On March 2, 1983, the amendment proposing the restoration of direct elections for the Presidency of Brazil obtained enough signatures to be presented to Parliament.
The direct campaign [Diretas Já!] it would soon attract the support of politicians opposed to the dictatorship and broad sectors of the population —with the decisive participation of the press, especially Sheet—, becoming the largest popular mobilization in the history of the country.
Despite being defeated in the Chamber, it promoted the redemocratization process and the achievements of the 1988 Constitution, a legacy currently attacked by authoritarian threats, such as the invasion of the headquarters of the three Powers on January 8.
Four decades after the Directas Ya campaign [Diretas Já!] when Brazil experienced the largest popular demonstration and the liveliest civic festival in its history, the country finds itself, once again, in the position of having to make the uncompromising defense of democracy the axis of its political action.
The parallelism between the two historical situations has obvious limits. In the mid-1980s, a military dictatorship was waged that, two decades after it was established, was dying. Today, without the democratic regime having cracked, we are facing the latent threat gestated in what remains of an authoritarian project whose little supporters coups, appealing to violence, refuse to accept the verdict of the polls.
Translated by AZAHARA MARTIN ORTEGA
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