A quarter of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in slums, or favelas, yet too often those very people are left feeling marginalised. Wracked by drug and gang-related violence and stricken with poverty, favelas are more often considered part of the problem than woven into a political solution. On October 7, Brazil will go to the polls to choose a new president — a race led by right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro — along with all members of the lower chamber of Congress, two-thirds of the Senate and governors and legislators in the 26 states and the federal district home to the capital Brasilia.
To attract voters, politicians blame favelas for rising crime but rarely do they set foot in one to listen to the inhabitants’ own concerns. A case in point is the densely populated Mare favela, home to 140,000 people, where in June a 14-year-old boy called Marcos Vinicius was gunned down on his way to school during a police operation.
Ahead of the elections, local charities have organised a candidate debate in Mare. The cultural centre where it is held resembles a warehouse and is full to bursting point. Not a single plastic chair is free, nor a space on the pallets piled up into makeshift seating. Many of the 300 people crammed inside are forced to stand. “What are you going to do to stop us missing class because of shoot-outs?” asks 14-year-old Ellen.
Her question, though, is not directed at the right people.
Only three of the 12 gubernatorial candidates bothered to turn up for the debate, all from left-wing parties and two of whom were polling less than one per cent of the vote in opinion surveys.
Four candidates cancelled at the last minute, while one was represented by his running mate.
Even World Cup winning former football star Romario, himself born in a Rio slum, hasn’t made an appearance.
“Where are the candidates? I don’t know anyone here,” says Daniel Lima, a 21-year-old who was hoping to see the big-hitters such as Romario and former Rio mayor Eduardo Paes.
Karla Rodrigues, 35, who like most of those living in Mare is black, adds: “I’m disappointed. This says a lot about the candidates.
“It’s important that they can go into the favelas, to make contact with the population so they can get a different idea to what you see on television.”
Every day, politicians highlight the numerous shoot-outs in favelas, and not without reason. The Mare debate is interrupted for a few seconds by the sound of gunfire, chilling the blood of those present. Nonetheless, residents feel they are often viewed as criminals rather than the victims of favela violence, simply because that’s where they live.
Arthur Viana de Andrade, 21, is getting ready to vote for the first time. While he hasn’t made up his mind yet, he knows who won’t be getting his vote.
“When I hear someone saying: ‘The only good bandit is a dead bandit,’ that scares me because as a black man living in a favela, I know I’ll be a target,” he says, in reference to frontrunner Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain.
Debate organisers chose “security” as the central theme for the meeting, but that’s not what locals most want to discuss. Their interest is more in health and education. “They need to build us a big hospital here, in this neighbourhood,” says Lucia Gomes, 49, who was
selling cakes at the entrance to the cultural centre. — Reuters
Louis GENOT
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