The enthusiasm generated by Jair Messias Bolsonaro has cooled a lot among those who voted in 2018 for this controversial retired military man in the hope that he would lead Brazil out of the serious political, economic and confidence crisis that prevented it from moving forward. He promised to regenerate public life, reactivate the economy, fight the left and gender ideology, defend the right to arms, a strong hand and efficiency… He convincingly and won the elections. Three years and a pandemic later, disappointment creeps in among its voters as indicated by the polls and confirmed by the protagonists of this series that was born to take the pulse of Bolsonaro's Brazil. Through families or people chosen at random in five Brazilian capitals,EL PAÍS narrated in 2019 the expectations of its followers (you can read it here) and in 2020 it asked them to take stock of the first year in office (read here). The protagonists of these stories embody the big issues on the Bolsonarista agenda.
Jair Bolsonaro during the national industrial confederation on December 7, 2021. Getty Images (Getty Images)
Ten months before the general elections, we visited the Prado Neves in Porto Alegre for the third time to talk about the economy, Da Silva in Brasilia to talk about fighting corruption and Pastor Galdino in São Paulo to ask him about values.
The Salvador de Bahia family who embodied the challenge of public safety has declined the invitation.
And as a counterpoint, the Kardec-Chaves of Manaos, who did not vote for the current president.
The Prado Neves in Porto Alegre: Economy
"I am not going to vote for him for the bad example he sets."
Anriel do Prado Neves, 26, who three years ago affixed a Bolsonaro sticker to the car he was driving for a transportation app, now admits that he will not vote for the retired captain in the October 2022 elections. been even a good president, he made the necessary privatizations. But I'm not going to vote for him because of the bad example he sets. He does not wear a mask, he says what he should not, it generated a great rivalry ", explains the young man, who has become emancipated and moved to a neighboring city.
The matriarch, the elderly caregiver Ereni Azevedo do Prado, adds that "nobody is happy with the government."
The impact of inflation is brutal, especially in food, which adds up to 12.6% in 12 months.
“When I went to work in one of the houses where I work nine years ago, I earned 90 reais (16 dollars, 14 euros) a night.
Now there are 100 but then with 2.5 I bought five kilos of rice and now it is 30 ″, he says at his home in Morro da Cruz, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil.
Although she now lives alone, not even with her four jobs she can save: she takes care of an elderly woman every night, she cleans on Wednesdays, she cooks on Thursdays and on Fridays she does a double shift at a house, a job in which she has applied for retirement.
"I dont complain.
If I have services, everything is fine.
But at the end of the month there is nothing left, "he explains.
Ereni Azevedo, photographed at her home in Porto Alegre on December 1, Tania Meinerz
Instead, her son prospered even during the pandemic.
Working as a driver, he changed cars and managed to buy a piece of land where he can build his own house.
"We have to work much more today to make a profit," he admits, but he celebrates that the gas that fuels his car has not risen as much as gasoline, which in Porto Alegre exceeds seven reais per liter ($ 1.25).
The other daughter, Gessian, also moved to another city in search of work and found employment in a beauty salon.
The pandemic left the driver's son without a clientele and he had to resort for a short period to government emergency aid.
"But I started a sole proprietorship and started making deliveries," he says.
Only after the second dose of vaccine did he feel confident enough to resume work at the same level as before.
“Now, I even go to parties, but not big ones, just family ones.
I miss seeing a little show, "he reveals.
More information
Bolsonaro's Brazil, year 1: expectations
His mother had to work for several days under the effects of Covid, which was only confirmed in the third test, when the symptoms had stopped.
Mrs. Prado Neves lists the members of her family who were infected: her daughter, sister, niece, two nephews.
One of them, 39, could not resist.
His particular victory is not having infected the old women he works for and seeing his father come out unscathed even with one of his sick daughters at home.
On the foreseeable duel between Bolsonaro and Lula in the elections, he is clear.
"I don't vote for any of them," he says, undeterred.
"I will decide later," he temporizes, commenting, however, that the name of former judge Sérgio Moro occasionally appears in conversations with family and friends.
Son Anriel also mentions Moro as an alternative to Bolsonaro.
“In 2018, I had no doubts, for me it was Bolsonaro, period.
But if he (the candidate against Lula) is again, I will not vote.
But I think it will be Moro, ”says this voter, disappointed with the reelection attempt of the man he saw as a way out of corruption and attachment to power.
"He said he was going to end re-election, so it's a bit ironic that he's a candidate himself."
"I'm not sorry.
