Democracy(s)?

Some considerations on the political opening of 1945 in the (inter)view of José Américo and in the Manifesto Mineiro

Abstract

Taken by the subjects of the time as a reference; the statements of Mr. José Américo de Almeida, in February 1945, to the Rio de Janeiro press, Correio da Manhã, were celebrated and reproduced for serving specific party interests and inaugurating the electoral campaign, albeit veiled, by Eduardo Gomes in the presidency, of the uncertain election of 1945. We return here, this well-known interview and the Mineiro Manifesto, among many other manifestations in favor of the political opening of 1945, trying to understand the conceptions undertaken on the notion of democracy by these actors that considered themselves as “Democrats”, but who finally met under the party label of the National Democratic Union (UDN). It is not a question of considering whether, since 1945, Brazil experienced a democracy or not, after all, there is a historiography that has already highlighted the democratic mood of this period as our first experience; even amid the authoritarian contradictions of the period. But to reflect on some of the milestones produced about that moment and mainly understanding how the subjects defined and managed understandings on the concept of democracy.