#tabata amaral

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

So, in Brazilian elections news, barely a week after the cadeirada (x, x), an advisor of São Paulo mayoral candidate Pablo Marçal's (yes, the same dude who got beat with a chair) just went ahead and dead-ass punched a publicist of candidate Ricardo Nunes's in the face during a debate.

The assault occurred after Marçal (from the Brazilian Labour Renewal Party, PRTB) was expelled from the Flow Podcast debate after a third admonition by the host for aggressive comments (he said that Nunes, from the Brazilian Democratic Movement aka MDB, would be arrested for allegedly diverting funds that should be going to food in daycares).

According to witnesses, the former coach's team member Nahuel Medina tried to take publicist Duda Lima's cell phone and started a fight. An aide to Nunes tried to separate the two, but Medina ended up punching Lima in the face.

Fellow candidate Tábata Amaral, from the Brazilian Socialist Party, who was present, expressed her frustration: “Do you know what the shittiest thing is? I was there like a motherfucker talking about my proposals, having a serious debate, and I'm sure that tomorrow they'll only talk about the punch. They won't compare the proposals. I have a theory, almost a conspiracy theory, that they put Pablo Marçal in so that we wouldn't see the shit that's happening in São Paulo.”

(x, x)

[overdoso]

Tabata Amaral faz uma lista dos deputados de SP que assinaram a proposta para acabar com a Lei da Ficha Limpa. Os @ são do x.com.

Adilson Barroso – PL/SP @ coroneltelhada @ delegadopalumbo @ paulobilynskyj1 @ bolsonaroSP @ depjefferson Marcio Alvino – PL/SP @ mfriasoficial @ df_paulofreire @ marcofeliciano @ rsallesmma @ DepRosanaValle

[backtothe80scolors]

Interview with Tabata Amaral de Pontes, Co-founder of Movimento Acredito

“I received a scholarship [to attend] a private school, when I was in middle school. This was the first time I realized Brazil was unequal. For me, it was much more than just the quality and availability of services, such as health, security, and education. I realized that the size of people’s dreams are dependent on their color, their gender, and their zip code. That was frustrating to find out. I remember I never thought about going to university before going to that school. Suddenly, everyone was talking about federal universities and even studying abroad. It just seemed that, for some people, the world is much larger and filled with more possibilities. That frustrated me a lot in the beginning, and the way I coped with it and the way I found my way in the world was to work so that other people could have the same opportunitiesI got a scholarship to apply to universities in the United States one year before the SATs, and, following many other opportunities, I got into six universities and chose Harvard. Then some people started telling my story as if I were a hero, which is not true at all. I realized that what made me different from other people in my neighborhood, or even in my family, was not related to my capacity or intelligence, but rather to all the opportunities that I had. I was taught in the private school that I could do a lot of different things, that I could dream without being called crazy. I really do believe that the biggest problem in Brazil is socio-economic inequality. When I started studying public education, I realized that I could not transform education without dealing with politics.“ More in: WilsonCenter ORG

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Q&A with Tabata Amaral: “It’s Impossible to Talk About Meritocracy in a Country as Unequal as Brazil. We Need a Robust and Qualified Expansion of Basic and Higher Education”

In Brazil, efforts to build a legitimate and lasting democratic project must respond to the historical challenges and realities of a majority Afro-descendant population (55.5 percent, according to the 2022 census). While Brazil often projects an image of racial harmony abroad, its Black population faces severe economic, social, and political disadvantages at home. This disconnect limits Brazil’s potential for development, preventing it from leveraging its diverse society to address regional challenges in a hemisphere that yearns for innovative responses to inequality, social cohesion, and citizenship safeguards.

The context for this interview series could not be more appropriate. Recently, discussions over Brazilian inequalities, especially ethnoracial ones, have regained visibility at home and abroad. In 2023, the federal government re-established the Ministry of Racial Equality and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, bodies responsible for implementing public policies to combat racism and promote the rights of Black and Indigenous populations, respectively. In addition, the country is reforming the national curriculum frameworks for secondary education, which could present a window of opportunity to address educational deficits and consider the demands of historically marginalized populations.

At the international level, while participating in the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Brazil voluntarily adopted the 18th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) related to racial equality (in addition to the current 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda). In addition, the Lula and Biden administrations resumed the Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER), an initiative focused on education, healthcare, violence reduction, justice, and preserving the culture and memory of marginalized racial and ethnic populations. Similarly, Brazil has established cooperation channels with countries such as Colombia and Spain, providing exchange activities and sharing experiences of overcoming racism in scientific research, education, history, and culture. Also, during Brazil’s presidency of the G20, the country focused on inequality as the central theme of its four priorities at last year’s summit in Rio: sustainable development, social inclusion, the fight against hunger and poverty, and global governance reforms.

Considering the context and seeking to understand how the Brazilian education system produces unequal educational development trajectories, we spoke to Tabata Amaral, federal deputy of the state of São Paulo and member of the Inter-American Dialogue. Amaral dedicates herself to issues of education, women’s rights, inequalities, and social development.

