Why Brazil’s protests didn’t translate into change at the ballot box

After one of the most complex and fast-changing presidential races in decades, Brazil held an election on Oct. 5 that revealed little of the sentiment for change during last year’s protests. So what happened?

First of all, Marina Silva only won 21% of the vote, a result of a number of factors including successful attack ads by the Workers’ Party and a poorly executed campaign that didn’t convince voters that she would be a viable alternative. Instead, Senator Aécio Neves came within eight points of President Dilma Rousseff. While he would certainly represent a change at the Planalto, he represents the most traditional of Brazilian politics: a wealthy, white, seasoned politician from Minas Gerais. And even though neither Rousseff nor Neves represent a major break from the status quo, they both referred to themselves as the candidate for change in their victory speeches. During her address, Rousseff stood before a massive backdrop that read: “New government, new ideas.” As the two candidates head to a runoff, they’re both jockeying for Silva’s voters and trying to cast themselves as change-makers.

Next, many politicians targeted by the 2013 protests were actually reelected. Despite the fact that corruption was one of the central themes of the protests and a constant complaint of those unhappy with Brazilian politics, notoriously dirty politicians like Paulo Maluf and Fernando Collor got elected. (It’s unclear, however, if Maluf will be able to take office given his ineligibility under the clean record law.) São Paulo Mayor Geraldo Alckmin was reelected in spite of the capital city running out of water, among other things, and the reviled former Rio Governor Sérgio Cabral’s successor, Pezão, is headed for a runoff. Politicians who’ve come under fire for their homophobic views and bigoted behavior like Marco Feliciano and Jair Bolsonaro won reelection.

On the legislative front, this Congress is the most conservative elected since the post-1964 period, according to the Intersyndical Parliamentary Assistance Department. A larger number of members of the armed forces, religious groups, and agribusiness representatives won seats. Meanwhile, two of the country’s biggest parties, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) and the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), lost 18 and five seats, respectively, in the Chamber of Deputies and one seat each in the Senate. (They still, however, represent the biggest parties in Congress.) The right-leaning PSDB, meanwhile, gained 10 seats in the lower house. Now, in the already fractured party system, there are even more parties in the legislature, rising from 22 to 28.

Given these events, what happened to the demands for change during last year’s protests?

http://qz.com/278217/why-brazils-protests-didnt-translate-into-change-at-the-ballot-box/