I moved to Brazil shortly after the 2008 U.S. elections. Those elections were—to put it mildly—exhausting. The 24-hour news stations broadcasting pedantic pundits; endless debates over the debates; minor scandals that supposedly influence the swing voters. It was all too much. I have to admit getting caught up in it for quite a while, but in hindsight, I think there were rapidly diminishing marginal returns to following the election. In any election, I feel there quickly comes a point at which more information isn’t really going to help you make your decision. Most people seem to decide within the first few months who they’ll vote for.
The positive side of all that, though, was the feeling of seeing democracy in action. People were genuinely interested in all the issues and I got in the middle of many debates about the candidates’ merits and prospects for victory.
Moving to Brazil, then, provided me with a chance to escape the overwhelming political atmosphere in the U.S. News stations don’t dominate the TV landscape in Brazil, and people have talked to me very little about politics—American or Brazilian.
This past Sunday, though, was Brazilian election day. Although there were several candidates, the presidential race was mainly between Dilma Rousseff, of current president Lula’s center-left Partido de Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party), and José Serra, of the center-right Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social Democratic Party). Due to a strong showing by a third candidate, Marina Silva, neither of the two favorites got 50% of the vote. In accordance with Brazilian law, Dilma and Serra will compete again in a runoff.
But the details of the election and its results—important as they are—are not really what I want to focus on. Instead, I want to talk briefly about how weird it was that very few people who I know actually cared very much about the election. Many people told me they were going to ‘justificar’—that is, justify to the government why they didn’t vote. Voting is mandatory in Brazil, and these people needed to give some excuse, however thin, to justify their absence at the polls. For some people I talked to, it was a practical issue. They were registered in another city or state and would have had to change their registration. I can understand that. Bureaucratic processes in Brazil aren’t very pleasant. Some other people, however, seemed downright disinterested.
Maybe I’m biased by having lived in very political cities in the U.S. (Madison and Oakland/Berkeley), but I was shocked by their lack of enthusiasm. The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign was an incredible two years long, and many people were interested from the beginning. Here, the campaign officially began in July of 2010, meaning it officially lasted 3 months. Even for those few months, though, the campaign didn’t really dominate the media like it did in the U.S.
Perhaps by living through the U.S. and Brazilian elections I’ve just seen two extremes; whereas one country obsesses, the other remains somewhat detached. And I don’t want to give the impression that the Brazilian election was without scandal, or that nobody obsessed about. But the World Cup garnered much more attention than the election.
And that, I have to say, is a sad statement for a country generating so much buzz with its rapidly-increasing GDP. People here constantly talk about Brazil’s future as a growing power, yet they turn off when they get to decide what it will look like! Do people think their votes won’t make a difference? Is the lack of interest a product of general dissatisfaction with the government and its many cases of corruption? Is this a result of laws restricting certain types of election coverage?
I don’t really have the answer to these complex questions. And it seems like in the past week or so people have really gotten into the runoff.
I do have one related item that is brillant and totally unserious, though. If you haven’t heard, one of the most bizarre results in the elections last Sunday was the surprise victory of a man who dressed up in a clown’s costume and asked people to vote for him for congress. Some people claim he is illiterate and therefore unable to take his seat. In any case, here is congressman-elect Francisco Silva from São Paulo:
Transcript: Oi gente, estou aqui pra pedir o seu voto, pus que eu quero ser deputadô deferal, pra ajudar os mais necessitadô, inclusive a minha família. Portanto meu nº é 2222. Se vocês não votarem, eu vou morrrêeeêeee..
(Translation: Hi everyone, I’m here to ask for your vote, because I want to be a congressman to help the neediest people, including my family. So my number* is 2222. If you don’t vote for me, I’ll die!!!)
*Numbers are used to identify candidates in the election.
(Images courtesy of Agência Brasil)
Kyle Rolnick fell in love with traveling at a young age while touring the U.S. crammed into an old minivan with his large family. That love has taken him all over the world, including a year-long stay in India.
After graduating from college, he worked at a law firm in San Francisco and then moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he arrived speaking not a word of Portuguese, ready to tackle yet another new city.
He still resides there, teaching English to a variety of students, including those preparing to enter the Instituto Rio Branco, Brazil’s only school of diplomacy. In his free time, Kyle likes to read and make music. You can find his work at www.myspace.com/kylerolnick.
Kyle is a native of Madison, Wisconsin and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
