VOXXI: Brazil: The challenges of Senator Romario for Rio in 2016

"Brazil: The Challenges of Senator Romario for Rio in 2016"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
October 8, 2014
Originally published: http://voxxi.com/2014/10/08/romario-senator-challenges-brazil

While Brazil’s new president will not be elected until the October 26 run-off, the composition of the country’s congress is clearer: One newly elected Senator is Romario de Souza Faria, simply known as Romario or Baixinho (short guy), a renowned retired Brazilian football superstar.

Romario, 48, will have four busy years in the Senate as he represents Rio de Janeiro, his native state. One immediate priority is overseeing the preparations of the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will take place in Rio. Hopefully, Romario’s skills as an athlete will translate into being a capable statesman as his home state faces challenges that require serious leadership.

Romario Can’t Lose

Discussing Romario’s life is beyond the scope of this article, but enumerating some facts are necessary. Throughout his lengthy soccer career, he played for Vasco da Gama and Flamengo, two Rio de Janeiro-based clubs. While playing for the national team, he is most remembered for winning the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

His popularity helped him in his home state when he decided to become a politician. In 2010, he was elected to the chamber of deputies as a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB).

Four years later, in the recent October 5, 2014 elections, Romario ran for a Senate seat representing his native state. The elections were no challenge as he obtained 63.4% of the vote against his rival Cesar Maia, from the Democratic Party (DEM), who only obtained 20.5%. Romario gained 4.68 million votes. This remarkable high number of votes makes him the senator who has received the most votes in Rio de Janeiro’s history.

Upon receiving the news of the results, Romario enthusiastically tweeted, “I won everyone! Thank you very much, a former resident of the favelas [Brazilian slums] became a senator of the Republic! “

Romario’s Challenges

Romario’s landslide victory gives the retired athlete a decisive mandate when he goes to Congress; yet he will certainly have plenty of issues to keep him occupied.

First and foremost, Senator Romario’s immediate challenge will be the 2016 Olympics. During his time as a deputy, Romario prominently critiqued Brazil hosting the recent FIFA World Cup, arguing that it was a waste of public money. This past July, he memorably called the Brazilian Football Confederation “corrupt.” Many Brazilians shared his sentiment, as dramatically demonstrated by the 2013 mass riots across the country.

Looking into the future, Romario has promised to monitor public spending regarding construction projects for the Olympics. Additionally, he wants to ensure that the Rio 2016 Commission constructs an Olympic Training Center, which will serve to train new generations of Brazilian athletes after the Olympics take place.

Romario’s second goal is to fight for the rights of Brazilians with disabilities. This interest stems from his daughter Ivy, who was born with Down Syndrome.

In spite of the importance of the two aforementioned issues, the citizens of Rio, the country’s second biggest metropolitan area, are probably most concerned with public security. Case in point, in May 2013, schools closed and businesses closed due to Rio drug dealers, who demanded a curfew as part of a standoff with police forces.Security forces, including the famous Police Pacification Units, have carried out major pacification operations throughout the country in recent years to reclaim control of favelas from gangs and drug traffickers as part of the preparations for the World Cup and the Olympics.

While Romario may prefer to focus on combatting corruption in Brazilian sports, the retired superstar, and former resident of a favela, must take a leading role from the Senate floor regarding future security operations across his home state.

Romario and the Presidency Elections

As a final point, it is interesting to note that Romario has not yet publicly stated which candidate he will support for the upcoming presidential run-off. The renowned Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo explains that he does not seem to support either candidate, Dilma Rousseff or Aécio Neves.

Romario belongs to the PSB, Marina Silva’s party. Before October 5, Silva was believed to be the main rival to President Rousseff’s re-election. According to the Brazilian news agency UOL.com, Romario tied his electoral campaign with the PSB brand and Marina Silva’s image when she was improving her position in the polls. Since Silva appears to be leaning towards supporting Neves in the run-off, it will be interesting to see if Romario follows his party’s decision, remains neutral, or if he ultimately supports the current president.

While the Brazilian population has yet to select a new president, the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro have unequivocally voiced that they want Romário as their senator.

