The results of the first round of municipal elections held across Brazil last Sunday were a blow to the Workers’ Party of former President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva and recently impeached President Dilma Rousseff. From controlling more than 600 towns and cities nationwide, the party lost around 400 localities, a drop of 60 percent. Of state capitals, it has retained control so far of only Rio Branco in Acre, a far-flung territory in the Amazon.
Even the result in Sao Paulo, the largest city in the country, surprised many when mayoral candidate Joao Doria, of the center-right Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), won more than 50 percent of the votes, negating the need for a second-round of voting. Along with this historic rout of the Workers’ Party, which had been in power for more than 18 years in the country’s presidency, there was a record number of Brazilian voters who did not vote or cast blank ballots. It is estimated that one in every four Brazilians did not cast a valid vote. The ongoing Car Wash corruption investigation being spearheaded by the Federal Police, which sees scores of businessmen and politicians investigated and arrested practically every week, has served to poison the atmosphere and understandably has put most Brazilians off traditional politics and politicians.
Fernando Haddad, the current mayor of Sao Paulo, and from the Workers’ Party, ran for re-election, but lost badly, winning only 16.7 percent of the votes, versus Doria’s 53.29 percent of the vote. Haddad had a lackluster term as mayor and will most likely be most remembered for increasing the number of bicycle lanes on the streets of the city and for reducing the speed limit on several vital roadways. Doria has already said he will reduce the number of bicycle lanes and increase the speed limits, despite statistics that were released this week showing that road fatalities had actually decreased after the speed limits had been lowered. On Wednesday, a large group of cyclists staged a “die-in” by laying on the ground with their bikes in front of Doria’s residence.
The truth is that the country is disgusted with politicians, and the electorate is becoming increasingly polarized along ideological fault lines. A good example of this was the order an electoral judge delivered last Sunday ordering police at a voting precinct in Curitiba to bar the press from entering and filming former President Rousseff as she cast her ballot. The police were shown on TV pushing and shoving the journalists out of the voting venue and a visibly flustered Rousseff told reporters afterward that what had happened was absurd and that she had never witnessed such electoral violence before.
The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) of current President Michel Temer maintained its lead as the largest party in Brazil, winning control of 1,028 municipalities. It has been called the kingmaker party because of its strategic role in supporting other parties in power, such as its long alliance with the Workers’ Party which only became unraveled this year when Temer, who had been Rousseff’s vice president, openly plotted to have her impeached. The PMDB has the rather strange distinction of never having had a candidate of its own for the presidency of Brazil. That is expected to change in 2018, although whether Temer will run is still an unknown. He is appealing a judicial verdict that said he was ineligible to run for public office for eight years for allegedly having accepted financial donations to his campaign above the legal limit.
Meanwhile, Brazilians are facing one of the country’s worst economic recessions in a decade, with record 11 percent unemployment, and inflation at around 9 percent. The new Temer government has been making cuts in all of its spending, and is trying to introduce legislation that will cap government spending. The bill, which will be a constitutional amendment and therefore must be approved by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress, was approved in committee in the House of Representatives on Thursday night and will now go to the full floor for voting on Monday. Temer blames his current fiscal headaches on Rousseff’s uncontrolled handling of the budget, that has seen government spending increase alarmingly for the past four years. His efforts at controlling spending have already helped slow down inflation, which is expected to end at 7.2 percent by the end of this year.
The Car Wash investigations have now ensnared Lula da Silva and his wife, who are being investigated for allegedly having accepted millions in bribes from a leading construction company in return for obtaining contracts with the state oil giant Petrobras. Rousseff publicly stated that she thought Lula was being targeted in order to make him ineligible to run in the 2018 presidential elections. He remains immensely popular, especially in the northeast of Brazil, which holds a decisive portion of the country’s electorate.
Brazilian voters are sick and tired of corrupt politicians, and this showed in the results of this election. Whether the PSDB and PMDB parties can deliver a cleaner and more efficient mode of ruling the country remains to be seen. It is certainly a high-order, and if they fail in the next two years, the Workers’ Party could stage a comeback in the 2018 elections.
