Former student leader of the 2013 protests now works with Haddad – 06/15/2023 – Politics

Much of what 2013 broke apart, 2023 brought together — and vice versa. Present at the June Days as a student leader, Carina Vitral now works with one of the main targets of the demonstrations, the current Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad (PT).

Ten years later, she believes that the Movimento Passe Livre, which initiated the acts, has lost control of the acts and opened space for June to become a milestone in the strengthening of the extreme right in the country.

The trajectory of the former president of the UNE (National Union of Students) helps to illustrate the rearrangement of forces within the left after June.

In 2013, Carina was president of UEE (State Union of Students) of São Paulo, and Haddad, mayor of the capital of São Paulo.

The petista, who resisted for more than two weeks to withdraw from the increase in tickets, was one of the politicians who was most hurt as a result of the protests. In less than a month, his approval plummeted. It went from 34% at the beginning of June to 18% at the end of the month.

Two years later, in 2015, Carina again put pressure on what would become her boss. She organized a camp in front of the city hall to claim the extension of the free student pass to private higher education students.

In 2023, finally, Carina and Haddad had a meaningful encounter again. This time, at the Ministry of Finance, where she works at the invitation of the current number 2 of the portfolio, Gabriel Galípolo.

If 2013 has already been the subject of conversation with the minister? “Ah, we’ve talked many times,” she says, who guarantees that there was never a charge. “Haddad is very respectful of the autonomy of social movements. He always understood his role as mayor and mine as student leadership.”

To convince that the relationship with the current minister has always been one of dialogue, Carina lists a series of measures that the PT administration took in São Paulo as part, according to her, of the dialogue with the student movement.

Among them are the free pass for students and measures to improve circulation in university corridors such as Avenida Vergueiro.

Carina claims that her participation in the 2013 protests was consistent, as every year the student movement took part in mobilizations against the increase in public transport fares.

Also, as had already happened before, at that moment there were great differences in vision between the traditional entities and the MPL.

In organizations such as UEE and UNE, which Carina would chair between 2015 and 2017, a hierarchical form of organization predominated, albeit with instances of collective decision such as assemblies. Autonomist movements such as the MPL operate under the principle of horizontality, without leadership.

For Carina, the characteristic opened space for the right to take the lead of the acts. “There was a lack of command, experienced people capable of directing the demonstration”, she says.

Another mistake, in his assessment, was the MPL’s decision not to call for more protests after the tariff increase was revoked. “The right was left alone in the streets and said ‘has the tariff been lowered? So we want Dilma to fall, hunt down the politicians'”, among other conservative slogans.

She doesn’t just blame the movement for the rise of the right after 2013. She also talks about the role of social networks and what she considers to be the responsibility of the traditional media for giving projection to representatives of this field.

Regarding her role and that of student organizations, Carina says that any assessment now would be that of a finished construction engineer.

“Our instruments were a mass of people on the streets and a megaphone in hand. We still didn’t know how social networks operated, which today is known to privilege the extreme right”, he says.

“Today, I would have done a lot of different things, but to be fair to myself and our generation, we didn’t know what was going to happen.”