On Sunday 28 October, Brazil will elect a new President in the middle of the worst political crisis since the dictatorship in the 1960s. In the past three years headlines about Brazil have taken a more ominous tone and now the door to the past seems to be open once again.
Back in 2015, the international economic crisis had plunged...
São Paulo,12 October. Are we heading for a repeat of the fiasco which followed previous elections of so-called salvadores da pátria - messianic figures who promise to put an end to corruption?
In 1961 it was Janio Quadros with his broom, in 1989 it was Fernando Collor, the caçador dos marajás, or hunter of the mandarins – both governments ended prematurely,...
On Sunday night we watched in horror as Bolsonaro’s percentage of the vote crept up to 47%, 48%...it seemed clear that he would win the election on the first round. But then the votes from the Northeast states began to trickle in and his numbers fell, while Haddad’s rose. In the end, Jair Bolsonaro, the extreme right-wing candidate, scored...
He is the backwardness no country deserves to have. And we are the women who will not let him win
Women in Brazil have become the main voice of resistance against far-right presidential candidate,Jair Bolsonaro, who is leading the polls for the presidential election taking place on Sunday. Protests organised on social media took hundreds of thousands of women to...
With just a few days to go elections on 7 October, polls indicate a run off in the second round between the small PSL’s ultra right-wing candidate Jair Bolsanaro and the PT’s Fernando Haddad, who shot into second place once Lula was finally banned from standing by the Electoral Court, in the early hours of 1 September.
This election is...
Latin America and the Caribbean is a place of paradoxes. The region is usually depicted as relaxed, diverse, happy and open. But unfortunately, it also it stands close to the top of the international charts that measure violence against LGBTI people. According to the European advocacy organization TGEU, the region accounts for 78% of the world toll of trans...
22 March 2018. Marielle Franco was executed with four bullets. One each for racism, misogyny, homophobia and impunity.
By killing Marielle, the assassins eliminated not just a politician elected on the PSOL ticket to the Rio City Council with 46,000 votes, a lone black woman in the sea of white, male, wealthy politicians. They also silenced the voice of a...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhSvU6trWs
Video: The intercept
The murder on 14 March of Marielle Franco, a young black city councillor and human rights campaigner, has deeply traumatized Rio de Janeiro, a city so cheated by the failure of mega-events such as the World Cup and Olympics to deliver lasting social change, and so bitterly accustomed to violence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN-JjAX_zdw
Political colleagues and family members speak out about...
São Paulo, 15 February 2018. It’s Ash Wednesday and all that’s left of Carnival in the streets of São Paulo are rows of chemical toilets and a homeless man wearing a paper crown. Hard to believe that over the last four days these same streets were jam packed with multi-coloured crowds in their hundreds of thousands, dancing, and singing,...
In an unprecedented political atmosphere, Costa Ricans will vote for a new president on February 4th. The country has become famous for its wonderful natural beauty – home to nearly 6 per cent of the world's biodiversity – and receives approximately 3 million tourists every year.
So it may surprise many visitors that a candidate who promises to open the...