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Rasheed Abou-Alsamh is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
Even the result in Sao Paulo, the largest city in the country, surprised many when mayoral candidate Joao Doria, of the center-right Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), won more than 50 percent of the votes, negating the need for a second-round of voting. Along with this historic rout of the Workers’ Party, which had been in power for more than 18 years in the country’s presidency, there was a record number of Brazilian voters who did not vote or cast blank ballots. It is estimated that one in every four Brazilians did not cast a valid vote. The ongoing Car Wash corruption investigation being spearheaded by the Federal Police, which sees scores of businessmen and politicians investigated and arrested practically every week, has served to poison the atmosphere and understandably has put most Brazilians off traditional politics and politicians.
Fernando Haddad, the current mayor of Sao Paulo, and from the Workers’ Party, ran for re-election, but lost badly, winning only 16.7 percent of the votes, versus Doria’s 53.29 percent of the vote. Haddad had a lackluster term as mayor and will most likely be most remembered for increasing the number of bicycle lanes on the streets of the city and for reducing the speed limit on several vital roadways. Doria has already said he will reduce the number of bicycle lanes and increase the speed limits, despite statistics that were released this week showing that road fatalities had actually decreased after the speed limits had been lowered. On Wednesday, a large group of cyclists staged a “die-in” by laying on the ground with their bikes in front of Doria’s residence.
The truth is that the country is disgusted with politicians, and the electorate is becoming increasingly polarized along ideological fault lines. A good example of this was the order an electoral judge delivered last Sunday ordering police at a voting precinct in Curitiba to bar the press from entering and filming former President Rousseff as she cast her ballot. The police were shown on TV pushing and shoving the journalists out of the voting venue and a visibly flustered Rousseff told reporters afterward that what had happened was absurd and that she had never witnessed such electoral violence before.
The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) of current President Michel Temer maintained its lead as the largest party in Brazil, winning control of 1,028 municipalities. It has been called the kingmaker party because of its strategic role in supporting other parties in power, such as its long alliance with the Workers’ Party which only became unraveled this year when Temer, who had been Rousseff’s vice president, openly plotted to have her impeached. The PMDB has the rather strange distinction of never having had a candidate of its own for the presidency of Brazil. That is expected to change in 2018, although whether Temer will run is still an unknown. He is appealing a judicial verdict that said he was ineligible to run for public office for eight years for allegedly having accepted financial donations to his campaign above the legal limit.
Meanwhile, Brazilians are facing one of the country’s worst economic recessions in a decade, with record 11 percent unemployment, and inflation at around 9 percent. The new Temer government has been making cuts in all of its spending, and is trying to introduce legislation that will cap government spending. The bill, which will be a constitutional amendment and therefore must be approved by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress, was approved in committee in the House of Representatives on Thursday night and will now go to the full floor for voting on Monday. Temer blames his current fiscal headaches on Rousseff’s uncontrolled handling of the budget, that has seen government spending increase alarmingly for the past four years. His efforts at controlling spending have already helped slow down inflation, which is expected to end at 7.2 percent by the end of this year.
The Car Wash investigations have now ensnared Lula da Silva and his wife, who are being investigated for allegedly having accepted millions in bribes from a leading construction company in return for obtaining contracts with the state oil giant Petrobras. Rousseff publicly stated that she thought Lula was being targeted in order to make him ineligible to run in the 2018 presidential elections. He remains immensely popular, especially in the northeast of Brazil, which holds a decisive portion of the country’s electorate.
Brazilian voters are sick and tired of corrupt politicians, and this showed in the results of this election. Whether the PSDB and PMDB parties can deliver a cleaner and more efficient mode of ruling the country remains to be seen. It is certainly a high-order, and if they fail in the next two years, the Workers’ Party could stage a comeback in the 2018 elections.
—
Rasheed Abou-Alsamh is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
