Election

By the way, the results are in - João will continue to be our mayor. So much for the party in the Red Square.

Today is election day

All over Brasil people are voting for city mayors, representatives and so on (but no presidents) today. Election day is a holiday here - everyone is supposed to have the day off so they can vote because it is the LAW. If you don't vote in Brasil, you can't open a bank account, you can't get a driver's license, and you can't get a passport, among other things. You show up at your polling place, show your picture ID, sign in a notebook and receive a little ticket that serves as proof that you voted. In Salvador, our voting machines are electric and look a tad like fax machines from the 80's. Each party has a number - 13 is the worker's party (P.T., Lula's party). Today you cannot buy alchohol, but you can walk around on the street drinking some you have from home. You cannot go to the polling place with the party number or candidate number displayed on your person (although I saw this rule enforcement was quite lax in our polling place). You cannot hand out little pieces of paper that support a particular candidate or party near the entrance to a polling place (again, this law was broken where we went). Like most laws in Brasil, there seems to be a bit of wiggle room here. My husband went to cast his vote in a PT t-shirt with an Obama t-shirt hanging off his back.

Barack Obama on Brasil ballot

I came across this article today - rather an amusing idea. It's a little like our "no ducks can wear pants" kinds of laws, only it actually gets used.

Hey, who's that?

Scattered about Salvador are some rather distinctive billboards.




Look closer.

The caption here is "O Poder Mudou" - "the power has changed," "the person in charge has changed," or what have you. A friend of mine here who is rather Obama obsessed is worried these signs will jinx the election with that kind of statement. So we shall see...

For the hearing impaired

Such a simple concept, yet almost never seen in the States. This is an ad about voting. It consists of a "teacher" in a class of students telling them how patriotic and easy it is to vote. It's full of these images of Brasilians stepping up as a group and walking around, going into voting posts and casting their ballots, an image that is not all that far off from the reality here (see my video from election day if you don't believe me). And the nice little extra - see that woman there in the lower left hand corner, she's signing all of this for the hearing impaired, because we don't leave ANYBODY in the dark about how easy it is to vote here. Almost all the government sponsered ads I have see are like this, usually with the same woman in the corner. She both mouths the words and signs them. Way to go Brasil! Unfortunately, I'm not sure everyone who is deaf gets educated in common sign language, and I am sure there are some populations who are entirely without television.

Wow, just like home!

Third world elections aren't done with stones anymore.... Despite being behind bars, the election booth is much the same as back in the States. The lines to get into this barred room are much longer, however. And yes, that is a desk in the background. As in the States, the election boothes are housed in schools on election day. The bars are to keep theives out, rather than students in, I think, but what do I know....

Vota Brasil!

The foot traffic outside the voting post was never ending. This picture was taken during a lull right before some famous guy, a former govenor or mayor or something, came through in a big mass of people so quick I had no idea what was happening. This is the only place I have seen people leave bicycles just out in the open, unattended. Old guys sat in chairs at the gate chatting about politics, most likely. Three different versions of icecream were sold outside the gate, along with churros, agua de côco, and some other things I did not identify. Everyone being required to vote, these vendors had nothing to loose sitting in the same place all day. Must have been pretty sweet for them. For more of this view, see the video.

I made a short video

Of election day, but I cannot find the cord for the camera, so you all just have to wait in suspece until further notice.

You know it's election year if...

You can always tell if there is an election comming up, unlike in the States, even in low traffic areas. All the lovely graffitti I never took pictures of is being covered with these types of paintings of "vote for X" generally the same colors, so one gets so used to seeing them, they kind of blend into the background. I wouldn't doubt that the commitees for the candidates pay much less for this boring version of graffitti by the same artists. For those who don't know, all parties in Brasil have a number and a name, but since the number is shorter, it appears more often. 13 is the number for P.T., Lula's party (the current president ) - partido dos trabalhadores: the worker's party. There are actually so many parties that Brasilians can't keep track of them all, each with a number. I would have thought there would be an order to the numbers according to left or right wing, but no, they are rather haphazzard in their numerical choices.

Now, another fun job, if you want to earn R$10 a day, is to stand on the side of a busy road wearing some kind of propaganda, or waving flag. This poor girl is standing in a median between 5 lanes of traffic on one side, and another 6 on the other, all going the same direction (with a bus station and a another 6 lanes going the other direction on the other side - who says we don't have progress here!). More elaborate displays may include people wearing matching t-shirts, waving in the back of a truck, driving down the road with loud music playing so everyone will turn and look, with or without the candidate speaking. I even saw a guy sitting in a coffin secured to the top of a car, speaking into a microphone and waving at the people on Orla.