Manifestacoes de massa no Brasil vistas pelo grande jornal capitalista (WSJ)

Aliás, uma cobertura totalmente asséptica.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brazil's New Middle Class Takes to the Streets

By JOHN LYONS, LORETTA CHAO and MATTHEW COWLEY

The Wall Street Journal, June 21. 2013

After a Decade of Growth, Protests Seek To Build on Gains in Living Standards

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Riot police charge a protester in Rio de Janeiro during demonstrations this week demanding better public services and lower transit costs.

SÃO PAULO—For Alexandre Peppe, the last decade has been great. The 29-year-old from the poor outskirts of São Paulo got a good job in state government, bought a car and became the first in his family to go to college.

All the same, he took to the streets this week with a million other members of Brazil's new middle class over a wide range of grievances, from high bus fares to corruption and crime.

"The population is revolting against the government of Brazil," said Mr. Peppe, who joined others to cram the broad avenues of São Paulo.

Over the last decade, Brazil capitalized on a global commodity boom to lift millions out of poverty and create a new middle class. Brazil's politicians from all political stripes now find themselves under siege from the very same group.

"This middle class had economic growth in a period of low inflation, and suddenly they've unleashed a cauldron of complaints, on a range of issues like corruption, that have been accumulating for a decade," said Maílson da Nóbrega, a former Brazilian finance minister.

Demonstrations in Rio have grown into a movement protesting poor government services, corruption and crime. WSJ's Loretta Chao reports.

On Friday, demonstrators returned to the streets in nearly sixty cities, with reports of looting in Rio de Janeiro, where some of the protests have turned violent in recent days. The protests have continued despite decisions by São Paulo and Rio to give in to a key demand for lower bus fares. But the protest movement has expanded beyond that issue to a field of middle class grievances.

The demonstrations couldn't come at a worse time for Brazil, which is hosting the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in new stadiums built for next year's World Cup. For this soccer-mad nation, hosting the tournament was meant to cap a national rise toward global prestige.

Instead, for some, the protest movement has brought to the fore a range of problems that were mostly left out of the Brazil story as the country became a darling of the global investment community amid the boom.

"This situation in Brazil is the coup de grâce on the idea that Brazil was the next big thing," said Gesner Oliveira, a businessman who ran São Paulo's main water utility for several years and now is a consultant.

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• FIFA: No Plans to Cancel Cup in Brazil

In recent days, soccer fans in cities like Salvador and other growing urban centers have had to run for cover from police firing rubber bullets in order to get to games, raising questions about whether Brazil can handle hosting the Cup next year.

Protests erupted a few blocks from the hotel where the Italian national team was staying in Salvador on Friday, causing team coach Cesare Prandelli to say the team would remain holed up in the hotel ahead of its match the following day against Brazil. But he denied rumors that Italy asked for the tournament to be scrapped.

Soccer's governing body FIFA said Friday it would not scrap the tournament due to the unrest and that no team had signaled a desire to pull out. In a statement that would have been unimaginable just two weeks ago, FIFA secretary-general Jérôme Valcke felt compelled to say that Brazil must host the World Cup next year. "There is no plan B," he said.

The tournament has become a catalyst for some of the protesters' complaints. That is because even in this soccer-mad country, the birthplace of Pelé, residents are increasingly frustrated at the amount of money that is been put into two major global events, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, compared with the lack of progress in the issues that impact people's daily lives.

No one in Brazil was caught more off guard than President Dilma Rousseff and her left-wing Workers Party, in power for the last decade.

Before the protesters poured onto the streets, Ms. Rousseff appeared to be cruising toward an easy re-election bid next year as expanded welfare programs boosted living standards of the poor, and a growing economy brought greater prosperity to millions more.

Ms. Rousseff, the country's first female president, at first sought to align with the protesters by reminding marchers that her own political career came from the opposition.

The strategy backfired after Workers Party officials sent their members to the streets, where they were booed by the stridently anti-party marchers.

Ms. Rousseff held an emergency cabinet meeting on Friday, officials said.

Governor Cid Gomes, the governor of Ceará state and a Rousseff ally, told reporters Friday that Ms. Rousseff called him on Thursday night and was in a state of "bewilderment."

Government officials say Ms. Rousseff has been extremely active behind the scenes, and pushed officials in Rio and São Paulo to lower tariffs. Ms. Rousseff did not speak publicly in order to avoid inflaming the protests and on expectation that they might subside after the tariff reductions.

After violence across Brazil late Thursday, including protesters forcing into the foreign ministry, Ms. Rousseff planned a speech for late Friday, where she will acknowledge some of the grievances and offer dialogue with protesters. She will also firmly state that violence will not be tolerated in the country's cities.

Some say much of the explanation for why hundreds of thousands of Brazilians are on the streets right now can be found in Mr. Peppe's experience in recent years—and a school of thought in development economics about why seemingly better-off middle class populations have taken to the streets across the emerging world from Turkey to Chile.

The idea is that populations begin to demand more of their leaders as their own economic conditions improve. Citizens who are better off have the luxury to focus on social grievances that seem less pressing to impoverished people whose biggest concern are earning enough to feed themselves.

Mr. Peppe grew up in the sprawling northern outskirts of São Paulo, a poor and crime-ridden maze of small concrete homes during the years of four- digit inflation and successive currency crashes.

His mother, who never learned to read, raised him on around $80 a month. His father, a cop, was killed when Mr. Peppe was 11.

Amid Brazil's boom, Mr. Peppe was able to find work, take out loans to pay for a new car and apartment, and took a second job to pay for it. As he marched, he took photos of face-painted protesters with sleek a Sony Ericsson smartphone.

But Mr. Peppe's prosperity was matched by the bitterness for the injustices that he says came into focus as his life expanded beyond his neighborhood.

"The inequality is very sad, even revolting," Mr. Peppe said. "And now, the population of Brazil is waking up."

Much of the ire is directed at a political system that critics say affords broad impunity to engage in corruption while mostly ignoring the demands of ordinary Brazilians.

Adding to middle-class anxieties are warning signs that the commodity boom that lifted the economy is coming to an end. Brazil's economy has slowed after posting 7.5% growth in 2010.

—Luciana Magalhaes contributed to this article.

Write to John Lyons at john.lyons@wsj.com, Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.comand Matthew Cowley at matthew.cowley@dowjones.com

A version of this article appeared June 22, 2013, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Brazil's New Middle Class Takes to the Streets.