the institutions. If they want to do that, we will; we have already done that in Brazil several times. We will go to non-institutional struggle. But now it's different; we have already governed Brazil, we have Lula, we have a lot of popular leaders. Some already incorporated into the bourgeoisie, but many not. So there will be a lot of fighting in Brazil if they want impeachment.
 

You told Carta Capital that you confronted the city's oldest mafia when you implemented the zero-fare policy. Did you receive any threats?

Several times they've tried to kill me. Shortly before I took office, I was in Itapuaçu having dinner with my son, my wife, and a couple of friends when two guys came in. My security guard knew one of them, who had been expelled from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion). The guys came in to kill me, they only aborted the mission because my security guards were armed and by my side. Afterwards, I received a lot of death threats. Nowadays I don't receive them anymore. My vice-governor is from the PT (Workers' Party), I'm the state president of the PT, if I die it makes no difference. If I die, they'll only be playing into their own hands.
 

The concessions for bus companies in Maricá are valid until 2020; only then will the mayor be able to hold a new bidding process.

Here's the thing: Our goal is to eliminate private service. We are negotiating with the Costa Leste company, which is going bankrupt, to buy their land to build our company's garage.
 

Is it going bankrupt because of the free buses?

She was already going bankrupt. She provides terrible service, she doesn't honor contracts, the buses have holes in the middle, they're awful. But now with our free bus service, their situation has worsened. We're proposing to buy their garage to relocate our buses there. Instead of building, we'll buy it. We have the prospect of no longer having private buses; I don't want their old buses or their routes. I want them to give up.
 

Today, 11 buses operate with free fares in Maricá. By the end of your term in 2016, how many buses do you expect to have?

40, and serving 100% of the population.

Economically, for Amparo, the largest company in the city, it's going to be very bad, isn't it?

Their problems are not my problems. I don't govern for them.