Cristovam Buarque
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Cristovam Ricardo Cavalcanti Buarque (Recife, February 20, 1944) is a Brazilian politician and university professor, member of Democratic Labour Party (PDT). He is married and has two children. See more: http://www.blogdocristovam.com.br
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[edit] Biography
Graduated in mechanical engineering from the Federal University of Pernambuco (1966). At that time he engaged in student politics becoming a militant of the Ação Popular, a group of the Leftist Progressive Church. After the 1964 coup, he was persecuted and took exile in France, where he earned a PhD in economics from Sorbonne (Paris), in 1973. He worked at Inter-American Bank of Development (IDB) in Ecuador, Honduras and the United States from 1973 to 1979. He was the first elected rector, by direct vote, of the University of Brasilia in the wake of the military regime, governor of Distrito Federal, Minister of Education and currently senator, elected in a historic landslide. Author of ten books with several published articles. He worked as a consultant for several national and international bodies under the United Nations (UN). Presided over the UN University for the Peace Council and participated on Food Presidential Commission, formerly directed by late Sociologist Herbert de Souza, Betinho.
Buarque is a member of Institute of Education of UNESCO. He created a NGO Mission Child, which sponsors an income transfer program for thousands of families and is funded by private enterprises. He was awarded the Jabuti prize of Literature in 1995, in the “Humanities” category. He is a staunch defender of the “revolution… through education”, a line of thought touted by important Brazilian intellectuals, as Anísio Teixeira, Darcy Ribeiro and Paulo Freire.
Buarque is also a proposer of an alternative class analysis of modern capitalist societies. According to him, in modern capitalism, the increasing substitution of technological devices for human labour tend to make employed workers a privileged caste, while a new layer of "excluded" people - those who have no jobs, no insurance, no healthcare - is formed, whose members are the real victims of social inequality. As this new underclass, however, does not have the ability to effectively counter its exploitation by capitalism, Buarque's thought constantly tends towards some kind of substitutionism, in which political action by wide masses is replaced by government or institutional action on their behalf.
[edit] Federal District Governor (1995-1998)
His term as Governor of Distrito Federal was marked by strong tensions with the PT, and particularly with the unionist base of the party, as he strived continuously not only to maintain his independence from party directives, but also to influence intra-party political struggle through State power. In that, he achieved evident success in subduing the party to his policies, at the high price of demobilizing most of the PT activists.
The project Bolsa escola, implemented in the Federal District during his term, was awardee in Brazil and in the exterior. Albeit its 58% of approval (notes excellent and good) in research of the institute Datafolha carried through to the end of its mandate, being classified as the most popular state governor to the time, he was unable to attain re-election, being defeated by Joaquin Roriz (PMDB) for a small margin of votes. Buarque, in a somewhat simplistic manner, attributed his defeat to his adversary's promise to grant a great wage increase for the public servants of the Federal District. The promise was not fulfilled by Roriz.[1]
[edit] Implemented Programs
[edit] "Bolsa-escola"
Bolsa escola assures a minimum wage to every poor family in which all children between the ages of 7 and 14 are registered for public school. The criteria to receive it are: * Per capita income monthly of the family must be equal or inferior the half minimum wage. * All the children of the family must attend a minimum of 90% of classes. * The family must have resided in the Federal District (Brasilia) for at least five years. * Existing some adult member of the dismissed family, it [will have to be enrolled in National System of Job (SINE).
In 1997 the program reached 44,382 children of 22.493 families, with an expense of R$ 32 million, or in other words less than 1% of the budget of the Federal District. Under this program, truancy, which in 1994 had been about 10%, fell to 0,4%.
[edit] "Poupança-escola"
Works as one programs to complement to Bolsa escola, aiming at to diminish the evasion and the repetência. The pupil scholarship holder, to each year where he is approved, has deposited in a special account the value of a minimum wage, that will be applied in the Deep one of Solidarity of the Federal District (Funsol). After to complete the fourth and eighth series of the first degree, the pupil will be able to draw half of the value deposited in the saving. In the conclusion of as the degree, the balance is set free integrally. If the pupil will be disapproved per two years consecutive, will be eliminated of the program and the balance reverted for the government. The program costs 10% of the annual average cost of a pupil in the public net, what it makes with that, when reducing significantly the repetência (fell of 29,8% in 94 for 16,45% in 97), represents a considerable economy for the government, beyond the social and educational profit.
