He grew up across Guanabara bay in Rio’s sister city of Niteroi. He is also drawing growing numbers of young voters, so many of whom turned up for a recent speech that Freixo moved the event at the last minute from an auditorium to a nearby plaza. What he lacks in financing he makes up for in buzz - enjoying support from intellectuals and artists, including influential songwriter Caetano Veloso, author of his campaign jingle. After early advertising - Paes grins from posters on hillsides, lamp posts, and bridges - he enjoys a towering poll lead over Freixo, the second-place candidate, and three others.ĭespite the odds, Freixo believes he could force a runoff. Paes heads a coalition of 20 centrist and center-left parties, backed by big business, with a 30-fold advantage in financing. “No one is saying this is paradise on earth.” “There is still a lot to do,” Paes admits. He refuses to accept Freixo’s charge that the city, obsessed with “spectacle,” ignores everything else. Paes scoffs at Freixo’s underdog candidacy and his recent advances in polls. The refurbished port and new Olympic facilities will further development in marginal areas nearby. New roads and bus lines, Paes argues, are already helping legions who flock daily from working-class neighbourhoods. “The city focuses exclusively on tourism and big events - not the people who actually live here.”Įduardo Paes, the incumbent mayor, disagrees. “There are millions of cariocas who don’t benefit at all from the recent development,” he argues, using the term for Rio natives. Murder rates in poor neighbourhoods are as much as 20 times higher than those of rich areas, approaching levels of countries at civil war. The rest of the city, Freixo says, remains neglected - giving Rio some of the worst health, educational, and social statistics in Brazil. It’s all happening along a narrow strip of coastline that is home to the elite, beaches and tourist attractions, and the corridor where World Cup and Olympic activities will take place. Still, the progress lacks balance, Freixo argues. Its decrepit old port is being made over so cruise and luxury vessels can berth at docks until recently lined by crack dens. Drug lords have been chased out of some of Rio’s notorious favelas, or slums. The changing tide has spawned a property boom. Rio is one of 12 venues for the 2014 World Cup and it alone will host the 2016 Olympics, requiring investments of at least $14 billion. RECOVERING PAST GLORYīillions of dollars worth of investments poured in after new oil was discovered south of its famous beaches. Like the rest of the country, it succumbed to economic volatility for most of the past half-century and suffered poverty, ramshackle development, and crime.īut as Brazil entered a period of sustained growth over the last decade, though, Rio’s fortunes reversed. As industry grew in São Paulo, Rio lost its standing as Brazil’s financial center. Were it not for the presence of bodyguards needed after a crackdown he waged on crooked cops, he would still pass for an academic.īut Freixo’s arguments matter to many in a city that symbolizes the frustrations of Brazil itself, a country that has long struggled to fulfil its enormous potential.Īfter past glory as a colonial stronghold, the seat of the Portuguese crown and the capital of an independent Brazil, Rio went into decline when Brasilia became the capital in 1960. His slight build, heavy brow, and modest wardrobe give him a scholarly, almost clerical, air that runs counter to Rio’s colourful cockiness. It’s tempting to dismiss Freixo as a spoilsport. “We need better schools, better hospitals, safer neighbourhoods, not just spectacle.” “What good is all this progress if it’s not addressing our core problems?” asks Freixo in his cluttered office behind the state assembly house. Now, the schoolteacher turned human-rights activist turned politician hopes his call for a reality check can help him, in October elections, topple the popular mayor who presides over all the preening. Marcelo Freixo, a 45-year-old state assemblyman, thinks Rio needs a reminder of all that is wrong - from uneven development to deep inequality to corruption and organized crime. A recent boom in Brazil’s economy, the discovery of massive offshore oilfields nearby, and Rio’s planned hosting of the World Cup and Olympics in the next four years have restored some of the splendour to the tropical city of 6.5 million people.īut one local official is tired of the exuberance. REUTERS/Sergio MoraesĪfter decades of decay, crippling crime rates, and a loss of big business to rival São Paulo, Rio is on the rise. Marcelo Freixo (L), a 45-year-old state assemblyman and Rio's Mayor candidate speaks during a rally campaign in Rio de Janeiro August 24, 2012.
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