Organised crime in Salvador de Bahia: insecurity weakens Lula ahead of elections
In Salvador de Bahia, a stronghold of the Workers' Party, the rise of organised crime could weigh on October's ballot. Le Figaro reports a concerning security situation.
Salvador de Bahia: when drug trafficking enters the election campaign
According to Le Figaro, the growth of organised crime in Salvador de Bahia represents a growing threat to the support that President Lula enjoys in this traditional bastion of the Workers' Party, just months before next October's ballot.
In the alleyways of the favelas in the north of the city, the reality of drug trafficking and criminal factions structures daily life. It is in this context that Alan Amorim, 34, produces his web series Marche lente, a production broadcast on YouTube aimed at discouraging young Brazilians from joining criminal networks. With his telephone in hand, he films amateur actors in tactical vests re-enacting scenes of arrest and trafficking. His message is blunt: the world of crime leads only to prison or death.
Amorim speaks from experience. Like several participants in his project, he himself came close to the temptation of easy money in his youth. "Almost all young people in Bahia have had the opportunity to fall into…," he confides, according to Le Figaro's report.
The deterioration of the security situation in this north-eastern state of Brazil could benefit the right in the elections, by weakening Lula's electoral base in a region historically aligned with the left. Violence linked to criminal factions thus emerges as one of the major issues of the coming campaign, far beyond mere economic questions.
Source: Le Figaro