I'm disappointed"
The 56-year-old dentist Adalcyr Luiz da Silva Júnior, who voted for Bolsonaro in both rounds, categorically affirms: “I am not sorry. I'm disappointed". He chose the former Army captain for his anti-corruption proposal and because he understood that he was the only one capable of preventing a victory for the Workers' Party, which ruled with Lula and Dilma Rousseff for 13 years. His disappointment is mainly due to the fact that the president has not promoted the policies he said he defended in the fight against white-collar crime. “Operation Lava Jato has ended. He made no effort to defend the anti-corruption (legislative) package. He did not dedicate himself to fighting for jail for those convicted in the second instance. And he has done the same as the others, he ended up joining the usual politicians to be able to govern, "he says in Brasilia.
The dentist and professor Adalcyr Luiz da Silva, photographed in Brasilia.Cadu Gomes
In the other two interviews he gave for this series, he was optimistic.
But the second time, some criticism already appeared.
And he always stressed that he had no idols in politics.
Now show that disappointment does not apply to just one area.
"When he asks me what I see as positive in the Government, I reply that, unfortunately, there are many more negative than positive things."
He lists them… “In health he did nothing good.
The management of the pandemic was vexatious.
He just set a bad example.
There was nothing good in the economy either, perhaps only the privatization of (the power company) Eletrobrás ”.
It also mentions inflation.
"How can people not rebel with gasoline at almost eight reais, gas at 100 and meat at an unpayable price?"
After much thought and listing almost a dozen errors, the dentist claims to have found a positive point in the Bolsonaro Administration: “There is no major corruption scandal involving the Government. In the PT governments there were
petrolão
,
mensalão
, detours in the Post Office, (cases) everywhere. I am not saying that there is no corruption today, but so far nothing serious has come to light, ”he stresses.
Doesn't the so-called secret budget in which the Government bought parliamentary support through amendments without any transparency or the attempt to buy over-invoiced vaccines consider a scandal? “I don't like to comment on something that is still hot. Let's wait a little longer, but it does not seem that this is corruption like that which existed in past governments, especially in the PT ", he softens.
Regarding the pandemic, he explains that as a health professional he cannot agree with the attitude of the president.
“He insisted on opposing the lockdown.
He was practically the only ruler in the world to do so.
Maybe the quarantines went too far, but the general openness that the president wanted is not right.
There were more than 600,000 deaths and several could have been prevented if he had acted differently ”.
No one close to him died or became seriously ill from covid.
More information
Bolsonaro's Brazil, year 2: first balance
With his sights set on the elections, he explains that there is only one possibility that he will repeat his vote for Bolsonaro: if the president goes to the second round against Lula, who leads the polls. “I think the way to remove Dilma Rousseff from power was wrong. But I don't like the way the PT governs ”, he adds. That is why he does not rule out the useful vote in the first round. I would support Ciro Gomes, a center-left candidate who finished third in 2018, but warns: "If I feel that Moro has a better chance of going to the second round, I would change my vote for him."
The dentist harbors a certain distrust of the former judge in the Lava Jato case, who condemned Lula to the point of removing him from the 2018 elections and who broke with Bolsonaro after accusing him of interference with the police to protect his children. He emphasizes that, unlike the rest of the presidential candidates, "Moro has never been tested." Of course, he distrusts electoral polls but also warns that one cannot trust his surroundings: “In 2014, no one that I knew voted for Dilma. They were all Aécio (Neves - PSDB). Even so, she won.
He does trust the voting system, which Bolsonaro has tried to undermine.
“I never bought the speech that the ballot boxes are rigged.
In 1998, Brazil lost to France in the World Cup final and it was said to be a fix.
I dont believe it.
If you have to have a lot of people involved in a World Cup for a trap like that to work, imagine a choice!
Pastor Galdino in São Paulo: Values
"I will vote who is closest to conservative values"
Pastor Marcos Galdino, 37, declares himself in a period of reflection.
His enthusiasm for Jair Bolsonaro has evaporated.
He stopped considering him the ideal candidate.
He has even stopped campaigning on his behalf on the Internet.
“I cannot say that I will vote for him.
I will vote for whoever is closest to conservative values, ”he explains in the Assembly of God temple that he directs in a middle-class neighborhood of São Paulo.
And that right now is Bolsonaro, but there could be surprises.
It would not be the first time.
Pastor Marcos Galdino, photographed in the Church of the Assembly of God that he directs in São Paulo on December 3, Lela Beltrão
The reasons for his disenchantment with a president whom he has seen several times in person during these three years as part of delegations of pastors are varied: the lack of humanity that he demonstrated in the pandemic with outbursts such as "I am not a gravedigger", the null advance of the agenda in values, the dire economic situation, his inability to assume that he is no longer an ordinary deputy but the head of State ...
The securities agenda has not been translated into the concrete measures that Galdino expected when he voted for him. The so-called customs agenda "has not moved to the right or to the left, we are where we were," he says. In the most burning issues such as the right to abortion, the legalization of drugs or what the extreme right describes as a gender ideology, there have been no substantial news. "They have been mere discussions, which have not resulted in anything," he says. In his view, neither side has gained ground.
