RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – As part of the Rio Times’ election coverage, Benjamin Wein travels through the Northeast region’s nine states to find out why the region historically favors the leftist Workers party PT and to ask about voters’ feelings for President Bolsonaro.
Maranhão is the northernmost state in the Northeast region. Its capital is São Luís, a city rich in colonial history, part of which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In the decisive vote of the 2018 election, Fernando Haddad, the PT candidate, gained 73% of the votes in Maranhão to President Bolsonaro’s 27%. On October 3, PT challenger Lula da Silva is expected to gain a majority in all states in the Northeast, according to a projection by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
Around 3.3% of Brazilians live in Maranhão, many of whom fare worse than people in other parts of the country. On the 2017 Human Development Index (HDI) – a sum of life expectancy, education, and income – the state scored 0.68, the second-lowest in the country. The national average was 0.77.
Marcelo Augusto Nunes Soares, 27-year-old municipal police chief from São Bento
“President Bolsonaro has been very critical of Lula and the PT. While Bolsonaro’s agenda has generally been conservative, his liberal economics have caused fear among people in the Northeast. The Northeast is the neediest region in the country, and the PT’s social programs had a significant impact. In São Bento, the municipality where I work, PT gained 83% of the votes in 2018.
“São Luis is the state capital where there are more businessmen, civil servants, policemen, etc., which is Bolsonaro’s power base. São Bento has more agricultural workers and people working in retail and salespeople … there are a lot of people working informally and receiving welfare. It’s a very poor part of the country that I serve, and it needs investment in health and education.
“As a policeman, I generally attend to poor people involved in violence. A lot of the people are unemployed. I’m not at all in support of Bolsonaro. I see his government as fascist and think it always looks for distractions and tries to compromise the independence of the police. I see [the Bolsonaro government] as cancer on Brazil.”
Hemmerson Rodrigues, a 28-year-old language teacher from São Luís
“I think that he [Bolsonaro] is really popular. He’s come to the region a lot of times and has always been well received … He’s done a lot for the Northeast in terms of infrastructure. He completed projects that were abandoned for decades, hydroelectric plants and wind energy infrastructure, for example. The national media has been against him.
“I trained as a pharmacist at university, but now I’m teaching languages and making money. Many young people see the academic route as the only way, but the president is promoting an entrepreneurial mentality.
“I don’t think he’s racist. Many things have been said about the president, and a lot of things have been twisted.
“The Northeast suffers from a lot of education issues, and the media can manipulate people easily; I’ve seen that a lot … the biggest problem in the Northeast is education. Some people arrive at high school, and they’re still unable to read.”
Saulo Araujo, a 33-year-old plastics artist from Imperatriz
President Bolsonaro “is racist and homophobic, but there are more reasons he’s so hated here. It’s not just in the Northeast; it’s in all of Brazil. There are failures in education and health, and all of that makes him really despised. The people that support him are the ones who have money and people that aren’t educated and don’t know about politics or his backstory.
“The people in the North and Northeast have a preconception of people from the south … they seem kind of untouchable, beautiful and orderly. That image remains.”
“I’m going to vote for Lula because I was able to make a living from my art when he was president. I always had work; it was a good time for me. I have pictures of Lula hanging in my home; I really love him. People had more money back then. There was more work and welfare, which helped people afford art.
“He [Bolsonaro] hates blacks. He was a soldier in the past, and he’s from an abusive, murderous culture that puts gays, blacks, and women under threat. They say that his son killed [politician and activist] Marielle [Franco]. She was black and lesbian, leading a beautiful social movement.
“The biggest problem for the Northeast is education and unemployment. When you arrive at another big city as a person from the Northeast, you feel judgment and discrimination.”