“I do not reside in Brazil, but I remain a Brazilian citizen”; “Voting is mandatory, but it is also a right” were some of the reactions of Brazilians who, when challenged on the networks, defended the right to vote, even if they lived outside Brazil.
Today there are 696 thousand Brazilians registered to vote outside the country, which represents 0.45% of the electorate in Brazil, composed of 156.5 million people. In the second round elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was also elected president by Brazilians voting abroad: Lula received 51.28% (152,905 votes) of the valid votes, against 48.72% (145,264 votes) for the candidate. Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The political participation of migrants goes far beyond voting abroad. Migrating due to lack of opportunities or as a result of economic and political crises in the countries of origin could suggest a lack of interest, on the part of migrants, in participating in the political directions of these countries.
However, according to the reflections on diaspora and transnationalism by authors such as Guarnizo, Portes and Tarrow, many migrants maintain their political participation in their countries of origin through actions that can range from the remittance of money, regular visits to invest in companies, philanthropic organizations and cultural event organizations, to direct intervention in political and electoral processes in these countries.
This participation does not yet exclude immigrant nationalists who seek to mobilize diaspora discourses to destabilize or overthrow governments in their countries of origin, as in the case of Croatians in Canada; of the Irish in Boston; and the Kurds in Germany.
During the period of dictatorship in Brazil, in the 1970s, the networks of transnational solidarity that formed around Brazilians exiled from the dictatorship contributed to the transnationalization of the fight against the military government abroad and in Brazil. Through the production of printed media, the exiles spread denunciations about the dictatorship in order to sensitize public opinion in Brazil, gain support for their political struggle and harm the image of the Brazilian military regime abroad.
Brazilian exiles contributed with denunciations, information and the organization of political action. They acted anonymously so as not to infringe international legislation on refuge, which determined that actions or statements that could affect the government and security of the country of origin should be avoided, under penalty of loss of refugee status or expulsion from the host country. In addition, the political actions of Brazilian political exiles were important for the insertion of themes such as feminism, democracy, and especially amnesty, on the agenda of Brazilian leftist activists.
From the 1990s onwards, the processes of digitalization of communication and the popularization of the internet reordered the political action of global resistance movements and social and cultural collectives, including migratory collectives. The use of digital technologies allowed migrants to expand and intensify interconnections, as well as the articulation of political actions between countries of origin and destination.
In this sense, in a research carried out by me on the activism of Brazilian immigrants against the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in the city of Barcelona, it was possible to observe that the political action of immigrants followed similar guidelines to those of Brazil, especially with regard to the effort to consolidate and at the same time translate into Spanish and European contexts the conception of impeachment as a political, legal and media coup, and especially give visibility to this narrative in the media and in other Spanish and European social and institutional spaces.
In destination countries, migrants have also mobilized in defense of the exercise of their political rights in the countries of origin, such as the right to vote. The collective Marea Granate, created from the growth of the Spanish diaspora caused by the economic-political crisis of 2008, has consolidated itself as a transnational and non-partisan movement formed by Spanish migrants residing in different countries. The collective led, especially via digital activism, political mobilizations, such as those related to the #VotoRogado and #RescataMiVoto campaigns, which culminated, in 2021, with the derogation of the so-called “voto rogado” within the framework of the new electoral legislation approved by the Spanish Congress.
In the city of São Paulo, the activism of Bolivian immigrants promoted political actions through the occupation of the street and digital spaces to denounce the coup in Bolivia that, in 2019, removed former president Evo Morales and installed the illegitimate government of Jeanine Áñez. Through a series of mobilizations, Bolivian immigrants demanded new elections in Bolivia, as well as the preservation of the right to vote abroad, threatened by the Áñez government.
The political participation of migrants can also extend to their insertion in institutional political spaces through candidatures for parliamentary positions in the countries of destination where they also act to include in the public debate and give visibility to agendas of interest in the countries of origin. Brazilian activist Maria Dantas, elected in 2019 to the Spanish parliament by the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, was one of the most active politicians, together with the Spanish and European parliament, in denouncing and resisting the Bolsonaro government.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
