Brazil

Electoral Noise

It’s election time in the US, and I hear the term “electoral noise” batted around, of course referring to the competing voices of the candidates and their minions.
Here in Brazil, however, the term “electoral noise” would have a much more literal meaning. Political candidates rent sound trucks and have them drive around the city blaring annoying repetitive songs (some are creative, some are merely parodies of whatever song is popular at the time, and some are just the candidate’s ballot number, repeated over and over, ad nauseum) at obscene decibel levels.
The following video was taken on Tuesday, at around 2pm (nap time, for those of you keeping score). One of the candidates for alderman of our section of town sent a group of his flunkies to the park in front of our house. A supporter of the opposing candidate saw this, made a call, and soon his flunkies were also flooding the area–sound cars blaring.
Keep in mind that this video was taken as things were winding down:

There has been one piece of delicious irony during this election cycle here in São Luís. The sitting mayor, one Castelo, has been roundly criticized during his tenure for the deplorable condition of the roads. A couple of weeks ago one of his sound cars got stuck in a gigantic pothole…poetic justice at its best.
Fortunately, someone was there with a camera:



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