The only female pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic this year, Samara Martins, 38, criticizes the lack of visibility of her name and talks about contesting the elections for real.
Samara was launched to Palácio do Planalto by UP (Popular Unity), a party approved by the (Superior Electoral Court) in 2019. She has already contested a presidential election once, but as vice-president on the ticket. The duo finished with 0.05% of the votes.
Asked about the possibility of success in these, she says that “real chances of victory depend on the people”, who are responsible for deciding whether they want an alternative. “It’s possible that we can do it, yes,” he says.
“This invisibility of women is also clear in politics, so much so that our name is basically not mentioned as a pre-candidacy in any major media outlet, sometimes only in small blogs, in small newspapers”, says Samara.
For the pre-candidate, this shows that society still considers women “lesser”, less important.
Samara criticizes what she calls false polarization and the mentions of two or at most three candidacies that end up eclipsing the others.
The activist works in the SUS (Unified Health System), in the area of family health. She is a dental surgeon. Born in Minas Gerais, he lives with his family in Rio Grande do Norte, the state where he completed his degree.
A militant since her youth, she was a member of the student union, women’s director of UNE (National Union of Students), of the Olga Benário women’s movement and coordinator of the Revolutionary Black Front, a UP initiative to combat racism.
According to her, her campaign will have a socialist tone. She believes that projects like or are “anti-people” and “come from the capitalist system in which everything revolves around the profit of a few”.
Samara may not only be the only woman, but also the youngest candidate in the election. She defends the renewal of the country’s politics and the arrival of young people with potential for transformation.
