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SÃO PAULO – One morning in January 2019, days after Jair Bolsonaro took office, Guilherme Boulos met with the leadership of the PSOL and allies of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) to reevaluate their political action strategy. Sitting at the table in the small meeting room of the office of the media company that had assisted him in the presidential campaign, they searched for a way to reverse the poor performance that had remained as a result of the electoral dispute the previous year. Boulos was tenth with 677,000 votes, the worst result for a PSOL candidate in history.
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Hours of discussion later, they concluded that it was necessary to play on the enemy’s battlefield. From there, the leader of the homeless movement would go out of his way to try to become the anti-Bolsonaro of social media.
In the months that followed, Boulos began to systematically refute the president’s main lines. The tactic paid off. The PSOL politician has more followers than Ciro Gomes (PDT) on Twitter and approaches Fernando Haddad (PT) on Instagram. Virtual musculature, from 250,000 Twitter followers at the end of the 2018 election to 1.1 million today, helped him start the race for the city.
The research shows that the best performance of the PSOL candidate is found precisely among the youngest voters, aged 16 to 24, a range in which he came to surpass the main opponents – in general, a dispute with Celso Russomanno (Republicans) and Márcio França (PSB) a place in the second round against Bruno Covas.
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The internet chill, however, is far from having the same impact on the streets. On Tuesday afternoon, the leader of the homeless, accompanied only by a press officer, a security guard and a driver, went almost unnoticed when crossing a popular commercial boardwalk in the center of the city. On the spot, Boulos would do the “Se nas nos 50”, a campaign invention that gives the candidate 50 seconds to answer the questions of the people who pass by on the street. But few stopped to hear him speak. He left at 30 minutes and, again, ran 600 meters to the parking lot where his Celta was parked.
The vehicle, his only asset declared before the Electoral Court, became a character and even won a jingle. All within the strategy of trying to consolidate in the voter the image that the candidate is a man of simple habits, different from traditional politicians.
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A graduate of Philosophy and professor at the Institute for the Reform of State-Company Relations, Boulos is 38 years old and has lived for seven years in Campo Limpo, on the outskirts of the city. The style of the son of successful doctors who, in his youth, changed the coverage of the West Zone of São Paulo to an invasion of the MTST, conquered sectors of the progressive middle class, but is not assimilated in the periphery, precisely the public to whom it goes directed his speech. Activists acknowledge that denying a comfortable life short-circuits the minds of some voters.
The origin of the homeless movement is the political cradle of the candidate, but it also brought a series of headaches. Boulos is charged with damage to public property in a lawsuit for demonstrations that occurred at the time of the eviction from an area in São José dos Campos in 2013. He was even detained and attacked by security agents.
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Jingle imitates Lula’s
With the need to expand its electorate to guarantee itself in the second round, an attempt was made to recalibrate the character of the “festive left” of the candidacy in the final stretch. A considerable part of his allies wanted Boulos to even change his wardrobe, adopting the blazer at least in debates. He resisted.
Despite his closeness to Lula and his good coexistence with the PT during most of the dispute, Boulos does not hide that his project is different. The connections with the former president appear in more detail today.
After entering politics in 2018, the leader of the homeless, who only wore a goatee, grew a beard. The slogan that accompanied Lula in the campaign that led him to Planalto was also adapted for this municipal election. “Hope will conquer fear” in 2002 became “Hope will conquer hate.”
