The story of a divided Brazil, as told from a Copacabana apartment building

Ten years ago, a 92-foot banner hung from the rooftop of an Art Deco building in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro’s iconic beachfront neighborhood. “Fora Cunha” (“Cunha Out”), it read in white letters against a black background.

At the time, Eduardo Cunha, then speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress and a master operator of the country’s notoriously murky political backrooms, had launched the impeachment process that would eventually bring down then-president Dilma Rousseff, a member of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party (PT). Months later, Cunha himself would end up in prison on corruption charges.

Similar signs could be seen in windows across Brazil during the political turmoil that culminated in Rousseff’s impeachment, but none was quite as large as that one overlooking Copacabana.

The idea came from Zé Alberto, an electrical engineer who considered himself apolitical. He initially planned to hang the banner from his own balcony, but Cunha had sparked such widespread indignation that residents of the building — despite their different political views and voting habits — turned it into a collective initiative. Today, they wouldn’t even be able to agree on that.

Rio de Janeiro was already a divided city, with people taking to the streets almost every week either in support of or in opposition to the left. The climate of political acrimony that has since taken hold in Brazil was already beginning to emerge, a trend that has spread across much of Latin America, now the world’s most polarized region, according to the United Nations.

As Brazil heads toward one of the closest presidential runoffs in its history, EL PAÍS returned to the building on Monday to see how that spirit of coexistence had held up over the past decade.

Ideological disputes have not turned into open warfare among the residents, but there is more silence. The same neighbors who debated politics on the rooftop a decade ago no longer even try. Each person is more convinced of their own views, and each fears for democracy if the other side is in charge.

Ten years and seven months later, Ângela Valério has a little more gray in her hair, but she has otherwise changed very little. At 75, the actress remains poised and full of energy.

When EL PAÍS first interviewed her in 2016, she was dressed entirely in white. Today, she arrives in bright red, the color of the Workers’ Party. Her T-shirt pays tribute to Rousseff.

Valério is disappointed and worried by the outcome of the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, in which the right swept to victory, and Flávio Bolsonaro finished two points ahead of her political idol, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In Rio de Janeiro, Lula won in the neighborhoods with the city’s priciest real estate, Copacabana among them. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, prevailed in the poorer outskirts of the city’s West Zone.

“Every hundred years, humanity falls ill with a form of absolutism,” she laments. “It swings back and forth like a pendulum. And because it’s an illness, arguments are useless.”

Her political activism has deepened over the years. During the 580 days that Lula spent in prison, the actress traveled to Curitiba four times to join the supporters who gathered outside the jail each day to greet the Workers’ Party leader: “Good morning, President Lula.” “Good afternoon.” “Good evening.”

And since 2019, she and fellow activists have also set up a small table every Sunday along the beachfront promenade. The experience has changed the way she sees her profession. “When I was more active as an actress, I thought that work was itself a form of political activism. It wasn’t. It was just make-believe. Activism is this: being genuinely in touch with people.”

She struggles to understand why many of her neighbors do not vote for Lula when, in her view, they also benefited from his policies. “It’s class prejudice. And then there are the churches, which portray Lula as the devil.”

The elevator climbs to the rooftop, passing the door to her apartment, which is covered in political stickers. “A building employee once tore them off,” she says.

Ten years ago, the rooftop terrace had a few white plastic chairs. It was there that Ângela and Zé Alberto sat down with EL PAÍS to tell the story of the banner. Back then, she railed against what she called the “coup-supporting media” and the “selective justice” against Lula.

Zé Alberto, wearing a T-shirt in support of Sergio Moro, the judge overseeing the investigation into Lula, accused the Workers’ Party of having begun as “an ethical party” only to end up justifying “the same old corruption.” The actress scratched her ear and smiled through clenched teeth to hold herself back; the engineer underscored each point with a wave of his right hand. They agreed on nothing, but the conversation faded without major tension.

Today, the spot where those chairs once stood has been turned into an attractive communal area with sofas and tables that residents use for their own gatherings. They have known one another for 30 years, but rarely spend time together.

“We hardly ever use it, and each of us on our own,” Ângela says.

They meet mostly on New Year’s Eve, when residents gather to welcome the new year and watch the fireworks on Copacabana Beach, one of the most photographed New Year’s celebrations in the world.

Recreating that conversation between neighbors a decade later proves difficult. No one shows up. Ângela sends a message to the building’s group chat and no one replies.

“I’ve lived here more than 30 years, and we have no real closeness with any neighbor. It’s crazy,” she says. She suspects her activism doesn’t help: “People put up their guard, especially when they know who I am.”

Zé Alberto, now 67, is traveling for work. He does answer his phone, though a few hours later, and agrees to talk briefly.

“In Brazil, we’re becoming more closed off,” he admits.

According to a study by the research center InternetLab, half of Brazilians avoid discussing politics in family WhatsApp groups for fear of starting an argument, and two-thirds prefer not to bring up the subject with relatives and friends.

Zé Alberto, now the building association’s president, has also hardened his views.

“I’m not a Bolsonaro supporter. That’s not true,” he insists. But Sergio Moro, the judge he once admired for sending Lula to prison, went on to serve as Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister and has just been elected governor of the southern state of Paraná on Bolsonaro’s party ticket.

“What I am,” he says, “is anti-PT. Anti-Lula.” He says he voted for the former metalworker many years ago, when the Workers’ Party was still what he calls “an ethical party.” Today, however, he sees a Brazil that has “gone backwards.”

For this engineer, Lula’s government is “more a totalitarian regime than a democracy.” As evidence, he points to the prison sentences handed down over the attempted coup, for which Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Before ending the call, he asks that his views be reported carefully so as not to leave him “in a very aggressive position against the regime.” He says he fears reprisals.

Nobody wants to talk politics in this building anymore. Ângela and Zé Alberto, who once argued but still understood each other, now only speak when strictly necessary.

“I only talk about politics with people who think like me,” he says.

“People don’t talk about politics, only within our bubbles,” she says.

“It stops being a discussion of ideas and becomes a confrontation,” he says

“The conversation shuts down almost immediately. It never really goes anywhere,” she says.

He returns to his criticism of Lula’s “totalitarian” government. She recalls Bolsonaro’s presidency as “a constant threat of a coup.”

Would they hang up another banner today?

“I wouldn’t dare put a banner on the building now. Any kind of banner,” Zé Alberto replies. The engineer says he is not worried about a dispute with his neighbors, but about what he calls “the regime.” “My opinion could be seen as an attack on the democratic state. It’s absurd.”

Ângela would not hang one either. “A banner saying what?” she asks.

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