Brazils political history - a long way to democracy

Due to the fact that Brazil became one of the first major plantation colony in 1500 because of it’s tropical crop, sugar, that was highly demanded in Europe, and its dependance from Portugal and then from other countries like France, the Netherlands and England, barriers to democracy were established early. The feudal system and also the slavery (during the 17th century 7000 slaves a year were „imported“ from Africa“ who, at the end ofthe century, represented about half of Brazils population) hindered Brazil building a political system based on equality.

By reason of this long period of colonization the first Empire of Brazil, proclaimed by Prince Pedro de Alcantara in 1822, was „simply“ a monarchy. But it was in 1889 that the first republic was declared, to be specific, by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca. Nevertheless the power was concentrated in the hands of the powerful landowners. The Estado Novo (1930-1945) regime and the populist years, the first democracy in Brazil, followed.  But the latter was, due to the tensions between populist and politicians, the basis for the military dictatorship (1964-1985).   During this period Brazil was governed by the pro-government National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) and the opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB).




After this dictatorship, the military lost the support of the elites, the New Republic was created but lead to economic recession, external debt and inflation. Then, from 1990-1992, Collor was the president, but resigned because of an enormous corruption scandal and the following demonstrations against him. The subsequent governments were the Itamar Government (1992-1994), which launched an important and successful planagainst economic recession and inflation, and the Fernando Government, marked of the privatizationof public services and state-owned companies and finally the modernization of the whole brazilian industry.

^{Fernando Henrique Cardoso}

Camille J.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Brazil
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1231075.stm
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/brazil0.htm
http://history-world.org/Latin%20America,%20Plantation%20Colony.htm


Picture credits:
1. http://technbiz.blogspot.fr/2010/11/brazil-historically-speaking.htm
2. http://americasouthandnorth.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/on-this-date-in-latin-americaapril-1-1964-brazils-military-dictatorship-begins/
3. http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/ricardo-setti/tag/fhc/