VOXXI: Evo Morales signs contract with Bolivian soccer team

"Evo Morales signs contract with Bolivian soccer team"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
May 20, 2014
Originally published: http://voxxi.com/2014/05/20/evo-morales-signs-bolivian-soccer-team/

Bolivian President Evo Morales can add “professional soccer player” to his resume as he recently signed a contract to play with Sport Boys Warnes, a professional Bolivian soccer team.

This will certainly please the Bolivian head of state as he is known to be a lover of the sport. Additionally, seeing him on the playing field will increase his popularity leading up to the country’s December elections, where it is expected that he will be re-elected.

Nevertheless, one important critique is that the time Morales will spend on the field could be better spent by trying to solve the country’s problems, including the fallout from an April protest by hundreds of Bolivian soldiers.

The deal

President Morales will earn the country’s minimum salary of $214 USD on his new team, Sports Boys Warnes and he will play this upcoming 2014/2015 season, which starts in August. Additionally, he will use the number “10” jersey, making him a striker.

Nevertheless, it is unclear how many games he will play and how much time he will spend with his teammates practicing prior to a game since he is still the country’s commander-in-chief. It is speculated that he will play around 20 minutes per match and, according to the Spanish daily El Pais, he will play three games next season.

It seems unlikely that the team’s coach will have much of a say on whether President Morales, age 54, is fit to play in a specific match since it would certainly be a bad career move for any coach to bench the country’s head of state.

President Morales’ longstanding passion for soccer has had tragic consequences in the past. In one memorable incident in July 2006, he broke his nose during a friendly match in the town of Independencia, located in Bolivia’s Cochabamba region.

As for his future team, Sports Boys is currently in 9^th place out of the 12 teams that play in the country’s first division. The leaders of the league are Universitario with 41 points and San Jose with 38, while Sport Boys only has 26.

Even though Sport Boys’ priority is to avoid relegation, it will be interesting to see what would happen if the team manages to qualify to an international soccer tournament like the Copa Libertadores or Copa Sudamericana next season. Would the Bolivian head of state attempt to play in these prestigious soccer championships?

Presidents, sports and national priorities

Most heads of state exercise regularly and some tend to do so in public places, a practice which provides positive publicity while demonstrating their fitness and making them more relatable public figures.

For example, President Obama is known to love basketball while Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has been seen jogging through the streets of Lima as well as abroad (he jogged while visiting France in 2012).

As for contact sports, Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in an exhibition hockey match in early May at Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Putin displayed some good ice skills and even scored. Nevertheless, one could argue that the opposing team playerswere in no rush to hit the Russian head of state and former KGB officer.

This begs the question as to how opposing professional players will react when President Morales plays. Since he will play as a striker, other team’s defenders will have to face him for the ball. Would any of them try to slide and hit the head of state?

While it is commendable that President Morales wants to maintain his health and pursue one of his passions, Bolivia has plenty of issues that he should also prioritize. For example this past April more than700 Bolivian soldiers and sergeants took to the streets to protest the humiliating way their superiors had been treating them. The event marked an unprecedented display of anger from the country’s armed forces.

Today, Bolivia’s situation is not particularly dire. Certainly, it cannot be compared to the tense moments that the country experienced in 2008, when violent separatist protests almost toppled the Morales presidency and could have split Bolivia into two states.

Nevertheless, President Morales must pay attention to pressing issues like the military’s protests and a new mining law which was recently approved by the Bolivian Congress.

While his re-election in the upcoming December 2014 elections is all but certain (this will be his third term in office) hopefully President Morales does not forget that aside from being a professional player for Sports Boys Warnes and a presidential candidate, he is still the head of state.

VOXXI: A bad omen for Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff?

A Bad Omen for Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff?
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
June 19, 2013
Originally published: http://www.voxxi.com/bad-omen-for-brazil-dilma-rousseff/

It certainly was not the start of the sports season that President Dilma Rousseff was expecting. Since the start of the FIFA Confederations Cup — the first of three major sports tournaments that Brazil will host over the next few years — Brazilian citizens have taken to the streets to protest.

The head of state was even severely booed during her opening speech before the Brazil-Japan football match that kicked off the Confederations tournament.