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil's lower house approves mandatory climate change adaptation

Brazil's lower house approved a bill obligating the public sector to draw up climate change adaptation plans.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to sign the bill into law soon. It mandates federal, state and local collaboration to evaluate plans and works to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events, such as the floods hitting Rio Grande do Sul state.

Authorities must then review the plans every four years.

"The climate crisis unfortunately is already a reality. It's coming to affect all of us. We need to adapt our cities, our states and our country," the bill’s rapporteur Tabata Amaral said in a statement.

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Gender quotas fail to boost women in Latin American politics

[Image description: Brazilian Deputy Tabata Amaral, formerly for the Democratic Labor Party, is pictured during an interview with AFP at the National Congress in Brasilia on April 17, 2017.]

Three decades have passed since the first parliamentary gender quota was approved in Latin America, and women in the region today still face political violence, schemes designed to leave them out and a culture that burdens them with childcare. As a result, the progress of women in politics has stalled in one of the world's most economically unequal places.

Not so long ago, women led some of the region's biggest economies, including Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Now, out of 33 countries including the Caribbean, only two have female presidents. The lack of female leadership is mirrored in cabinets and legislatures: Despite quotas that mandate 40% or 50% participation, women occupy less than a third of those posts. As a result, more aggressive baselines are being implemented in some countries that call for not just a participation percentage, but “parity in everything,” as Mexico’s constitution now requires.

“Parties understand quotas as the ceiling and not the minimum requirement for women participation,” said Maria-Noel Vaeza, Latin America regional director for UNWomen, a United Nations unit working for gender equality and empowerment of women. “Now it’s time for gender parity, not quotas.”

Tabata Amaral, 27, emerged as a young star in Brazil’s 2018 congressional elections. The daughter of a bus driver and a maid, she studied in Brazil’s dilapidated public school system for most of her life before scoring a fully-paid scholarship to Harvard and diving into politics.

The center-left politician quickly found herself inundated by hate messages. She has been publicly singled-out for taking positions her male colleagues also backed, and she’s received death threats.

“People still believe that places of power are not for us,” she said in an interview in her childhood home in one of Sao Paulo’s poorest neighborhoods. Recalling the most egregious cases, she wipes away tears.

Women account for only 15% of Brazil’s congress — half of the percentage political parties are mandated to reserve on their rosters for female candidates. The quotas, set in 1997, increased the number of female representatives nationally, but the country has stagnated compared to its peers.

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil Supreme Court wants testimony by former minister Moro within five days

Celso de Mello shortens the deadline for the Federal Police to listen to the former Minister of Justice, who accused Bolsonaro of interfering in investigations. In an interview, Moro promises to present evidence against the president to justice. The Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) Celso de Mello determined that the Federal Police (PF) hear the former Minister of Justice and Public Security Sergio Moro within five days.

According to the decision, taken on Thursday (04/30), Moro must also present evidence of the charges made last week against President Jair Bolsonaro.

The testimony of the former federal judge and ex-minister will be the first measure taken in the inquiry opened at the request of the Attorney General, Augusto Aras, to investigate Bolsonaro’s alleged attempt to interfere in the PF – or the crime of slanderous denunciation by part of Moro (understand the survey).

At the beginning of the week, Celso de Mello had determined that the former minister should deposit within 60 days. The request to expedite the testimony date was made by three parliamentarians: Senator Alessandro Vieira (Citizenship party) and deputies Tabata Amaral (Democratic Labour Party) and Felipe Rigoni (Socialist Brazilian Party).

In an interview with Veja magazine published on Thursday, Moro said he will not admit being called a liar, said he had evidence against Bolsonaro and promised to present it to the STF.

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Legacy of corruption fuels renewal movement in Brazil

RenovaBR wants to train ethical politicians but many are sceptical of its motives

For many Brazilian moderates exhausted by the constant controversy surrounding President Jair Bolsonaro, Tabata Amaral is a breath of fresh air. A 25-year-old Harvard-educated lawmaker, Ms Amaral has in recent months emerged as a rising star of Brazilian politics and a liberal counterpoint to the nationalistic Mr Bolsonaro. 

Ms Amaral is also the poster child for RenovaBR. Rather than a traditional political party, the organisation bills itself as a bipartisan training school aiming to create a new generation of ethical Brazilian politicians, unsullied by corruption and the country’s cynical party system.

In the years since the massive Car Wash graft scandal rocked Brazil, RenovaBR has become one of the nation’s most potent political forces. It is poised to next year play a major role in municipal elections, widely viewed as a bellwether of Mr Bolsonaro’s re-election prospects.

Malu Gatto, a Brazilian professor of politics at UCL, said the years-long corruption scandal severely damaged voters’ trust in political elites, parties and organisations. “In this context, new forms of political organisations have emerged. RenovaBR is one of these,” she said.

The group’s growing popularity, however, has put it on a collision course with Brazil’s traditional parties. They fear lawmakers elected with RenovaBR’s support will be loyal to the movement instead of the party — a concern illustrated by Ms Amaral. Ms Amaral voted in favour of a contentious pension reform that her party, the Democratic Labour party, and many working-class Brazilians, opposed. With funding coming from a handful of wealthy businesspeople, including Swiss-Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, critics are questioning if the lawmakers it nurtures are autonomous in their political decision-making, or beholden to their corporate masters.

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