Campaign Strategies of Afro-Brazilian Politicians: A Preliminary Analysis Gladys Mitchell ABSTRACT Racial politics in Brazil have changed dramatically: the nation-state that once denied racism now enacts racial policies for Afro-Brazil- ians. The discourse of race has also changed: it is now common for the media to discuss Afro-Brazilians as a voting bloc. Using qualita- tive methods, this article tests the hypothesis that Afro-Brazilian politicians seek a racial vote from the Afro-Brazilian electorate. Ana- lyzing campaign advertisements from select candidates in Salvador and São Paulo, this study finds that most Afro-Brazilian politicians use racial cues, and interviews show that most Afro-Brazilian politi- cians address racial issues during their campaigns. Not all of them seek racial votes, however: at the federal level, Afro-Brazilian politi- cians believe that this strategy would not get them elected.Many use campaigns nevertheless to raise racial consciousness among the electorate. My campaign made the black racial question visible so the slogan was in reference to the black woman. It was “Olívia Santana, the big black woman (Negona) of the City.” It was a slogan that was more about the history of elections, of black participation in elections. This slogan tackled the racial question in a more objective manner. —Olívia Santana, 2006 his article is an exploratory effort to examine campaign strategies of T Afro-Brazilian locally elected politicians in Salvador and São Paulo and federally elected Afro-Brazilian politicians in Brasília. This research is important because it examines Afro-Brazilians in electoral politics. Studying Afro-Brazilian politicians’ strategies is especially important to scholarly work on Brazilian electoral politics, as they represent nontra- ditional alternatives to campaign strategies. Black and brown Brazilians now outnumber white Brazilians (Wer- neck 2008) yet remain underrepresented in electoral politics. Afro- Brazilian politicians have often been ignored in academic studies on electoral politics because of the presumption that race does not matter in Brazil. Undoubtedly, racial politics in Brazil have changed from deny- ing racism to affirming its existence. Racial policies such as affirmative action have been implemented to address racial discrimination. The © 2009 University of Miami 112 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 51: 3 political landscape has shifted, and racial issues are now part of Brazil’s political agenda. Are racial issues important to Afro-Brazilian politicians, or do they believe that addressing these issues would threaten their campaigns? Do Afro-Brazilian politicians seek votes by making racial appeals to Afro- Brazilian voters? The hypothesis of this study is that given the saliency of race in contemporary politics, Afro-Brazilian politicians discuss racial issues to appeal to self-identified black (negro and preto) Afro-Brazilian voters, rather than those who claim other color categories. The research for this article finds that among the samples in Salvador and São Paulo, visual and verbal racial cues are used. Interviews reveal that racial issues are important to Afro-Brazilian politicians, but most of them do not depend on a black racial vote to be elected. Afro-Brazilian politicians, especially women, are dedicated to raising racial consciousness among Afro-Brazilians, and some appeal to self-identified black Brazilians. METHODOLOGY This study used two qualitative methods. First, a discourse analysis was conducted on campaign advertisements and newsletters of Afro-Brazil- ian politicians in Salvador and São Paulo to examine whether they used racial cues. Second, interviews with locally elected Afro-Brazilian politi- cians and Afro-Brazilian federal deputies conducted from 2004 to 2007 were analyzed. Collection of material began in 2004, during the city council elections, and on a return trip to Brazil in 2005, collecting infor- mation from elected politicians. The discourse analysis consists of examining whether racial cues mention Afro-Brazilian issues or if Afro- Brazilian cultural markers are used in campaign material. Subsequently, the article defines blackness in Brazil and explains why this is impor- tant to the discourse analysis and the interviews with Afro-Brazilian politicians. The study is restricted to campaign material collected from politi- cians willing to give this information. A limitation of this research is that it was not able to collect campaign material of all locally elected Afro- Brazilian politicians in Salvador and all Afro-Brazilian federal deputies and senators in Brasília. Consequently, the results cannot generalize how all Afro-Brazilian politicians in these cities make appeals to Afro- Brazilian voters. This project is nonetheless