Marina Silva — an environmental activist who could become Brazil’s first Afro-Brazilian president — is being hailed as a revolution in Brazilian politics. But the far left isn’t happy. Taylor Barnes reports from Rio.
Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva speaks at the launch of her campaign platform in São Paulo on Aug. 29.
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
RIO DE JANEIRO — The 40 people crowded into the living room of a party-cum-workspace in a red-light district of Rio's downtown had known each other for a while. They met on the streets of Brazil and in human rights circles over the past year, as major anti-government protests dwindled down to the hardcore leftist few. They were still regularly turning out for protests, which routinely ended with violent confrontations with police.
On this night, the activists were gathered for a debate about Brazil's upcoming presidential election, a dramatic race that has seized the attention of the entire country. The organizers had managed to find a debater for five of the six top candidates. The only one missing? The woman many would think would find a natural base among the people gathered here: challenger Marina Silva, an environmental activist who, if she wins, will be the country's first Afro-Brazilian president and a break from the two parties that have controlled the presidency for nearly two decades.
Silva, whose life story, charisma, and pledge to do politics in a "new" way have prompted comparisons to Barack Obama, is widely expected to meet incumbent Dilma Rousseff in a runoff after the first round of voting on Oct. 5. Even then, she would find few supporters in this room of lefties and protesters. Asked who they would vote for in a runoff, only five people in the room raised their hands for Silva, despite the fact that many blamed the Rousseff government for the Rio police's crackdown — with tear gas and rubber bullets — on the very protests they attend.
"We were not able to find a Marina voter!" said the debate moderator, Rafucko, a popular leftist YouTube comedian who came dressed in drag that night. Those gathered laughed.
Marina Silva has for years been a favorite in international environmental activism circles and a household name among Brazilians, who see her as someone who in her politics and personal life represents one of the main debates in their rapidly growing country: Development at what cost? But many in this room, comprising the new generation of Brazil's politicized youth, were now rolling their eyes over what they see as a presidential campaign that has taken a toll on her integrity.
Silva "was building this image of a saintly Obama-like figure. And then she got her hands dirty," said Marina Motta, 28, a human rights researcher at the debate. Voting for Rousseff instead, she said, "is a bit like staying on the safe side. It's the devil that you know."
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Silva comes from an impoverished family of 11 children and grew up in the state of Acre, a remote corner of the Amazon. She was illiterate until her teenage years, when she contracted several tropical diseases and moved to Acre's capital, Rio Branco, in search of medical treatment. It was in Rio Branco that she began her schooling and delved into religion. She worked as a housemaid, became heavily involved in liberation theology, a radical movement in the Roman Catholic Church that advocated for social change among the poor, and later in life converted to the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. She worked alongside the environment and labor activist Chico Mendes, who was later assassinated and became a symbol of the global conservation movement, in anti-deforestation movements in the 1980s.
A union organizer herself, Silva won elections as a city councilwoman and state congresswoman before becoming a senator for Acre in 1994, and, in 2003, environment minister. In 2010, she gave a surprisingly strong performance as the third-place candidate in the presidential elections, garnering 19% of votes for the Green Party. A vice-presidential candidate on the Brazilian Socialist Party's (PSB) ticket this year, Silva suddenly found herself the wild card of the election when her running mate, Eduardo Campos, died in a plane crash in August. Brazilians know her by her raspy voice, the thin frame she still holds with poise, and the harsh seriousness that comes through even as she tries to smile and joke on the campaign trail.
She rose rapidly in the polls, which now predict a second-place finish in the first round and a neck-and-neck runoff with Rousseff. Aécio Neves, the candidate preferred by right-leaning Brazilians, is expected to endorse Silva in a runoff, boosting her chances. Yet the race is still too close to call.
The activists — a young creative crowd as exasperated with politics as they are boisterous about agitating for change — gathered for the late-night election debate, which took place about two weeks before the first round of voting, would appear to be a natural base for Silva. So why were they not on board?
