Matches and mismatches between PTism and Lulismo: class, ideology and vote in the outskirts of São Paulo

Author(s)

Camila Rocha de Oliveira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2013-11-25

Examining board members

Andre Vitor Singer; Gabriel de Santis Feltran; Gustavo Venturi Junior

• Advisor: Andre Vitor Singer

Abstract

According to the political scientist André Singer (2012) the re-election of Lula da Silva as president of Brazil in 2006 marked the emergence of a new phenomenon in Brazilian politics called \"Lulismo\". Lula won the re-election largely due to the votes of very low income voters, which were grouped by Singer under the category of \"sub-proletariat\". The sub-proletariat, since the redemocratization in 1985, have always voted, in its majority, for right-wing politicians, but, from 2006 on, it became lulista and voted for Dilma Rousseff, Lula\'s successor in the presidency. According to Singer, this new voting pattern was linked to an ideological adherence of the subproletariat to Lulismo\'s program, since the subproletariat\'s ideology, which combines leftist elements, regarding social change, and rightist ones, that have to do with the maintenance of the social and economic order, was the same adopted under the Lula Era. From 2004 on, Brazil saw the emergence of what was called as a new middle class\" (Neri , 2008; Lamounier; Souza, 2010), or a \"new working class\" (Souza , 2010), or even as working class on the rise (Pochmann , 2012), meaning that a significant part of the sub-proletariat was no longer so poor and started to earn better wages and to have access to a new consumption pattern. Regarding this phenomenon, what could be said about the electoral and ideological adherence to Lulismo by this new social group, since, theoretically, they would no longer be sub-proletarians? Would this people still support Lula? If they do, would this support revert in votes to other candidates from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT)? Or would they vote for candidates from the opposition like the most of the traditional middle class since they would be socially more close to it? To try to answer these and other questions I conducted a two-year political ethnography in a neighborhood called Brasilândia, located in the outskirts of São Paulo, during which I did in-depth interviews with seventeen people who had risen socially during Lula\'s government. The interviews were conducted in 2011, a non-electoral year, and in 2012, when were held the municipal elections in São Paulo witch were won by Fernando Haddad, PT\'s candidate backed by Lula, with a significant electoral support of the city\'s poorest residents. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/13342-9 - Electoral behavior of the new members of São Paulo's lower middle class
• Grantee: Camila Rocha de Oliveira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master