Oct 25 2024 | Nº. 140

Editorial

This week, Brazil participated in the annual summit of the BRICS countries in Kazan, Russia. For Russia, hosting the event was intended to send a clear message that US efforts to isolate the country over its war on Ukraine have failed whereas other BRICS countries remain interested broadly speaking in participating in the construction of a new framework for global governance beyond US hegemony. Lula had to cancel his participation after a fall requiring medical attention, but Brazil was active in deliberations regarding BRICS expansion. While the Lula administration had previously expressed reservations about the bloc expanding rapidly, preferring to limit the body’s size so as to maximize Brazil’s influence, the admission of new members like Iran and Egypt signals an inevitable shift toward a larger coalition.

Strikingly, Lula’s government successfully vetoed the inclusion of Venezuela and Nicaragua into the BRICS bloc, reflecting a strategic move by the Lula administration to cautiously but clearly distance itself from the regimes of Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega (notably, Brazil did not oppose Cuba’s entry into BRICS). As some members of BRICS tend increasingly toward an explicitly anti-US orientation, Brazil faces the challenge of balancing its active participation in the bloc with its defense of democracy and multilateral institutions like the United Nations. “As far as I know, Brazil is a Western country,” Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said Thursday in Russia when asked whether BRICS is hostile to the West. There is no doubt, however, as to the intention of the BRICS bloc to counter what its members see as overbearing US influence over the global economy. The BRICS development bank, led by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, finances projects around the world and is ultimately aiming to move the international economy away from the dominance of the US dollar. Brazil’s foreign policy will face new challenges as BRICS grows and shifts towards a more politically charged identity.

Also this week, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad was in Washington to participate in the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, along with the final meeting of G20 finance ministers during Brazil’s term at the head of that body. Traveling with Haddad was Brazil’s future Central Bank president, Gabriel Galípolo, who was approved to the position by the Senate after Lula nominated him in late August. Among other points of discussion, Haddad presented better than expected economic numbers, with analysts once again projecting that Brazil will beat growth expectations this year.

Highlights

• Second round. Voters from 51 cities in all Brazilian states will go to the polls on Sunday, October 27, to vote in the second round for mayoral candidates in the municipal elections. The first round took place on October 6. Voting in Brazil is mandatory and there is only a second round in municipalities where the first-place candidate has not obtained more than half of the valid votes alone. Of the municipalities where there will be a second round, 36 are not capitals. The most important dispute is taking place in the city of São Paulo, the largest and richest in the country, where the current mayor, Ricardo Nunes, is seeking reelection with the support of former president Jair Bolsonaro against Guilherme Boulos, who is participating in the dispute with the support of President Lula. Since voting takes place using electronic ballot boxes, the result will be known a few hours after the end of voting. Those elected serve four-term terms, which begin in January 2025. Nunes leads with a double-digit advantage over Boulos.

• Electoral deforestation. Individuals and companies involved in deforestation are financing politicians in the 2024 Brazilian municipal elections. At least R$8.4 million (US$1.4 million) was donated to mayoral and city council candidates in Brazil by 836 people who have been fined by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) since 2005. These funds reached the campaigns of 1,059 candidates, most of them in cities that are of great interest to agribusiness in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Goiás. One of the donors, for example, has accumulated more than R$34 million in environmental fines and was responsible for financing 43% of the campaign expenses of a city council candidate in the municipality of Sorriso, Mato Grosso. The data was collected by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

• Arm wrestling. Right-wing and far-right congressional people are seeking ways to limit the powers of the Brazilian Supreme Court. The movement is led by far-right politicians allied with former President Jair Bolsonaro. This extremist political sector led a failed coup attempt in January 2023 with the invasion of the headquarters of the Three Powers, and now classifies the measures taken by the Judiciary against it as political persecution. One of the proposals being considered in Congress is one that would make it easier for congressional representatives and senators to file impeachment proceedings against members of the Brazilian Supreme Court. This week, Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes said that any dismissal of members of the county’s highest judicial body could not happen without the Supreme Court itself reviewing the process. The statement is part of the arm-wrestling taking place between the two powers.

