Abdulbaset Jarour arrived in Brazil eight years ago as a refugee, fleeing the war in Syria, where he was born. He came on a humanitarian visa, alone, without speaking Portuguese. Now, at 32, he is one of the Brazilian naturalized foreigners who are running in the October elections — he is seeking a seat as a state deputy in São Paulo.
At least 35 candidates, out of a total of more than 28,000, stated in their registrations that they were born outside Brazil and were naturalized in the country, according to the Superior Electoral Court’s database. The number is similar to that of the 2018 elections, when there were 34 names in these conditions. Ten of them are running for deputy in São Paulo, the state with the highest number of cases.
Brazilian law allows naturalized persons to run in elections, with the exception of certain positions, such as president and vice president; once elected, they cannot preside over either the House or the Senate.
Jarour was born in Aleppo, one of the Syrian cities most affected by the civil war that started in 2011. He was wounded in 2013 and decided to flee to Lebanon. From there he thought of crossing the sea to Italy, Greece or Spain. “But I was afraid of drowning,” he says. He tried the Canadian and Australian visa, to no avail. “I heard about the Brazilian humanitarian visa and looked for the embassy.”
A friend put Jarour in touch with a Lebanese living in São Paulo, who offered him a job selling CDs on the streets of Brás. “I didn’t accept it, I didn’t feel well,” he says. He ended up working for a while in a hostel and then as a driver.
From there, he turned to civil society organizations. Today he is vice president of the NGO Pact for the Right to Migrate-Africa do Coração and works in other entities. He became a Brazilian citizen in 2020, after six years of residency.
Jarour says that, during these eight years in Brazil, he suffered prejudice and had difficulties to make his voice heard. “Sometimes a professor or a researcher speaks on behalf of immigrants and refugees,” he says. “We manage to express ourselves in Portuguese, which we are learning. Even so, people interrupt us, and then we lose our place of speech.”
This perspective guides its platform, which calls for greater protagonism from immigrants and refugees in the formulation of public policies that affect them. The Syrian proposes, for example, facilitating access to housing, education and work. He also suggests that São Paulo encourages the internalization of immigrants and refugees, so that they are not concentrated in the capital. “I want the State to invest in this human potential.”
In recent years, the country has been the destination of different migration flows — from Venezuelans, Haitians, Syrians and, more recently, Afghans and Ukrainians, groups to which the federal government has allocated the issuance of humanitarian visas.
Affiliated to the PSB, Jarour will not, however, be able to rely directly on this support; as immigrants and refugees cannot vote until they eventually become Brazilians, any candidate who includes the migration issue on their platform needs to convince a wider electorate. Hence, perhaps, the message that the country has a lot to gain from foreigners — who most of the time have an entrepreneurial profile, according to him.
In addition to Jarour, at least nine other people are competing in São Paulo who declared they were born outside Brazil and became naturalized in the country. For state deputy, Garry do Povo (Haiti, PT), Jaeh Kim (South Korea, Podemos), Dr. Maria Alice (Portugal, Patriota), and the Chinese Dr. Vong (PSDB), Doctor Li (Citizenship) and David Chu (Pros). For federal, are Dr. Roger Lin (China, Podemos), Henri Estes (Lebanon, PV) and Chuks (Nigeria, PSDB).
It is unclear, based on TSE data, whether any of the candidates other than Jarour arrived in Brazil as a refugee. “We are the new Brazilians,” he says. “But some people think they’re better than us, that because we come from outside, we don’t have rights, that we come here to steal jobs, threaten public safety, bring disease. We’re just fighting to be able to exist.”
