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Boulos, the activist who gives hope to the left in Brazil

2020-12-02T12:31:21.469Z


The PSOL candidate does not achieve the mayoralty of São Paulo, but excites those disenchanted with Lula's party


Among the 2,168,109 votes that Guilherme Boulos received this Sunday in São Paulo was not his.

He could not go near the electronic ballot box because two days before he was diagnosed with covid and had to confine himself to his home, in a humble neighborhood of the Brazilian metropolis.

The contagion robbed the candidate of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) the two most relevant moments of his campaign to win the mayoralty of the richest city in Latin America.

The coronavirus deprived him of the vote in the second round of the municipal elections and of his stellar moment, that of presenting himself to all of Brazil because his televised debate on the Globo channel had to be canceled within hours of the last face to face with the mayor, Bruno Covas .

It could not be.

The electorate did not give Boulos, a Corinthians supporter, the comeback he asked for.

The center-right mayor was re-elected with a 20-point lead.

But this defeat tastes like victory.

Because, with his two million votes and his freshness, Boulos has earned a leading position in the effort to resurrect Brazil's left.

This 38-year-old activist and teacher attended the 2018 presidential elections without achieving even 1%.

Now he has managed to excite a part of the São Paulo electorate disenchanted with the Workers' Party and its corruption scandals.

The formation that ruled Brazil for 13 years is experiencing its lowest hours, although it still retains its muscle.

The PSOL pales in power against the PT, but it is seen by its voters as synonymous with the future, with hope.

It is as if Boulos and PSOL were a vigorous teenage son entering manhood while the PT and Lula seem more like a gentleman with a glorious past who ages poorly (and much of the electorate hates).

Boulos, the son of a couple of infectious diseases specialists, was aware from early on that he was privileged in an unequal country.

He was still a teenager when he asked his parents to take him out of his private school to finish high school at a public institute.

As an adult, he decided to move to his partner's neighborhood, on the outskirts.

And there they continue with their two daughters.

Comparisons with Lula da Silva proliferate, not with the former president but with the trade unionist of the eighties, the one who harangued the workers, the one who had not yet come to power or gentrified.

With their beards and neat shirts rolled up, they even look alike physically.

Boulos was never affiliated with the PT, unlike many of the PSOL militants and leaders, but he campaigned for Lula's release from prison.

And he was publicly blessed by the former president in one of the most momentous speeches of his life, that of his farewell before entering prison in 2018: “You have to take into account the seriousness of this boy (…) You have a future, brother, simply do not give up ”, recommended the patriarch of the Brazilian left.

As he was given 17 seconds of television advertising in the first round, he faced each campaign act, each video for TikTok, Twitter or YouTube, each debate with his opponents, as if it were the game of his life.

In close proximity, he is serious, very effective and empathetic.

For five decades he led the Homeless Workers Movement to protest against homelessness —24,000 people live on the sidewalks of São Paulo — and promote occupations of abandoned public buildings.

That is why it is seen by many as radical.

Since he has never been elected or has experience in public management, he signed an endearing and beloved former mayor of São Paulo, Luiza Erundina de Souza, 86, as a vice candidate.

He responds smilingly to the radical accusations with arguments and proposals.

A distant image of some of his most controversial acts as a social activist.

To whom he accuses that, with his social program it is impossible to balance the accounts, he shows him the manifesto of support from 50 businessmen and managers.

The leftist is a supporter of alliances within the left.

"I believe that the greatest challenge for the left in this election is to defeat this project of backwardness, of hatred, which is Bolsonaro's project," he told this newspaper at an electoral event.

He has tuned in with an electorate that seems to seek peace after a few years marked by the insult to the adversary.

The biggest problem of the PSOL, less masculine and white than the PT, is that the upper-middle class on the left votes for it more than the masses of the disinherited who need to go out to work in the midst of a pandemic and cannot see a debate on their mobile phones.

That is why the face-to-face at Globo, which reaches the last corner of Brazil, was crucial.

But this is a long distance race.

“Although we did not win this election, we were victorious.

It is the beginning of a cycle ”, he proclaimed from his confinement.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-12-02

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