Renato de Oliveira did not want to end up like his father and end his life without having his home. The family, with their five boys, had always been housed free of charge or as tenants in the suburbs of São Paulo, and the parents’ salary was used to pay the bills.
It was in 2011 that things changed for him, when the Brazilian economy was booming: Renato entered university, he bought a car and the apartment he had dreamed of so much, and where he lives today with his wife, in the eastern districts of São Paulo.
As he progressed socially, Renato voted Lula, then Dilma Rousseff [du Parti des travailleurs – PT, gauche]and then, in the last presidential election, he chose the far-right Jair Bolsonaro bulletin.
He was fed up with the corruption scandals surrounding the PT, he explains. Today, disappointed by the government’s economic choices, he is preparing to withdraw his support for the outgoing president. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Renato lost his job in the steel sector company that had employed him for fifteen years; he found a job in early 2022, in a logistics company, for a 40% lower salary.
He explains :
We chose Bolsonaro to get rid of the PT, but he was bad against inflation. He always said that Paulo Guedes [le ministre de l’Économie] had answers to everything, but he gave him all the responsibilities without improving anything. Today is bad for us, and there is no long term solution.”
He intends to vote in the first round for Ciro Gomes (PDT, center left), but even if it is the current government that concentrates his grievances, he does not know what he would do in the event of a second round Lula/ Bolsonaro [prévu le 30 octobre].
“I never liked Lula”
Lucas Silva dos Santos, 40, is in the same uncertainty. He too lives in the eastern districts of São Paulo, and he has been running a rotisserie for nearly twenty years, after having worked as an accountant. He had some difficult years, until he found the right formula, with the preparation of take-out meals during the pandemic. He now has six employees and sells 1,000 punnets a week, not counting the 300 feijoadas of Saturday.
In front of the pans which begin to heat up from 10 a.m., Lucas tells us that he has always voted for the PSDB [droite] until four years ago. His choice then fell on Bolsonaro for his defense of Christian values, but also because he hoped with him to see the economy pick up again.
But Lucas was no more convinced than Renato, and to the list of disappointments is added the personality of the president and his poor management of the pandemic:
I know that the ‘third way’ doesn’t have much of a future, but I will vote for Simone Tebet (MDB, centre-right) in the first round. I don’t like Bolsonaro’s personality anymore, and I never liked Lula. “
However, Lucas does not rule out putting a Bolsonaro bulletin back in the ballot box in the event of a second round: “I will abstain, I will vote blank or, as a last resort, I will vote Bolsonaro. It won’t be for him, but against the PT: the ideals of the left, I don’t believe in them.”
Lucas and Renato are representative of the Brazilian middle class, an electorate hesitant in the last elections and divided for this presidency.