Published 05/06/2024 05:00
Pre-candidate for PCdoB for Mayor of Rio, Dani Balbi is a state deputy and was elected with more than 65 thousand votes. She is the first trans woman to hold a seat at Alerj. “Apart from my candidacy, all the others are from men. This shows that politics is still a place that rejects the inclusion and diversity of our people. So I could say that the candidacy of a woman, trans, black and from the worker is important for that reason”, he said in an interview with the column. Balbi also spoke about the challenge of a city like Rio with sustainability. One of the points she mentioned is the “need for greater investment in natural disaster prevention programs, such as urban drainage infrastructure, expansion of green areas and establishment of a social housing program.”
SIDNEY: Many pre-candidates for Mayor have one of their proposals to arm the Municipal Guard. What is your proposal for GM?
DANI BALBI: Arming GM is not the solution. The issue of public security is not a question of weapons. Before, governments bought revolvers, then pistols, then rifles and so on. What are we going to buy tomorrow? Bazooka? If the problem were weapons, the security issue would have been resolved a long time ago. For GM to fulfill its role of controlling public space and urban planning, I defend that the city hall invests in technology – digital and procedural – to prioritize actions and decision-making based on evidence. From this perspective, it is essential to adopt professional training strategies and encourage the qualification of agents. The use of weapons is premised on the protection of the agent and the public, in accordance with the complexity of the sectorized action and, considering the civil nature of the guard, the privileging of non-lethal weapons through the use of protocols that are created to contribute to the institutional control of the use of force. I defend that the city hall follows the MPF’s guidance so that all GM agents wear cameras on their uniforms. This guarantees transparency for operations, but also protection for the agents themselves. What we need is a GM focused on citizenship!
You are Alerj’s first trans deputy. How important is your pre-candidacy now for City Hall?
A survey just came out that showed that in the capital disputes across the country, around 80% of the candidates are white men. Here in Rio de Janeiro the situation is even worse: apart from my candidacy, all the others are from men. This shows that politics is still a place that rejects the inclusion and diversity of our people. So I could say that the candidacy of a woman, trans, black and working class woman is important for this reason. But not only that. Today Rio has around 8 thousand people living on the streets. Rio is the city with the highest rate of tuberculosis in the country in the 21st century, with Rocinha being one of the most affected places. You can’t accept this, you can’t find this normal. Unlike my opponents, I have a program that is public, which was built by experts and civil society, to reverse this scenario of brutal inequality in Rio. A program that defends a democratic, sustainable and inclusive city. This program is expressed in the book “Right to the city in Rio de Janeiro”, which is being launched at various events throughout the city. Regardless of the election, the book is a program for the city, about what the city of our dreams should be and what we must do to get there. We, at PCdoB, believe that politics only makes sense if it is built like this: collectively, from the bottom up, with the participation of everyone.
How to make the city of Rio more sustainable?
Rio de Janeiro’s main sustainability challenge is climate change, both in terms of adapting the city and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A first point is the need for greater investment in natural disaster prevention programs, such as urban drainage infrastructure, expansion of green areas and establishment of a social housing program. Another extremely important point concerns urban mobility and investing in efficient and less polluting public transport alternatives, such as the expansion of subway, train and cycle path networks. In the case of the subway and train, the mayor needs to assume a political role of dialoguing with the state government and the federal government. We must adopt a comprehensive approach, with investments targeted at areas with the least infrastructure and those most impacted – a portrait of environmental racism. Sustainable community practices already present in the city should be valued, such as recycling cooperatives, agroecology associations, and ecological sanitation biosystems projects. I propose the creation of a Sustainable Innovation Points Program to expand such rich initiatives in our city and that need to gain scale. For example, couldn’t we offer support from the city council so that the Vale Encantado community’s biodigester can scale up and be replicated in several other communities? I also defend the creation of a Research Support Foundation in the city of Rio de Janeiro, FAP-Rio, which would have the objective of financing sustainable innovation projects through coordination between companies, city hall, universities and civil society. This is what the United States does in Silicon Valley and what China does in the Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen.
Some municipalities have adopted zero fares on municipal buses. In a city like Rio, would this proposal work?
It would work and is very necessary. Of course, the challenge for a city like Rio de Janeiro is scale. Rio is one of the most unequal cities in the country. According to studies by Casa Fluminense, more than 2,000,000 people travel daily to the city center from the extreme West Zone and North Zone, and from Baixada Fluminense in search of opportunities that are concentrated in the Center and South Zone! This displacement disproportionately impacts the budget of the poorest and most vulnerable families. To give you an idea, an unemployed or informal person has an impact when distributing a CV in search of a job, for example, of at least 16% of the national minimum wage, and this commitment can easily exceed 53% – data from the Observatório dos Trens – salary, considering that she uses the train and subway for the sole purpose of commuting, looking for a job, since there is no modal or tariff integration. This impact is reflected in the deepening of inequalities. An example of this is the increase in the homeless population, where a considerable portion is in a partial situation, as they have a home, but due to the price of the ticket they cannot return to their home every day and are thrown into a deeply unworthy and unfair situation. Today, in Brazil, there are 106 cities that have Zero Tariff, 32 of which are in the state of São Paulo alone. It can be seen, when observing some successful experiences, that the zero tariff has many positive impacts, both in boosting the local economy and, concomitantly, in the municipality’s revenue to fund public policies. There is difficulty in publicizing and advancing this debate due to the lack of transparency about the cost of travel, that is, the cost of the operation, which serves to mystify the super profits of public transport concession companies. This is only possible due to the omission or negligence of municipal and state governments, which count on transport businessmen to be major financiers of their campaigns. It is no surprise that so many executive agents are imprisoned or being investigated for their relationship with the transport mafias, which in Rio de Janeiro have intimate relations with the militias. Unlike my opponents, I have several urban mobility experts building this study for my campaign under the coordination of Rafaela Albergaria, who is the founder of Observatório dos Trens.
What is your proposal for education?
My first action will be to universalize full education starting from early childhood education. According to the Municipal Department of Education, in 2022 only 35% of enrolled students were full time. Our project is that every child in a daycare center or municipal school can have an education of at least 7 hours a day, with the right to quality food, sports and lots of culture. I want to invest in quality and emancipatory education, mainly through investment in school infrastructure, the necessary teaching material and the appreciation of education professionals. One of the ways to value education professionals is to guarantee the replacement of salary losses of more than 21%, which they have had, counting since 2019, according to a study by Sepe-Dieese from March 2024. I also want to guarantee access to inclusive education to Rio residents with the structure and professionals that meet the demand. Finally, it is my commitment to make Law 6419/2018, which established the Early Childhood Night Care Space Program, also known as the Owl Space Law, a reality. This law aims to meet the demand of families whose mother or father is proven to work or study at night. This was the first law that Marielle approved as a councilor.
The LGBTQIA+ population is the target of constant violence. What can the municipal government do to protect them?
There is no simple solution to solve a structural problem in the capital of the state that ranks 2nd in the ranking of murders of trans people in Brazil. I believe that to resolve violence, a set of coordinated actions from different levels of the public sector is necessary. When we think about public security, for example, we will need a commitment from the Civil and Military Police, to receive, monitor and attribute the crime of LGBT+phobia, which has not occurred. In municipal management, it is necessary to ensure that those who do not even have housing – that is, are homeless – have access to inclusive shelters that offer a safe, respectful and discrimination-free environment. Given that the homeless population is more exposed to violence.
