By Manuel Ortiz Escámez and Anna Lee Mraz Bartra
With information from Igor Carvalho,
Photographs by Bárabara Pelacani and Chico Brum
Global Exchange, Peninsula 360 Press
In the general elections in Brazil on October 2 this year, there are two national projects competing at the polls, with no room for a third way.
On the one hand, the far right is betting on Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the current president and candidate for re-election. On the other, the leftist and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who is trying to return to power after 12 years.
In this electoral process, not only the presidency is at stake, but also the positions of governors, vice-governors and part of the National Congress. This year, 29,097 people ran for the positions of state deputy, federal deputy, senator and state governors.
These elections could determine the country's course in terms of human rights, gender freedom and the survival of Brazilian forests - such as the Amazon - which are currently being devastated by mining, logging and agribusiness; unbridled development pollutes water and air, as can be seen not only in rural areas but also in large cities such as Rio de Janeiro.
According to Dr. Celso Sánchez, biologist and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro ‒UNIRIO‒ and director of GEAsur, the government of President Jair Bolsonaro has been characterized by carrying out unprecedented environmental devastation in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon, considered the lung of the world, as well as a "very violent advance of human rights violations."
According to Sánchez, these elections are therefore "absolutely important, since the continuity of life is at risk, not only in Brazil but in the entire world."
In response to political aggression and eco-genocide, as Sánchez calls the environmental devastation in Brazil, black communities called quilombolas, women, LGBTTTIQ+ people and indigenous peoples have organized not only to resist but also to re-exist through the creation of collectives, support networks and minority candidates, many of which are considered protesters, who will play an important role in these elections.
Brazilian photographers Bárbara Pelacani and Chico Brum photographed some of these candidates in Rio de Janeiro.
Candidates such as Tereza Arapium, an indigenous woman running for state deputy in Rio de Janeiro for the Rede Sustentabilidade (REDE) party, is presenting public policy proposals from someone who was born in the forest, was cured with traditional medicine, and is on a mission to defend the land and the people who inhabit it. Territory, body, and spirit are connected and are part of the life of indigenous peoples, who are the guardians of the forests, waters, and land. Her campaign advocates that this ancestral knowledge be exchanged with social groups in cities.
The devastation of the Amazon is also depriving indigenous peoples of their right to live. The Arapium campaign denounces the ongoing ecocide and genocide in Brazil and advocates the demarcation of indigenous territories.
These nominations "They are predominantly female and not only indigenous, the role that black women have today, of course because of the giant legacy of Marielle Franco and the seed that she represents of hope to speak in this home of political occupation, the importance that black indigenous women have, Afro indigenous or as we prefer to call Afropindoramic – because pindorama was the name given to the continent by our indigenous ancestors –", explains Sanchez.
«So this Afro-Pindoramic youth has a tremendous participation in management, they have organized the marches, the Margarita marches, the march of black women, the march of indigenous women and from there many artistic leaders have emerged», Sánchez tells Peninsula 360 Press.
Benedita da Silva, for example, is a black woman running for federal deputy in Rio de Janeiro for the Workers' Party (PT). She is the only black parliamentarian in the Assembly that created the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. Her struggle originated in the Favela Association of the State of Rio de Janeiro, where she was a volunteer and worked on literacy for young people and adults using the Paulo Freire method. Currently, Benedita da Silva is a federal deputy and is the author of a Bill (PL) that provides that political parties reserve minimum quotas for Afro-Brazilian candidates in elections to the Legislative Branch.
Benedita da Silva has occupied the institutional political space for 40 years. Her history in public life goes hand in hand with the process of redemocratization in Brazil, opening the doors for other black women to dream and be part of partisan politics. Her candidacy is crossed by the current political moment of setbacks. As a reference to these dark times, the candidate tells us that the murder of Marielle Franco was a political milestone, where the extermination of lives becomes an institutionalized practice. Something that must be fought from political spaces so that Brazil can reestablish itself.
For the first time in Brazilian history, blacks will be the majority of candidates, 49.57 percent of the total. Whites, 48.86 percent in total. The survey conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 2019 shows that 54 percent of the population is black.
However, when we leave the general data and focus on the positions in dispute, we see that Brazilian parties concentrate the candidacies of blacks in the less important positions in the election.
For the majority posts, namely president, governor and senator, blacks represent only 35 percent of the candidates: there are 166 black or brown candidates, compared to 310 whites. Among the 13 candidates for president, only three are black: Leonardo Péricles (UP) and Vera Lúcia (PSTU), who declared themselves black, and Father Kelmon (PTB), who declared himself brown when he registered with the TSE.
Benedita da Silva is a reference for left-wing social movements, for women and for blacks. A woman who, at 80 years old, with great-grandchildren at home, gets up and launches another political campaign, because she believes that it is necessary to fight and maintain hope in a time of so many outrages.
The rise of black, female and indigenous candidates in Brazil is due to the support of specific laws and has been celebrated by public opinion.
