Even at the beginning of the 80's of the last century, Brazil was going through a military dictatorship. However, President Ernesto Geisel, since the end of the 70's, has been calling for the creation of conditions for a “slow, gradual and secure” political opening. which should lead the country, in the future, to some type of civil government not yet clearly defined, which presupposed the end of militarism (MARQUES and REGO, 2005). Throughout the 1980s, pressure for elections resulted in the “Diretas Já” movement, a civic involvement of various layers of society, which included the participation of intellectuals, artists, people linked to the church (and other religions than the Catholic), political parties (which were formed as the PT, PMDB and PSDB), among many personalities policies.
The banner of this movement was for the promotion of the country's redemocratization process, enabling the participation of civil society in the choice of its governors. Although the directs did not have the expected effect (since Congress was still controlled by the government, delaying elections only to the end of the decade), even if indirectly a civilian president was elected: Tancredo Snows.
However, Tancredo died on April 21, 1985 and did not take up the position to command the transition to democracy, a fact that led José Sarney, his deputy, to assume the presidency of the Republic.
From an economic point of view, we had inherited the high indebtedness rates of the periods and plans for previous developments and we faced difficulties in the rollover of debt by institutions creditors. In the early 1980s, economic policies were of the orthodox type, which means cutting government costs and raising revenue. With the arrival of Sarney, in 1985, policies began to become heterodox, different from those advocated by the IMF (Monetary Fund International), which imposed strict rules of economic orthodoxy on Brazil as a condition to keep its coffers open to needs Brazilian companies.
Other aggravating factors were the high inflation rates of the period and economic stagnation. According to Thomas Skydmore (2000, p. 271), “to make payments on the external debt, the government resorted to the growing internal public debt and the creation of money inflationary, which meant that servicing the foreign debt had forced the Brazilian government to fuel the flames of inflation that was growing...". Due to this troubled economic context, there were attempts at monetary reform and several economic plans were adopted, such as the Cruzado Plan, Bresser Plan and Summer Plan. Unfortunately, all of them failed or their results were insufficient to maintain the economic stability that would only come in the 1990s during the Itamar and FHC administrations. Thus, the 1980s became known as the lost decade (from an economic, growth and development point of view) and ended with hyperinflation.
In the political sphere, the Constitution of 1988 was promulgated, materializing the end of the dictatorship. Thomas Skydmore (2000, p. 269) states that “lobbyists representing leftist groups in the Church, the union movement and the human rights community were especially active. Much of its content represented a victory for populist ideas against many principles defended by the military government”. Conditions were created for the recovery of greater civic participation in electoral processes, and in the first direct election after the military regime, Fernando Collor de Melo came to power. He won the elections against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with his salvationist and moralizing speech to the declare war on the so-called "marajas", public employees benefiting from high salaries and pensions.
However, in the following decade, he frustrated all the expectations placed on him, suffering the impeachment process. At the end of the 1980s, neither Brazil nor the world were the same. The cold war was over and, in this way, the neoliberal model of government around the world took shape, leveraging the process of economic globalization. In the following years, the process of economic opening was expanded in Brazil as a result of an international policy aligned with the Washington Consensus, a fundamental mark of the world order.
Paulo Silvino Ribeiro
Brazil School Collaborator
Bachelor in Social Sciences from UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Master in Sociology from UNESP - São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho"
Doctoral Student in Sociology at UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/os-anos-80-no-brasil-aspectos-politicos-economicos.htm