Five million Brazilians vote against foreign debt payments and deal with IMF

Debt campaigners celebrated an historic result on Wednesday 13^th September, when results of an informal referendum revealed that more than 5 million Brazilians voted against foreign debt payments and a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

The vote was led by Brazil's National Bishops' Council to draw attention to deep social inequalities in the country. Of the 5.5 million people who turned out, 5.13 million voted to end the IMF deal, while 5.3 million wanted a review of foreign debt payments. Campaigners hailed the vote as a great success.

Marcos Arruda of the Brazilian Jubilee 2000 campaign said: "Although the referendum had no legal power, it is a very powerful political expression of the public will." He called on the government to listen to the voice of the people of Brazil and end its agreement with the IMF as well as make a public audit of the country's debts. Brazilian's total external debt in 1998 stood at $232 billion. The country paid £47 billion in debt service payments, equivalent to its spending on education and three times spending on health.

The referendum asked 3 questions on debt and the IMF, which received the following votes:

1) Should the Brazilian government keep the current agreement with the IMF?

93.81% said NO, 4.56% said YES, 1.21% blank and 0.43 null.

2) Should Brazil continue to pay the foreign debt without making a public audit as prescribed by the 1988 Constitution? 96.57% said NO, 2.19% said YES, 0.9 blank and 0.36 null.

3) Should the Federal, state and municipal governments continue to use a large part of the public budget to pay the internal debt to the speculators? 94.93% said NO, 2.45% said YES, 1.3 blank and 1.32 null.

The vote was carried out as part of a week of protests against the high levels of poverty and inequality in Brazil. More than 130,000 people voluntarily participated in the collection of votes in the streets, squares, churches, offices, trains, subways of cities and also in remote villages. The referendum received little press coverage and was criticised by the Brazilian Government who said it would undermine economic stability.

Opposition politicians from the left-wing Workers Party (PT), who have rallied behind the referendum to protest against the government's free-market policies, said the turnout was sufficient to push for a legally binding referendum. Urns were placed informally across Brazil between Sept. 2 and 7.

"The turnout was very good and shows it would be good for Congress to respond to this,'' said Eduardo Suplicy, a senator for the Workers Party.

The party has won the necessary 171 signatures from lawmakers to introduce a motion in Congress requesting a binding referendum on the issues. But the bill is very unlikely to get anywhere, as the government's majority in the Senate will block it.

Marcos Arruda said that the referendum was " one of the strongest expressions of direct democracy the country has ever experienced... It is time to put life before debt."

• Full statement about referendum by Marcos Arruda, Jubilee 2000 Brazil