Brazil’s Leftist Ruling Party, Born of
Protests, Is Perplexed by Revolt
By Siman Romero
Published: June 20, 2013
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The protests were heating up on the streets of Brazil’s largest city last week, but the mayor was not in his office. He was not even in the city. He had left for Paris to try to land the 2020 World’s Fair — exactly the kind of expensive, international mega-event that demonstrators nationwide have scorned.
A week later, the mayor, Fernando Haddad, 50, was holed up in his
apartment as scores of protesters rallied outside and others smashed the
windows of his office building, furious that he had refused to meet with them,
much less yield to their demand to revoke a contentious bus fare increase.
How such a rising star in the leftist governing party, someone whose
name is often mentioned as a future presidential contender, so badly misread the
national mood reflects the disconnect between a growing segment of the
population and a government that prides itself on popular policies aimed at
lifting millions out of poverty.
After rising to prominence on the backs of huge protests to usher in
democratic leadership, the governing Workers Party now finds itself perplexed
by the revolt in its midst, watching with dismay as political corruption, bad
public services and the government’s focus on lifting Brazil’s international
stature through events like the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics inspire
outrage.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands protested
outside the newly built stadium where Brazil faced off against Mexico in the Confederations
Cup, as the police tried to disperse them with tear gas, rubber bullets and
pepper spray. In what would normally be a moment of unbridled national pride,
demonstrators held up placards demanding schools and hospitals at the “FIFA
standard,” challenging the money Brazil is spending on the World Cup instead of
on health care or the poorly financed public schools.
Now the authorities across Brazil are bracing for a new round of
protests on Thursday, with one newspaper reporting that demonstrations are
expected in more than 80 cities throughout the country — from big urban centers
like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to Manaus in the Amazon and Teresina in the
northeast.
“We want the act to be bigger today,” said Tadeu Lemos, 22, a student
leader at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, part of an organizing group
that drew up various points to continue protesting, including having a voice
over expenditures for the World Cup and the Olympics.
Security forces in various cities are preparing for a large turnout. In
the capital, Brasília, police said they would cordon off access to buildings
like the Congress, a structure that protesters were able to scale one night
this week and dance on the roof, providing a shock to political leaders. And in
Rio de Janeiro, banks boarded up windows while the authorities placed metal
barriers in front of the governor’s palace.
With support for the protests escalating — a new poll by Datafolha found
that 77 percent of São Paulo residents approved of them this week, compared
with 55 percent the week before — Mayor Haddad and Geraldo Alckmin, the
governor of São Paulo State, from an opposition party, bowed on Wednesday night,
announcing that they would cancel the bus and subway fare increases after all.
Other cities, including Rio de Janeiro, pledged to do the same.
But while the fare increases might have been the spark that incited the
protests, they unleashed a much broader wave of frustration against politicians
from an array of parties that the government has openly acknowledged it did not
see coming.
“It would be a presumption to think that we understand what is
happening,” Gilberto Carvalho, a top aide to President Dilma Rousseff, told
senators on Tuesday. “We need to be aware of the complexity of what is
occurring.”
The swell of anger is a stunning change from the giddy celebrations that
occurred in 2007, when Brazil was chosen by soccer’s governing body to host the
World Cup. At the time, dozens of climbers scaled Rio de Janeiro’s Sugar Loaf
Mountain, from which they hung an enormous jersey with the words “The 2014
World Cup Is Ours.”
“We
are a civilized nation, a nation that is going through an excellent phase, and
we have got everything prepared to receive adequately the honor to organize an
excellent World Cup,” Ricardo Teixeira, then the president of the Brazilian
Football Confederation, said at the time.
Since then, the
sentiment surrounding Brazil’s preparations for the World Cup, and much else
overseen by the government, has shifted. Mr. Teixeira himself resigned last
year, under a cloud of corruption allegations, and while the Brazilian
government says it is spending about $12 billion on preparing for the World
Cup, most of the stadiums are over budget, according to the government’s own
audits court.
The sheen that once
clung to the Workers Party has also been tarnished by a vast vote-buying scheme
called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, in a nod to the regular payments
some lawmakers received. The scandal resulted in the recent conviction of
several high-ranking officials, including a party president and a chief of
staff for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was a popular Brazilian president.
“There’s been a
democratic explosion on the streets,” said Marcos Nobre, a professor at the
University of Campinas. “The Workers Party thinks it represents all of the
progressive elements in the country, but they’ve been power now for a decade.
They’ve done a lot, but they’re now the establishment.”
The economic growth
that once propelled Brazil’s global ambitions has slowed considerably, and
inflation, a scourge for decades until the mid-1990s, has re-emerged as a worry
for many Brazilians.
But expectations among
Brazilians remain high, thanks in large part to the government’s own success at
diminishing inequality and raising living standards for millions over the last
decade. The number of university students doubled from 2000 to 2011, according
to Marcelo Ridenti, a prominent sociologist.
“This generates huge
changes in society, including changes in expectations among young people,” he
said. “They expect to get not only jobs, but good jobs.”
Unemployment is still
at historical lows — partly because of the very stadiums and other construction
projects that have become the source of such ire among some protesters. But
well-paying jobs remain out of reach for many college graduates, who see a
sharp difference between their prospects and those of political leaders.
“I think our
politicians get too much money,” said Amanda Marques, 23, a student, referring
not to graft but to their salaries.
Earlier this year, Mr.
Alckmin, the governor, announced that he was giving himself and thousands of
other public employees a raise of more than 10 percent; his own salary should
climb to about $10,000 a month as a result. High salaries for certain public
employees have long been a festering source of resentment in Brazil, with some
officials earning well more than counterparts in rich industrialized nations.
Both Mr. Alckmin and
Mr. Haddad followed the protests together in Paris last week on their
smartphones. But at the time, Mr. Alckmin dismissed the protests as the
equivalent to a routine strike by air traffic controllers in Paris, something
“that happens.”
“What has to be done is
be strong and stand firm to avoid excesses,” he told reporters then, before the
protests had spread on the streets of São Paulo and dozens of other cities
across Brazil.
By this week, it was
clear how thoroughly officials had miscalculated. At one point on Tuesday
night, protesters tried to break into the Municipal Theater, where operagoers
were watching Stravinsky’s “Rake’s Progress.” The doors to the elegant theater
remained shut and as the show went on, they spray-painted the outside of the
recently renovated structure with the words “Set Fire to the Bourgeoisie.”
William Neuman contributed
reporting from São Paulo, and Andrew Downie from Recife.
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