It started with the national anthem and ended with a rap. In between came a poignant minute’s silence, politicized soccer chants and a call to action by the woman tipped to become the first Green national leader on the planet.
The unveiling in Sao Paulo of Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva’s platform for government on Friday last week was a sometimes bizarre mix of conservatism and radicalism, doubt and hope, but for many of those present, it highlighted the very real prospect of an environmentalist taking the reins of a major country.
In a dramatic election that has at times seemed scripted by a telenovela writer, Silva has tripled her coalition’s poll ratings in the two weeks since she took over from her predecessor and running mate, Eduardo Campos, who was killed in a plane crash. Following a strong performance in the first TV debate between candidates, polls suggest she will come second in the first-round vote on Oct. 5 and then beat Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in the runoff three weeks later.
Illustration: Mountain People
This is a spectacular turnaround for a candidate who did not even have a party a year ago, when the electoral court ruled that she had failed to collect enough signatures to mount a campaign. It was also the latest in a series of remarkable steps for a mixed-race woman who grew up in a poor family in the Amazon and went on to become her country’s most prominent advocate of sustainable development.
The distance Silva — known as Marina — has come from her remote forest home was evident at the launch of her program for government in the affluent Pinheiros District of Sao Paulo. About 250 people — mostly from her Sustainability Network party and its allies in Campos’ Brazilian Socialist party (PSB) and other groups — gathered under the chandeliers of the swanky Rosa Rosarum venue, where waiters in white gloves served canapes, while they waited for their leader.
“Now is the time for Marina. We’re all very excited,” said Sigrid Andersen, a university professor and member of the Sustainability Network. “I think she will turn the country towards sustainability in every sector.”
Silva’s face stares out from the covers of magazines and the front pages of newspapers, under headlines such as “Marina Presidente?” “How far can Marina go?” or “The Marina Effect.” One cartoonist depicted her as a Neo-type character from The Matrix who appears to be fighting in almost another dimension from her rivals.
Women are hugely under-represented in Brazilian politics, but it is not because of her gender that Silva could break the mould. That has more to do with the color of her skin and ideas.
Silva is a mix of Brazil’s three main ethnic groups. Among her ancestors are native Indians, Portuguese settlers and African slaves. While she is usually described as predominantly “indigenous,” friends say Silva categorizes herself as “black” in the national census. In Brazil’s white-dominated political world, this is exceptional.
“It will be super-important for Brazil to have a black president, as it was in the US with [US President Barack] Obama. It would signify a big advance for our country against discrimination,” said Alessandro Alvares, a member of the PSB and one of the few non-white faces in the room.
Silva’s political colors could prove still more controversial. For more than a decade, she has been known as the country’s most prominent Green campaigner, having first worked on sustainability at the grassroots with the Amazon activist Chico Mendes, who was later murdered. She later served as environment minister in former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration from 2003 to 2008, when she put in place effective measures to slow the deforestation of the Amazon.
“If elected, Marina will be the greenest president in history, the first black president in Brazil and the first to be born in the Amazon,” said Altino Machado, a journalist based in Acre State, who first met Silva more than 30 years ago. “She has proved her credentials as an environmentalist and protector of the Amazon. She also has a very strong ethical code and is totally free from any taint of corruption, which is extremely rare in politics in Brazil, where scandals happen all the time.”
Listening to Silva speak as the leader of a mostly elite, mostly white, urban crowd in Latin America’s biggest city, it is remarkable to think of her very different origins in the Amazon. The would-be president, 56, grew up in the forest in a poor, illiterate family of rubber tappers. She survived malaria and hepatitis, worked as a housemaid and did not learn to read until she was 16. With the support of Catholic priests, she became involved in social issues, entered university and became a student and union activist.
Crowd-pleasing has never been what Silva is about. Throughout her career, she has put her principles above the priorities of her political allies. That is clearly part of her appeal to an electorate that is tired of business as usual. Many of those who support her were among the protesters who joined the million-strong demonstrations of more than a dozen cities last year.
However, now in a coalition, Silva is making compromises. Her 250-page program attempts to reconcile the very different outlooks of the Sustainability Network and the more pro-business PSB. The result is a something of a hodge-podge, with something for street protesters (10 percent of GDP to healthcare within four years), financial markets (greater autonomy for the central bank) and her core supporters.
On the environmental front, the program calls for greater energy diversity, which will mean the promotion of wind and solar power, more ethanol production, the maintenance of hydrogeneration — which currently supplies more than three-quarters of Brazil’s electricity — and the scaling back of thermal power and exploitation of oil deposits under the Atlantic.
The change could be dramatic, but for the moment, it lacks specifics. In her 20 minute speech, Silva criticized the thinking behind the Belo Monte dam, which will be the biggest in Latin America once it is finished, but stopped short of saying either it or any of the other controversial hydropower projects in the Amazon would be halted.
Similarly, she was cautious about accepting the “Green champion” role that many conservationists would like her to play if she became president.
“Sustainable development is a global trend that can be seen in China, India and elsewhere. If I win, of course I want to make Brazil a symbol of that trend. It won’t just be us, but we have enormous potential,” she said.
Victory is far from certain. With more than a month left before the election, there is abundant time for another twist in the campaign. Voter sympathy following the death of Campos might wear off. Attacks from rivals will increase. And the other candidates should benefit from their superior financial backing and TV time.
However, for now at least, all the momentum is with Silva and her diverse group of supporters. As she heads toward the first-round vote, she has generated support among environmentalists, financiers and street protesters, mixed feelings among anti-market leftists and outright hostility from many in the agribusiness and energy industries.
So what does Silva stand for? The traditional political labels of left and right do not quite fit, nor do the ethnic categories of black and white. Green is certainly an important part of the mix, though how diluted will probably not be clear until this unusually colorful campaign comes to an end.
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