Crisis in Rio driven by Operation Car Wash, historical baggage
Today Rio de Janeiro, tomorrow Brazil, demographers often joke. When the fertility rate falls in the state's capital city, for example, the state and then the country follow suit. If the home turf of Presidents Jair Bolsonaro (no party) and Chamber of Deputies Speaker Rodrigo Maia (Democrats, DEM, of Rio de Janeiro) can anticipate trends, the widespread crisis warns of what Brazil can learn from the experience and hardships of Rio's citizens. Valor looked for explanations and ways out of this political scorched-earth scenario, the topic of the second part of the series of articles started with Rio's economy last week.
Many are the causes pointed out for the anomie situation: from historical-institutional factors - such as the move of the federal capital to Brasília and the merger between Guanabara and the former state of Rio - to the broth of political culture that favors informality, patronage system, patrimonialism, the logic of "gangs" and the expansion of "militia", as paramilitary groups of former and active police are known. The parallel power ends up being an obstacle to overcoming the crisis. Among the proposed solutions, a consensus: there is not a silver bullet. The process is long and depends on voters learning from their mistakes. But the basis to exercise an "active citizenship" that cleanses leaders has been eroded precisely by the violent domination of territories, where electoral campaigns are controlled by organized crime.
A recent report by the Civil Police shows that 1.9 million voters, roughly 15% of the state's constituency, are under the influence of drug trafficking or militias. This new power relation is an irony or contradiction as one of the most cited aspects of Rio's crisis is that its politicians often think more about big national issues than local ones. It is a legacy that probably comes from when Rio was the capital of Colonial Brazil, after 1763; of the Portuguese empire, between 1808 and 1821; and of the Empire of Brazil and the Republic, until 1960. For 13 years, Rio's society lived a unique phenomenon as for the first time a colony hosted European monarchs.
The almost 200 years of political centrality formed a city with a cosmopolitan spirit, but it also left bad things, which go back to the coming of the Portuguese royal family, "of everyone sucking up the state's resources and not serving it properly," says the historian and former Federal Deputy Chico Alencar (Socialism and Freedom Party, PSOL). "It's...
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