SAO PAULO BRIEFING April 2005

News this month

Paulistano for pope

As head of a 6m-strong congregation in the world’s biggest Catholic country, Cláudio Hummes, São Paulo’s Archbishop, figures among the top five next papal candidates. The chances for the 70-year-old cardinal rest on the belief that the Church should choose a pope from the developing world, where it is more vibrant than in Europe. PaddyPower.com, an online betting site, put Cardinal Hummes's odds at 7-1.

Like John Paul II, Cardinal Hummes leans left on economic issues but right on doctrinal ones. In the 1970s, as Bishop of Santo André, a neighbouring city, he supported the banned metal-workers union and the strikes that contributed to the downfall of Brazil’s dictatorship. His recent book, “Dialogue with a City”, is a collection of his newspaper articles, many of which deal with problems that are familiar to his flock: poverty and inequality. He was born to German parents in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, and studied philosophy and ecumenism. A Franciscan who loves to fish, he was made a cardinal in 2001. Last year, John Paul appointed him to the Vatican economics council, which monitors Church spending and programmes.

Working in the dark

It has been a tough first 100 days for São Paulo’s mayor, José Serra. Polls show that 70% of paulistanos are disappointed with his performance. Part of the challenge is that Mr Serra inherited some serious fiscal problems from his predecessor, Marta Suplicy. Specifically, he came into 600m reais ($225m) in electricity bills, dating from 1996. In retaliation, AES Eletropaulo cut off power to 85 municipal buildings, including schools and health centres, for more than 24 hours on March 30th and 31st. A court order reinstated the power, but the wrangle continues. His popularity also dipped significantly when he had to raise bus fares to pay for wage increases for drivers and the popular single ticket that lets users travel for up to two hours on all buses.

In mid-March, Mr Serra negotiated a deal with the federal government that frees São Paulo from the threat of financial sanctions if it fails to meet a debt payment in May. Together with other mayors, he is now pushing for a new inflation-adjustment formula to lower the debt burden. But the resignation of his culture minister, Emanoel Araújo, suggests that not all of Mr Serra’s problems are fiscal. The mayor had announced plans for two new museums without consulting him, and allocated little money to fund the culture ministry. Mr Araújo criticised the mayor’s high-handed management style; Mr Serra did not respond. The new culture minister, Carlos Augusto Calil, a filmmaker, plans to encourage cultural activities in the city’s poor periphery.

Think again

Geraldo Alckmin, São Paulo’s governor, is discovering that life as a prospective challenger in the 2006 elections will not be easy. His intention ultimately to unseat Brazil’s popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has generated some friction. Last month a coalition partner, the Liberal Front Party, conspired with Lula’s Workers’ Party to defeat Mr Alckmin’s candidate for the presidency of São Paulo’s state legislature. This is the first time in ten years that the governor’s Social Democratic Party (PSDB) has not controlled the job. Later in March the federal government froze 57m reais ($21m) in funds earmarked for São Paulo. Mr Alckmin called the move “arbitrary, unjust and totally illegal”.

This is one of a series of financial spats between Mr Alckmin and the federal government, which provides much of the money the state needs to keep going and to fund ambitious infrastructure projects. He charged BNDES, the federal development bank, with withholding funds required to extend São Paulo’s Metrô. However, recently a court unblocked the 57m in frozen funds, and BNDES now seems ready to cough up the cash for the Metrô. Still, the tension is likely to continue as long as Mr Alckmin is a presidential candidate.

Penitentiary problems

The problems at São Paulo’s prisons and reform schools continue, despite new efforts by the state government to institute reforms. In the worst incident since 1998, two prison guards were killed and two more injured during an attempted break-out from one of São Paulo’s notoriously overcrowded jails. The prisoners, armed with semi-automatic weapons, knives and grenades, ran rampage for 14 hours. In another overcrowded facility in early April, one prisoner was decapitated and another injured in battles between inmates from rival gangs. The prison rebels admitted they had ready access to weapons, mobile phones and drugs. The state government now plans to install X-ray machines in the state’s 77 state prisons.

Mr Alckmin has proposed a series of improvements to the violence-prone Federation for the Well Being of Minors, which detains young law-breakers. They include building more units to reduce overcrowding, paying poor families whose children behave, and transferring inmates over 18-years old to state prisons. Mr Alckmin also said he would close eight of the 18 units at the most troubled facility, Tatuapé, and replace them with a park. On the day Mr Alckmin announced the reforms, inmates at one institution took four hostages and demanded that reporters listen to their complaints.

Car watchers nabbed

São Paulo’s vast informal economy creates a wide array of odd jobs. One of the more controversial are the flanelinhas (“little flannel”), poor men who take up strategic positions outside popular venues to direct drivers to parking spaces in exchange for a few reais. These people have no official sanction to allocate curb space, but it is understood that both the car and its driver will be better off if they are paid. Flanelinhas operate in gangs, sometimes using official-looking fee schedules. In early April, the civil police decided to crack down, rounding up 95 flanelinhas operating outside Pacaembu stadium during a football game. More than half had criminal records. Days before at another stadium, nine cars and two motorcycles were stolen from spots “guarded” by flanelinhas. Folha de S. Paulo, a newspaper, praised the crackdown as a swipe against “extortion on the roads.”

Raining trunks and trees

Termite and fungus infestations have left almost 1,000 of São Paulo’s 9,000 trees in imminent danger of collapse. The city government promised to tackle the problem in January when two people were killed by a falling tree, but so far only 133 of the condemned trees have been safely felled. The slow pace of work is saving the city money. But hundreds of precarious trees remain, many of them in the heart of the city’s exclusive Jardins shopping district, an area known for its verdant charm. One person was crushed in March and another in April, when big tropical storms felled more than 20 trees across the city, causing damage and traffic chaos.

Catch if you can

May 2005

The Body in Contemporary Brazilian Art

Until May 29th 2005

This show (“O Corpo na Arte Contemporânea Brasileira”) investigates what the body means to contemporary Brazilian artists. In a country where plastic surgery and the dental-floss bikini are rampant, the body is clearly a powerful subject. Unsurprisingly, significant amounts of flesh are on display here, among 114 works divided thematically. A sections called “Underground Bodies” features pieces that deal with body parts, eroticism and homosexuality, such as Wesley Duke Lee’s drawing of a male torso in panties and suspenders. Sections called “The Body in Image” and “The Body in Action” take up the top two floors, and include a 1968 video of people exploring a Lygia Pape sculpture of a cube called “The Egg”. For the exhibition’s inauguration on March 29th, Marco Paulo Rolla offered a performance piece of climbing in and out of an oven (a video of which will be on display from April 6th). This is the latest in a wave of themed shows at Itaú Cultural.

Itaú Cultural, Avenida Paulista, 149. Tel: +55 (11) 2168-1776. Open: Tues-Fri 10am-9pm; Sat & Sun 10am-7pm. Free. For more information, see the museum's website.

More from the Sao Paulo cultural calendar