Word: geisel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...only for that reason, the elections last week of aldermen and mayors in 3,968 municipalities had more than local import. Their significance was further heightened by the intense nationwide campaign waged by President Ernesto Geisel, 68, the Brazilian military's hand-picked chief of state. Though securely ensconced in his own job as President until 1979, Geisel jetted through 16 of Brazil's 21 states, kissing babies, cutting ribbons and shaking every hand in sight like any vote-hungry candidate. Along the way, he invested much of his personal prestige on behalf of local candidates...
...Geisel had apparently won his gamble for a mandate-namely, a majority vote for ARENA candidates-but not by the margin he sought. As Columnist Carlos Castello Branco wrote in Jornal do Brasil, "This is a victory with the flavor of defeat." As expected, ARENA candidates won in Brazil's rural backlands, but MDB swept five of Brazil's largest cities by substantial margins...
Black Beans. The opposition's showing was doubly impressive in view of the odds stacked against it. Unable to field candidates in a quarter of Brazil's municipalities, MDB was also stripped of a politically potent weapon-television. Under a strict electoral code drawn up by Geisel's Minister of Justice, Armando Falcào, candidates of both parties were forbidden to use TV or radio to speak to the voters. Meanwhile, "public service" broadcasts extolling the achievements of the revolution flooded the air waves. Weighing the opposition's impressive vote against these obstacles, political observers...
...Geisel's tentative liberalization policies may have been partly responsible for a decision last week of General Augusto Pinochet's Chilean junta to release 304 political prisoners held without charge since the 1973 coup...
...grew nasty: priests were jailed and dissidents were tortured to death. Says one bishop: "The effect on the church leadership was swift and strong. It would have been impossible for us to concentrate only on pastoral work when we knew human beings were being tortured and mutilated." President Ernesto Geisel, who is a Lutheran, claims that he has ordered an end to political torture, but local police and military officials persist in the practice, as do right-wing vigilantes such as those who kidnaped Bishop Hypolito. After the murder of Father Burnier last month, a Mass was said...