São Paulo challenges the extreme right – 05/28/2023 – Camila Rocha

São Paulo challenges the extreme right – 05/28/2023 – Camila Rocha


Keeping up with political trends in the city of São Paulo is crucial to understanding the direction of Brazilian politics. Not only are launches by political leaders, creation of parties, unions, business associations and social movements that reached the national scope part of its history, but its electorate eventually advances national trends.

Marta Suplicy, for example, was mayor of the city shortly before Lula won the presidency for the first time. João Doria’s victory heralded the rise of more radical and ideological right-wing leaders.

Despite having already hosted ideologically opposed candidacies for mayoralty, such as Luiza Erundina and Paulo Maluf, it is possible to state that there is a certain stability in the São Paulo electorate.

Since the 1940s, the upper and upper middle classes have mostly voted more ideologically for right-wing candidates. In the absence of these, they resort to the useful vote and choose who is closest to the defense of right-wing agendas. Historically, parties such as the UDN, PSD, Arena, PFL, PP and PSDB received the votes of the richest people in São Paulo.

Thus, it is no surprise that a candidate like Ricardo Salles, an extreme right-wing lawyer trained in Mackenzie, obtained significant votes in Itaim Bibi, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city.

Residents of former working-class neighborhoods, on the other hand, began to vote more consistently for conservative candidates with more popular appeal from the 1980s onwards.

In 1945, these neighborhoods were responsible for the highest number of votes for the Communist Party in São Paulo — however, when the party became illegal, the working-class electorate opted for Jânio Quadros, a candidate who presented himself as contrary to the status quo, despite being right-wing. .

Then, after voting for the MDB in the 1970s and 1980s, residents of former working-class neighborhoods opted for Jânio again in 1985 and during the 1990s they joined Malufismo. It was no accident that Bolsonaro obtained his highest votes in the capital precisely in former Janista strongholds, such as Vila Formosa and Tatuapé.

Those who live in the peripheral neighborhoods of the capital, in turn, tend to opt for parties and candidates that represent the demands of the poorest. Historically, such segments of the electorate have opted for associations located on the left of the political spectrum, such as the PTB, MDB and, currently, the PT.

In situations polarized between left and right, inhabitants of peripheral neighborhoods, especially those farther from the city center, tend to choose the first option to the detriment of the second, which does not make it impossible for right-wing candidates to win mayoralty, especially in situations crisis of the left.

However, despite years of wear and tear suffered by the PT, the periphery of São Paulo was responsible for forming a sanitary cordon against Bolsonarism in the state in 2022.

Not only did Jair Bolsonaro lose in the city, they also lost Senator Marcos Pontes and even Governor Tarcísio Freitas, who tries to present himself as a political moderate.

Everything indicates that Salles will need more than the meager spotlight of the preposterous CPI against the MST to go beyond the limits of Itaim Bibi.


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