   

• Bad projection. On October 23, 2024, the International Monetary Fund released a report in which it projected that the primary deficit of Brazil's public accounts will be between 0.6% and 0.7% of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2025. According to the projection, there will only be a surplus in 2027, when the figure is expected to rise to 0.1%. This estimate contradicts and disappoints previous forecasts, which were more optimistic. In April, the projection was that the deficit in the current year would be 0.3%, and a zero deficit could be achieved as early as 2026.

News from the WBO, Organizations and Social Movements

Marielle Franco. Those accused of murdering city councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Silva, will be tried on October 30 in Rio de Janeiro. Marielle and Anderson were shot dead inside the car in which they were traveling on March 14, 2018. She was the only Black woman and favela resident elected in 2016 among the 51 members of the Rio de Janeiro city council. She led initiatives to investigate aspects of the federal intervention in the state of Rio de Janeiro led by military members linked to then-president Jair Bolsonaro and combat the illegal sale of land and real estate in a business controlled by militias made up of former police officers. It will be a jury trial. The Marielle Franco Institute published an explanatory dossier on the case, as well as information on how everyone can help to see justice done.

U.S. elections. The WBO's Brazil Unfiltered podcast will air on November 6, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Brasília time) with a live broadcast about the 2024 U.S. elections. In this special program, produced in partnership with Carta Capital magazine, host James N. Green will be accompanied by three other special guests: André Pagliarini, assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University and editorialist for the WBO's weekly newsletter; Vânia Penha-Lopes, professor of sociology at Bloomfield College, New Jersey and associate researcher at the WBO; and Thaís Reis Oliveira, executive editor of Carta Capital. The WBO podcast is traditionally broadcast in English, but this special edition will be in Portuguese. Mark your calendars and follow along via the link.

New member. On October 16, Rede Amazônidas pelo Clima (RAC) became the 72nd organization affiliated with the WBO. The mission of the RAC is “to create a network of Amazonian professionals from different backgrounds, social strata, identities, relationships with the territory, and disciplines in order to promote their representation in regional, national, and international discussion spaces.” The WBO hopes to contribute to increasing the reach and prominence of the RAC and its members in the environmental debate. Learn more about the RAC by clicking on the link. See the organizations affiliated with the WBO at this link.

South American far-right. Friedrich Ebert Foundation will launch in Brasília and São Paulo the study “Support and Rejection of the Far Right: A Comparative Study on Argentina, Brazil and Chile.” In Brasília, the event will be on Tuesday, October 29 at 11 am in the IPOL-UnB auditorium with the presence of Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Talita Tanscheit, Marisa Von Bülow, Flavia Biroli, and André Borges. In São Paulo, it will be held on Wednesday, October 30 at 10 am in the Rubino de Oliveira Auditorium at the University of São Paulo Law School with Kaltwasser, Tanscheit, Conrado Hübner Mendes, Camila Rocha and Maria Hermínia Tavares.

Feminist agenda. Denise Dora, lawyer, feminist, and coordinator of the WBO Gender and Freedom of Artistic Expression Program, gave an online class on October 23 with the title “Beijing+30 and Women’s Rights in Brazil.” The initiative was organized by the Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Virtual Human Rights Forum. The full content is available on the Brazilian Institute of Human Rights’ YouTube channel. Click on the link to watch.

WBO Fellows. Political scientist Guilherme Casarões, professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas School of Business Administration of São Paulo and a research fellow at the WBO, published an opinion piece in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper on October 18 entitled “Is Mexico the New Frontier of Evangelical Expansion in the Americas? Just as happened in Brazil, Mexican believers enter Politics from the Left.” Read it via the link.

