Brazil

No experiments! Stay on course! Carry on as normal! Who would have thought that the German Christian Democrats' old election campaign slogans would one day apply to Brazil's Workers' Party (PT)? The party of the country's re-elected President Dilma Rousseff has become conservative, hoping to maintain the status quo.

Even the majority of Brazil's voters are opposed to experiments. Just over 51 percent cast their ballot for Rousseff, while her centrist PSDB challenger Aécio Neves won slightly more than 48 percent. The scales seem to have been tipped because voters from less affluent parts of society had feared that the reforms Neves promised would not spare social programs.

Conservative socialists

It's a paradox, but after 12 years in power, political concepts in Brazil have shifted. The left has become conservative, the right, on the other hand, is pushing for change. But isn't the entire country pining for a new era, for change? The mass protests in June 2013 were certainly regarded as a clear indication of rising dissatisfaction with Rousseff's government.

But Neves wasn't able to use this dissatisfaction. His anti-Dilma campaign was successful with the voters already skeptical of the PT party, but he couldn't convince undecided voters or staunch PT supporters.

Rousseff, on the other hand, reacted cleverly to the mass protests. She "delivered" by bringing in Cuban doctors, she pushed Brazil's Congress to adopt two laws that had languished for years in a desk drawer: one on the use of additional revenue from oil production in the health and education sector, the other classifying corruption as a serious offense.

Split society

Rousseff could and would not stop the political polarization in Brazilian society. Now that it has won the election, the PT party faces a huge mess: It's been shaken by corruption scandals, verbal attacks have shattered ties, while a bloated bureaucracy shelters political freeloaders.

At the same time, both the PT and the opposition PSDB have done an excellent job consolidating Brazilian democracy over the past 25 years. From 1995 to 2002, under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government, Brazil conquered the scourge of inflation. The foundation for the successful social programs was also laid during the Cardoso era.

So in reality, the two parties have more in common than whta divides them. Rousseff and Neves should consider this common heritage and treat each other with respect instead of further polarizing Brazilian society. The reelected president can't completely ignore her political adversary's demands for reform in any case. A conservative, Merkel-style "maintain the status quo" would be fatal for Brazil.