helpful in beginning to examine the campaign strategies of Afro-Brazilian politicians. Nor does the study examine television and radio advertisements. Television ads for city council were extremely brief, giving most candi- dates a ten-second “spot” provided by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), which grants a Free Electoral Hour (Horário Gratuito Eleitoral). Because of the large number of candidates for city council, television MITCHELL: AFRO-BRAZILIAN POLITICIANS 113 ads were extremely short. More time was given to politicians running for mayor. Because of the highly personalized nature of voting and the weak ideology of political parties, this study focuses on individual politi- cians’ strategies, rather than the strategies of political parties. Party switching among voters and elected officials is not uncommon in Brazil (Mainwaring and Scully 1995), and sometimes coalitions are formed between political parties to support candidates (Fleischer 2006). How- ever, many times these coalitions have no similarities in political ideol- ogy, thus demonstrating the relative weakness of political parties. Interview Sample In Salvador I interviewed 5 locally elected Afro-Brazilian politicians and in São Paulo, 2 locally elected Afro-Brazilian politicians. I also inter- viewed 5 Afro-Brazilian federal deputies in Brasília. Currently there are 11 Afro-Brazilian federal deputies and 1 Afro-Brazilian senator (Brooks 2008). Afro-Brazilian informants in Salvador and São Paulo identified these politicians as Afro-Brazilian, and they were selected for an inter- view on this basis. In Salvador and São Paulo my informants included research assistants and Afro-Brazilians with whom I built personal rela- tionships. In both cities, the total number of informants was 16. In Sal- vador, more Afro-Brazilian politicians were identified by informants than were interviewed. In São Paulo, only 2 Afro-Brazilians were identified by Afro-Brazilian informants and white council members, and only 2 self-identified as such. Data were not available on race or color self-identification of politi- cians from the Tribunal Regional Eleitoral (TRE, Regional Electoral Court), but instead were stored by each political party with which politi- cians registered. Therefore I was not able to collect these data. For this reason, it is not clear how representative my Salvador sample is. In São Paulo, the sample represents all Afro-Brazilian council members, and in Brasília the sample represents 42 percent of Afro-Brazilian politicians in Congress. In São Paulo there are only two Afro-Brazilian council mem- bers, and I interviewed both of them. In Salvador, self-identification of politicians did not always match how others identified them. Self-iden- tification will be discussed further in the section on blackness. BRAZILIAN CAMPAIGNS AND AFRO-BRAZILIAN POLITICIANS’ CAMPAIGNS Electoral campaigns in Brazil tend to be very expensive (Ames 1995; Samuels 2001). They are highly competitive because of the open-list proportional representation system, which means that candidates com- pete against candidates from their own political party as well as candi- 114 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 51: 3 dates from other political parties. Carey and Shugart (1995) argue that the PR open-list system encourages politicians to receive personal votes and to run candidate-oriented campaigns. These personal votes are expensive because money is spent on advertisements and clientelisitc relationships to guarantee them. In addi- tion, relying on general election data, David Samuels (2001) finds that it is difficult for leftist politicians to rely on financial support from busi- nesses and that most electoral campaigns receive money from busi- nesses. Because businesses are the main source of support, interest rep- resentation is limited in Brazilian democracy. On the other hand, Frances Hagopian (1996) argues that although Brazil has made the tran- sition to democracy, vestiges of authoritarianism remain. As she points out, some of the leaders who held positions before democracy contin- ued to hold power after Brazil transferred to a democracy. This point is relevant to campaigns because some politicians enjoy name recognition from familial ties that may have existed in predemocratic Brazil. Addi- tionally, some of these politicians have longstanding patron-client rela- tionships they can depend on to get elected. Because of family wealth and name recognition they can run competitive campaigns. The impact of campaign costs greatly affects Afro-Brazilian political candidates. In his 1997 study of city council elections in Salvador, Cloves Oliveira found that most of the Afro-Brazilian candidates elected came from working-class backgrounds. Many of them did not have