Feature Article

Leading Change and Strengthening Democracy

By Tainah Santos Pereira*

The underrepresentation of Black women in positions of power in Brazil is a historic challenge that has been addressed with increasing mobilization and organization. The Mulheres Negras Decidem (Black Women Decide, MND) movement emerged in 2018 with a firm belief in the capabilities of current generations to reverse this scenario, transforming institutional politics ethically and aesthetically. With a network that exteneds throughout the country, the MND carries out campaigns, training sessions, and data-centered research to increase the political participation of these women, ensuring that they have the power to influence the decisions that affect their lives.

It is interesting to note the growing presence of Black women in Brazilian politics. Without a doubt, this is a sign of progress, the result of decades of successful strategies and tactics, built and executed by Black women's movements, collective leaders such as Marielle Franco, Talíria Petrone, Áurea Carolina, Beatriz Caminha, Erika Hilton and many others, who are inspiring forces and examples of resistance and commitment to social transformation based on their actions within positions of power.

In 2024, Dandara Tonantzin stood out as an example of political renewal, running for mayor of the city of Uberlândia in Minas Gerais with proposals focused on racial justice and gender equality. The most recent data from the 2024 elections indicate that 52.73% of local candidates in municipal elections are people who identify as Black or Brown – an increase of about 2.7% compared to the 2020 elections. Although modest, this growth consolidates a positive trend, marking the second consecutive election in which Black candidates outnumber those from other demographic groups.

However, the fight for equity still faces many challenges. In August 2024, the approval of Constitutional Amendment 113/24 reduced the resources allocated to Black candidates by more than R$1 billion (US$175.3 million), generating legal uncertainty and threatening the progress made in recent years. Public resources from the Special Campaign Financing Fund are known to be essential for the viability of Black women's candidacies, contributing significantly to increasing the eligibility rate of this social group.

For this reason, Mulheres Negras Decidem, together with other movements and civil society organizations, is fighting in the Brazilian Supreme Court to reverse this measure, highlighting in Direct Action of Unconstitutionality, No. 7706 the importance of maintaining proportional funding for Black and female candidacies to ensure their effective participation in the elections.

Beyond institutional barriers, we also believe it is important to continue (re)building bridges with Black evangelical communities, recognizing the vital role of Black women as agents of transformation in their churches and territories. Far from stigmas or monolithic views about the evangelical electorate, we understand that these women, who are our mothers, aunts and sisters, can indeed be receptive to political proposals to combat inequalities, especially when it comes to tackling racism and climate change, two absolutely urgent and unavoidable issues.

We also recognize that the apparent fissure of the right in Brazil does not mean that extremist forces such as Bolsonarism have been defeated. Its impact on the electoral results in 2024 remains quite visible, and it will be up to the most progressive sectors to offer an alternative for a tangible future, capable of rekindling hope and mobilizing the masses around a project of real change.

For the MND, it is indisputable that there is no way out for Brazilian democracy without the energy of Black women. Despite our population of over 60 million, even within the left there is persistent criticism of what has been conventionally called “identity politics,” as if addressing racial and gender issues were an obstacle to winning over the masses. However, it is always important to remember that addressing structural inequalities is not a distraction, but a fundamental necessity to guarantee rights and opportunities for all. By empowering Black women, the MND seeks to demonstrate that their capacity for leadership and building solutions results in benefits for all people.

The trajectories of Black women in Brazilian politics reflect a journey of challenges and achievements. The examples of Black women in collective leadership in Brazil, the Americas, and around the world show that transforming historically exclusionary structures is possible. The 2024 elections signal a moment of hope and resistance, with Black women assuming a central role in building a more just and democratic future.

*Tainah Santos Pereira is the political coordinator of Mulheres Negras Decidem, a social movement dedicated to promoting the participation of Black women in institutional politics. She is also a PhD candidate in International Political Economy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with a master’s degree in Political Science from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Estácio de Sá University. She was a fellow at the Draper Hills Summer Program on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in 2022 at Stanford University.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.