He is pleased, however, that the president has kept his word to place an evangelical jurist on the Supreme Court. He prefers the conservative adjective because, he insists, he would not care if he were Catholic. Lawyer André Mendonça is the “terribly evangelical” judge promised by Bolsonaro, the first openly religious judge of the court. What is crucial for Galdino, in addition to the technical knowledge that he considers a priority, is that he be conservative, that he stop any progressive change that the left intends to promote through the highest judicial body in Brazil.
Evangelicals are an electorate coveted by all. In 2018 they stood out as the group that most unanimously supported Bolsonaro because he is extremely conservative and because of his promises to regenerate public life (which ended up abandoned in a drawer). Galdino affirms that he wants a Supreme Court that respects the conservative majority of Brazil. It bothers him that it focuses on expanding rights for minorities. “If Bolsonaro is reelected, he will balance the Supreme Court because he would appoint two more justices. That is one of the issues that would make me vote for him ”, he explains. If I had to propose a name to go as vice president with Bolsonaro, there is no doubt: the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, Pastor Damares Alves, who "has done an excellent job in addition to being a servant of God."
His disappointment in no way means that he is tempted to vote for Lula da Silva, whom he supported many years ago.
"Lula is a bandit and the evangelical people cannot vote for a bandit," he exclaims, ignoring that the corruption convictions against the former president were annulled.
He adds that "he abused the good faith of the people to enrich himself in the biggest corruption scheme" in Brazil.
Nor is he convinced by the former judge Sérgio Moro, who he says "did a good service as a judge, but it is difficult to see him in politics, he is inexperienced."
Once again the most forceful criticisms of Pastor Galdino are for some Supreme Court judges whom he accuses of going too far to silence Bolsonarismo.
The father of three children, ages 15, 7 and 4, says that the harsh effects of the pandemic were felt in the church.
He took an uncle, several faithful and friends from him.
For six months the face-to-face services were suspended, the collection fell because the parishioners lost income and the demand for help multiplied.
But Galdino notes that it also brought new parishioners - "more people started thinking about postmortem life" - and a huge wave of solidarity.
"It was a lesson to see society focused on supporting others."
The Kardec-Chaves in Manaus: Those who did not vote for Bolsonaro
"The effects of the economy are in the streets, people go hungry"
Businessman Allan Kardec Filho, 39, and his wife, sociologist Ana Cláudia Chaves, 41, were not at all surprised by President Jair Bolsonaro's behavior in office.
“We did not vote for him because we evaluated his proposals and we saw that everything was going to go wrong.
Obviously it went wrong and it continues to go wrong, "he says in the apartment they share with his daughters in an upper-middle-class gated community in Manaus, the main city of Amazonia.
He maintains that this Government "has nothing good to say", so "it invents, lies, distorts"
Allan Kardec and Ana Claudia Chaves at their home in Manaus.
Alberto César Araújo
For her, the rising unemployment rate is the worst.
The businesswoman owned a chain of laundries and a food stall that had to close due to confinement.
“Unemployment has never been as high as it is now, it's crazy.
The effects of the economy are in the streets, people go hungry, they beg ”.
After the business was closed, Chaves had to go to work as a third-party employee.
“On the scale of our social class, that is going down the economic landscape.
So it has been as we expected, as we discussed in the other two interviews.
What we did not expect was that a pandemic would further aggravate an entire perverse scenario, a scenario of inhumanity that Manaus has passed through ”.
The sociologist details with tearful eyes the brutal impact on her family of the pandemic, the collapse of hospitals and the lack of oxygen. He lost his father last January to post-covid complications. “Our family was directly affected. What is more absurd is this speech that put Christian values above everything and everyone. My father should have been vaccinated in November 2019. But Bolsonaro decided to discuss his part in the (alleged) bribes (in the purchase of vaccines) instead of participating in the WHO (World Health Organization) commission to discuss the vaccine, it is the most corrupt and inhumane government that exists, "he says.
The catastrophic shortage of oxygen due to the lack of government reaction, which caused deaths in hospitals, also affected them. “For my father's treatment, we were able to rent all the equipment, including medical assistance. My mother lives in front of the Hospital 28 de Agosto, from my father's room at home, she watched the races of people to get an oxygen cylinder, it was surreal, terrifying, people cried, prayed, "she explains with tears in the eyes. Says incompetence. also kills.
This businesswoman is also concerned about the deforestation of Amazonia, which reaches records, because, in addition to the illegal felling of trees, it means “opening a way for everything that is illegal, illegal mining, land grabbing, the murder of workers. rural areas, arms trafficking and the invasion of indigenous lands, has opened the doors wide ”.
If they can, next year they will campaign against a re-election of Bolsonaro.
Both intend to vote for Lula da Silva as President of the Republic.
"It's like the issue of the vaccine, you wear the one there is, but if it's Lula, the better," says Chaves.
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