An Evangelical Mayor Threatens to End Rio’s Carnaval

Rio de Janeiro without Carnaval? Unimaginable! But Rio’s city hall and its revelers are currently at odds: Mayor Marcelo Crivella has announced he intends to slash public funding for the event by half.

He said the city will be transferring only 12 million reais (US$ 3.6 million) to the so-called “special group” of Rio’s 12 largest escolas de samba (samba clubs).

At the same time, he announced that clubs would be financially compensated with money from the tourism budget. But the association of the 12 largest schools, LIESA, released a statement saying that the event would have to go on without them should public funding be cut.

City hall has said that Mayor Crivella wants to invest the money in kindergartens instead. The Brazilian daily newspaper O Globo has written that investment is to double in that sector. But others beyond the directly affected samba schools have warned that far more than 12 million reais is at stake if Carnaval 2018 is actually canceled.

Many of the city’s some 70 smaller samba schools have also complained of inadequate funding. They say that so far only 80 percent of their promised funds have been paid out, and that they are already halting preparations because many vendors are refusing to extend credit after having heard the mayor’s announcement.

Official Carnaval groups have already had to make do with smaller budgets over the past several years. First, in 2016, the state of Rio de Janeiro cut the 6 million reais it had traditionally allotted for Carnaval. Then private sponsors throughout the country cut their own Carnaval financing due to Brazil’s deteriorating economic situation.

Nevertheless, Carnaval 2017 was a success: According to the city’s tourism office, Riotur, the event drew some 6 million people out onto the streets – more than 1 million of them tourists. Riotur estimated that the event generated some 3 billion reais (US$ 900 million) in revenue.

“One has to ask if he (Crivella) is unaware of that number,” said Cristina Fritsch, chairwoman of the Association of Brazilian Travel Agents in Rio de Janeiro (ABAV-RJ), “or if there are religious motives behind the move.”

Rise of the Evangelicals

The presumption that Mayor Crivella rejects Carnaval on religious grounds is nothing new. He is a bishop in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), an influential Pentecostal church in the center of Rio de Janeiro.

Evangelical congregations hold their members to a strict puritan lifestyle. Such organizations have helped a large number of people find their way into, or back into, an orderly and often successful life.

Donations have enabled these free churches to develop into billion-dollar associations in many countries throughout the Americas. The IURD, for instance, operates Brazil’s second largest television network. Its founder, Edir Macedo, was listed among Brazil’s billionaires by the US magazine Forbes in 2017.

Meanwhile, one in five Brazilians claims to be a member of a Pentecostal church. Many evangelical leaders, inspired by their missionary success, have gone into politics. So far they have been successful on the legislative level, winning seats in national, state and local parliaments throughout the country.

Marcelo Crivella became the first evangelical to win an important executive post in Brazil when he was elected mayor of Rio. He won the direct election in Brazil’s second largest city with almost 60 percent of the vote.

“He did not make his faith a central aspect of his election campaign,” anthropologist Christina Vital, who has written a book on the topic, said. “But that was because he was hoping to reach non-evangelical voters.”

Crivella and Carnaval

In the meantime, doubts are growing as to whether he feels any responsibility toward the broad swath of the population that put him in office. Last February he affronted many Cariocas, as Rio’s residents are called, when he refused to appear at the traditional ceremony in which the mayor hands over the symbolic keys to the city to revelers. ABAV-RJ Chairwoman Fritsch called the move “an insult to the entire population.”
“It is a traditional ceremony; it has nothing to do with whether one likes Carnival or not,” she added.

In May, Crivella issued a decree stating that his Cabinet would be responsible for decisions on the issuing of permits for events expecting 1,000 or more visitors. Until then, that decision had fallen to Riotur, and that had apparently functioned quite well:

“If all of the documents were in order, it took an average of three days to get approval,” as Alan Sant’anna, chairman of the local event association, told O Globo. “The new process has a 30-day timetable.” Moreover, people are concerned that such decisions could be made according to political or religious motivations.

Political Compensation

The association of samba clubs did not mince words when it accused Mayor Crivella of going back on his word. The LIESA statement cited Crivella’s campaign promise to ensure that samba-school funding would remain at 2016 levels, and recalled that he even floated the idea of increasing the budget to expand the size of the event.

It is quite possible that Crivella is now using the situation to give a nod to his evangelical supporters. But the city’s major samba clubs have not given up hope.

The above-cited statement also said: “In light of the enormous economic and financial benefits of the event, the creation of jobs and income, as well as the acclaim that it brings in terms of Rio de Janeiro’s public image,” the group expects that solutions to the impasse can be found in common dialogue with city hall.

DW

Tags:

You May Also Like

Protesting against reform of Social Security - Rovena Rosa/ABr

Brazil Gives Up Reforming Social Security Under Popular Pressure

The Political Affairs Minister Carlos Marun said today that the bill intended to overhaul ...

At age 78, Grandma of Brazil becomes an influencer of fashion and behavior on Instagram

Near Octogenarian, Brazilian Grandma Hits Big as Influencer on Social Media

Izaura Demari draws so much attention wherever she goes that some have even asked: ...

Brazilian farm workers - Sebastião Salgado

Brazil’s Left Is Proposing an Economy Based on Workers

cial and political movements in Brazil are organizing a “popular emergency plan” meant to ...

Magic fascinated and troubled early Christians as much as it does some people today. Marvel Studios

Irony: Considered Evil, Magic Is Integral to Development of Christianity

Americans are fascinated by magic. TV shows like “WandaVision” and “The Witcher,” books like ...

After Having Been World’s 8th Largest Economy Brazil Is Celebrating a 14th Place

Brazil gained one position in the ranking of world economies. In the opinion of ...

Brazil Is Tops in Bargain Hunting. US Comes Second.

NOP World today announced results of its Culture Score “Bargain Hunting” Index, offering a ...

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Black God, White Devil), from 1964, was directed by Gláuber Rocha and stars Othon Bastos

Brazil Bringing to the Screens a Revisionist History of the Country

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration is embarking on a project of cultural and historical ...

Eike Batista talks in the Brazilian senate about corruption at BNDES - Wilson Dias/ABr

Once World’s Eighth Richest Man, Brazilian Gets 30 Years in Jail for Corruption

A Brazilian businessman famous for amassing and then losing a multi-billion-dollar fortune has been ...

Dollar Flow Deep in Red in Brazil This Month

Brazil’s Central Bank registered a negative dollar flow of over US$ 1.5 billion during ...