Today, women represent 33 percent of candidates, while in 2018, they were 31 percent of contestants. There is still a long way to go, as women make up 52 percent of the Brazilian population, according to IBGE. But there has been progress in terms of representation since 2009, when, by virtue of Law No. 12,034, each legend must respect the minimum percentage of 30 percent and the maximum of 70 percent for the candidates of each gender.
Benny Briolly, a trans woman, is a candidate for state deputy in Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL).
Briolly is the first transgender woman elected in Niterói, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. She is a transvestite, a defender of black African religions and of the favela. She is a councilor in Niterói, forged in student activism, where she began to feel alive and hopeful. Her struggle arose from need, pain, loss, facing denials and lack of access to basic things.
Benny faces the challenges of a trans candidacy amid political violence, gender threats and threats against his religion. To face adversity, his main tool is the body, which occupies spaces and causes the repositioning of the limits of power relations.
Vote LGBT data shows the country will have 275 LGBT candidates, 0.9 percent of the total, with 113 cis women, 82 cis men, 43 trans women, 19 transvestites, 6 non-binary people, 5 trans men and 7 people who choose to define themselves in other ways.
Of these 275 LGBT candidates, 227 are concentrated in parties considered left-wing or progressive, with 95 in the PSOL, 60 in the PT, 28 in the PSB, 23 in the PDT and 11 in the PCdoB. Another 42 candidates will come from the centre and only six from the right, but none will be in the PL, the party of President Jair Bolsonaro, considered far-right.
Campaigns by indigenous people, black people, trans people, LGBTQIA+ people, rural workers, women in struggle that inaugurate counter-hegemonic processes in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil in 2022. The invisibility of these campaigns and of these social groups means the existence of rights that are not historically respected in the country.
For the position of federal deputy, women represent 34.5 percent of the total candidates. Men, 65.6 percent. When it comes to the Senate, the most important legislative chamber in the country, there is a disparity: only 22 percent of the candidates are women.
Mônica Francisco carries in her body, in the color of her skin, in her gender, in her territory and in her ancestry, the entire history of oppression and violence committed against black people, especially against women.
Originally from Borel, she was a worker, a domestic worker and, as an exception to the rule, she graduated in Social Sciences. She was a professor at ESPM, an advisor to Mariele Franco and today she is a State Representative.
Francisco believes that work and income are part of the path to deepen his struggles for human rights, feminism and against structural racism. Mônica knows that without the eradication of poverty there is no true democracy.
Francisco works for the promotion of gender equality, equity in health care for the black population and for respect for the LGBTQI+ community, for more black women in politics. She fights for a solidarity economy and many other agendas necessary for a more just Brazil.
Among the 10,564 candidates for federal deputies, blacks represent 48.25 percent, compared to 50.18 percent of whites. In the race for the state deputy position, the least important in Brazilian elections, there are 16,661 registered candidates, 56 percent of the total. Here, blacks are the majority, 51.97 percent.
Sol Miranda, candidate for federal deputy for the PSB in Rio de Janeiro, warns of the strong obstacles, within and outside the party structures, that prevent the rise of black candidates.
«The greatest difficulties that a black woman may face in the electoral process revolve around several barriers that lead us to political violence. This process does not have a single beginning, but regardless of the way it occurs, it is a warning that we are not safe, from offensive comments and messages on social media to death threats. This aspect of political violence is the most debated currently.»Miranda tells P360P.
Miranda was born in the Cinco Bocas Favela in Rio de Janeiro. She has a degree in Literature. At the age of 23 she became a mother and today, like most young women in Brazil, she is able to balance her career and motherhood. Her vision is born from the desire to use her professional work to contribute to the distribution of opportunities, especially for the population least assisted by social policies.
Making politics is a poetic act for the women portrayed. As long as the excluded are not in political spaces, there will be no creation or implementation of public policies for them. These candidacies are the search for the end of structural racism of slavery, patriarchy, homophobia, elitism, agribusiness.
On October 2, Brazil is contesting more than just the country's presidency. It is contesting social freedoms and the political representation of the protesters. These candidates go against the capitalism of death, in the midst of a government that today disrespects the constitution, withdraws public policies of interest to the population and implements its process of extending neoliberalism with the institutionalization of death as a political tool.
The opposition candidates portrayed here are engaged in the exercise of putting pressure on the left-wing parties themselves with more diverse, broader and fairer agendas. They have in mind the class struggle, the impoverished and the scourged by the capitalist system, but they also act for blacks, indigenous people, the favelas, rural workers, the LGBTQIA+ population, people with disabilities, children, the elderly, women.
Through their campaigns, they criticise traditional ways of doing politics and highlight the commitment of women in politics. These women want to occupy political positions to challenge the superstructures of silence and denial, to reaffirm the memory of their social groups and to continue the struggle they have built.
This note was made with the support of the organization Global Exchange in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.
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