Besides this championship, Brazil will also host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Currently, the economic situation in the South American state is not particularly dire. In fact, the country has enjoyed growth over the past decade. Nevertheless, Brazilians decided to air their disgust for several of the government’s recent financial decisions, primarily the rising costs of public transportation and the costs of numerous construction projects that have been planned to prepare the country for the aforementioned events.

Interpreting the situation

As with anything that has to do with economics, interpreting Brazil’s economic status, both at the macro and micro level, depends on what data is analyzed.

For example, a May 31 article in The Washington Post has the provocative — and very optimistic — title of how Brazil and other emerging economies “could save the world economy.” The article goes on to explain that, even if the growth of Brazil, India and China is slowing down, it is “not necessarily a bad thing in a world that is trying to cultivate a more sustainable and less combustible era of economic expansion.”

On the other hand, the financial agency Standard & Poor’s recently changed Brazil’s economic outlook from “stable” to “negative.” Moreover, it seems that many Brazilian citizens have a different way of interpreting Brazil’s slowing pace and recent financial actions than the author of the aforementioned Washington Post commentary.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the country’s GDP grew 1.9% in the first quarter of 2013 relative to the same period last year. The country’s economy grew at an impressive 7.5% in 2010, so the current slow pace is troubling to some analysts and the general population alike.

As previously mentioned, economic performance is interpreted differently depending on whether you are an analyst for a major financial institution in New York or a low-income citizen in a favela (a shantytown). Recent polls indicate that Brazilian citizens fear their economy is taking a turn for the worse. In one case, most respondents to a recent poll believe that they “expected health and education not to improve or worsen,” in the coming months.

The raise in the price of transportation fares has been enough to jumpstart protests across the country. Several protests recently took place in major Brazilian cities like Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre and Curitiba. These public manifestations seemed to have worked, as several cities have declared that they will reduce the price of local transportation fares.

Unsurprisingly, a less-than-ideal financial situation has hit President Rousseff’s popularity, which has slipped from 57% in July 2012 to 54% currently. At first sight, this is not a great loss, as most Brazilians still approve of the president’s mandate. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that Brazil will have presidential elections on October 2014, not long after the end of the FIFA World Cup.

Rousseff is still a favorite to be re-elected, but if the economic situation worsens — and if more corruption scandals regarding the construction projects for the sporting events explode in the coming months — her re-election bid could be in jeopardy.

Justified protests?

Besides the outrage over the increasing price of public transportation, another reason for the Brazilian protests is the concern regarding the costs of the major construction initiatives the Brazilian government has been carrying out in recent years in preparation for the international sporting events. These include the renovation of football stadiums and the construction of roads.

Unsurprisingly, there is the well-founded worry that the government is spending too much for these events, which could promote bribes and corruption among government officials who decide on which company gets these expensive contracts. In October 2011, then-Sports Minister Orlando Silva quit after been accused of accepting kickbacks for sports projects.

Certainly, the Brazilian citizenry is right to voice their outrage about the construction contracts that have been handed out and are worth millions of dollars. Moreover, yours truly would add that, as much international pedigree and good PR as these events will bring to Brazil, the aforementioned new sports venues may end up being abandoned as soon as the sports events are over.

Other cities that have hosted Olympic Games spent millions on expensive sports venues only to see that the buildings that were built specifically for them go to waste. A similar situation has already occurred in Athens.

Hopefully, the Brazilian sports ministry has a long term plan for using these new and state-of-the-art sports venues.

Possible Solutions

The Rousseff administration would be well-advised to revise their decision on the transportation price increases, as it seems clear that such an unpopular move will only promote more protests in the near future. Meanwhile, it is arguably too late to cancel major renovation or construction projects for the upcoming sports events, and doing so would just bring further criticism of governmental incompetency.

The best option the president and her cabinet has is to explain to the population that the sports-related contracts were conducted in a transparent and corruption-free way (the Silva scandal notwithstanding).

In addition, a publicly available master plan for the future uses of the new venues would also help to show that the Brazilian government has not placed short-term business contracts over long-term vision for national economic growth.

This may not be enough to appease the protesters and their (numerous) demands and concerns, but it’s a start.

Read more: http://www.voxxi.com/bad-omen-for-brazil-dilma-rousseff/#ixzz2WxUpv2mB