[edit] Health at home
The families benefited for this program regularly receive the visit from health teams, trained to give to basic services in the area to all the members of the family, diminishing its necessity of displacement to the hospitals and centers of health. Each team, headquartered in a Unit of Health in House, is composed for a doctor, a nurse, three nurse aid, four communitarian agents of health and one to assist of general services, and has covered a region with about a thousand families. This program already is implanted in eleven regions reaching, through the 101 teams of the Secretariat of Health, about 800 thousand people.
[edit] "Mala do livro"
Consists of mini-libraries (box-bookshelves), installed in residences of Communitarian Agents of Reading, for book loan to the neighborhood. Each domiciliary library has a quantity of about 150 volumes, made up of: didactic books and of infantile, Brazilian and foreign pertaining to school support, literatures. The books are loaned per seven days. To each two months, the box-bookshelves are changed, giving new options of reading. The program already has five hundred “luggages of the book” reaching a universe of about 50 a thousand people.
[edit] Brb-Labour
Its main objective is to democratize the access to the credit and the services banking, being benefited microproducing agricultural and urban, as craftsmen, feirantes, small rendering of services and workers of the informal sector, as well as cooperatives and microcompanies. The ceiling of the financiável value is of R$ 5 a thousand for person and R$ 25 a thousand in the case of collective forms of production and work. These resources are destined to the purchase of machines and equipment as well as the o working capital financing. The quick program also enterprise assessorship and promotes courses for the qualification managemental technique and of the benefited ones. To candidatar itself to the credit, the necessary interested party to inhabit in Federal District has at least five years, to have experience in the profession or enterprise the one that if applied of, not to have no type of cadastral restriction and to present a guarantor in the same conditions. When I register in cadastre it is filled, an agent of credit of the Secretariat of the Work goes to visit the candidate to verify the conditions of production, the product quality/service and the expectations of job generation. After the visit, the Committee of Credit approves or not it request, on the basis of the finding presented for the Secretariat of the Work. In the foreseen dates, the benefited one deposits, in any agency of the BRB, the value of the parcel of the loan. When quitting a financing, all that one that paid in day will be able to get a new credit.
[edit] Popular Seasons
Initiated in 1995, the “Popular Seasons” takes to all the cities of Federal District, during the months of January and February, local and national artists. In one year 220 spectacles of music had been presented, theater and dance, with real vendidos ingressions eight, that they had been attended by 100 a thousand people.
[edit] Peace in traffic
Program of education in traffic that drastically reduced the number of accidents in Federal District and in the capital Brasilia, that she was one of the champion of traffic accidents.
[edit] Entering in PDT
In 2005, after the denunciations of corruption involving Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker's Party) (PT), he left the party. He said:[2] “I did not leave PT, it was PT that left me. This is the great crime of the PT. The party is comprised honest, but accommodated people. Only some petistas are corrupt.” After considering his permanence in the Senate as an independent, he decided to enter the Democratic Labour Party (Brazil) (PDT), with which he had old affinities, having participated of the campaign of Leonel Brizola to the presidency in 1989. His proposal to transform the education into great national priority is a continuation of the ideas of Darcy Ribeiro, an important formulator of the educational politics of the PDT.
[edit] 2006 Presidential Race
Cristovam Buarque ran for President in the elections of 2006 for the PDT, having the senator Jefferson Peres as vice-president. The main flag of his campaign was federalization of basic public education (preschool, basic and intermediary education), considered a prerequisite for solving many Brazilian problems in the medium and long run. To reach this objective, he considered the federalization of some aspects of the area, such as the definition of minimum standards for educational infrastructure (buildings, equipment etc.), curricula, teacher training and with a minimum monthly wage of R$ 800,00 for teachers. He was fourth in the first round, behind Lula, Geraldo Alckmin and Heloísa Helena, having received 2.538.834 votes, or 2.64% of the valid votes. Celebrities as Juca Kfouri, Jose Trajano, Caetano Veloso, Fernanda Torres, Ricardo Noblat and Manoel Carlos had declared that they had voted for Cristovam.
[edit] See also
- Bolsa escola
- List of external governors of the Federal District
