Brazil has many problems. Among them, inflation rates are increasing, brazilian GDP is lower than other BRICS and latin american countries, central government is using a public company (Petrobras) to keep gasoline domestic prices under market ones (trying to control inflation) and destroying its value. Investments are low, investors are not confident. Education investments are so low we don’t have enough professionals to occupy open positions in the companies. And most of the people can’t pay for education.
Besides economic problems, president Dilma’s party (PT) is known by many corruption and crime cases since its first administrations in brazilian city governments. In some of these cities, PT mayors were murdered while corruption cases were under investigation.
Some time after Lula (PT) was elected president (2002), corruption was discovered in central government. But brazilian citizens are obliged to vote. In 2006 Lula was very popular in North and Northeast regions, the poorest ones and with the biggest social matters. Social programs gave him high popularity and improved the domestic consumption. That improved the economy and defended us from 2008 crisis. And these programs reelected Lula.
But we still have many urban problems: public transportation has bad quality and is too expensive to brazilian average income. We have traffic jam everyday, even though cars are very expensive here. People live far from the companies because land prices are very high. Our cities are not secure. The police is violent to everyone (they can be more dangerous than criminals). Politicians and press manipulated public opinion many times and in important choices. Homeless population is increasing very fast, in part due to drug addiction.
Central government is now trying to approve Constitution changes that can help corrupt politicians to be free and not punished at all. Human Rights chairman of Dilma’s government is a religious extremist who says being homosexual is a sickness and he is investing public money to “find a cure”. We have horrible hospitals, poor schools, teachers have miserable income, violent kids dominate the classrooms.
But PT government prefered to invest in a World Cup (2014) and Olimpic Games (2016). The investments are millionaire, and everybody knows that part of the money is delivered to 2014 elections campaign. FIFA profits are very high, but only a small share of it is kept in Brazil. And there are evidences of overbudget in stadiums construction costs.
That was the scene when some cities increased transportation fares. This was just the trigger to the protests.
Personally, I agree with these protests. And I hope changes are coming. On the other hand, a small part os protesters are vandals, and I don’t support these few guys.
Blog do Trevisan 