Cover article

COVER ARTICLE

Animals in the electoral debate

Considered as FALA’s most ambitious political project at the national level, Voto Animal supports electoral candidates engaged with Animal Rights throughout Brazil

Paulo Castro

There is an African saying that until lions have their own historians, history will always be written by hunters. But as long as animals are not able to tell their own stories, let them at least be told not only by those who defend them, but also by those who legislate in their favor. It was with this bold but very conscious strategy in mind that

FALA decided to create, in 2020, a project that aims to strengthen the “voice” of animals in parliaments across Brazil: the Animal Vote. The idea of the project is to publicize (on the website: www.votoanimal.com) the candidacies (municipal, state, federal and even presidential) from all over Brazil that are truly committed to agendas in defense of animals. For this, various means are used, including

FALA’s social networks (which literally reach millions of people across the country), in addition to animalistic media and traditional media in each municipality (through contacts with the main media of TV, radio and newspapers in the municipalities), always with the aim of increasing the number of mandates elected in defense of animals.

In order to have their political candidacies publicized by Voto Animal, all people who wish to assume an elective position must commit to a letter of commitment prepared by FALA, with a broad agenda in defense of animals. With this, the objective of Voto Animal is not only to give broad visibility to the candidacies, but mainly to ensure that the candidates, after being elected, fulfill all the commitments assumed. Through the project’s website and through direct contact with the candidates and elected mandates, FALA can monitor compliance with the letter of commitment, so that the electorate has the chance and opportunity to vote for those who defend animals and all the causes involved by the animalist movement. As part of the project, the past lives of all candidates who sign the letter of commitment are researched. In addition, all candidates who do not have public and private demeanors compatible with the letter’s commitments are excluded.

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Initiative history

Voto Animal started from the experiences coordinated by the Institutional Relations area of FALA, since the first year of the organization’s foundation (2012). Among these experiences, the one that most taught the entity the strength of political

advocacy was the official participation of FALA in a government transition team (see table below). Based on this and other successful experiences, FALA was able to stop projects harmful to animals and make other beneficial projects move forward.

What does the commitment letter consist of?

In 2020, FALA updated its traditional letter of commitment in defense of Animal Rights, expanding it to 33 agendas (see table below), and publicized it nationally, creating a website to publicize the names of those who signed it. After signing, the signatories of the letter need to put into practice very concrete initiatives so that animals can, in fact, be protected in their future bills and also in other initiatives, such as those elucidated in the letter of commitment. In its first year of launch, Voto Animal exceeded all expectations: 1) a record number of applications committed to the defense of animals (more than 500 signatures, with 300 approved); 2) also a record number of people reached in the dissemination (more than 4 million people); and 3) an unprecedented number of 56 elected candidates committed to the cause.

It is the most complete letter of commitment from an animalist entity in the country, with the largest number of candidacies to sign it and the largest number of people reached by the initiative during the elections and, consequently, the largest number of candidacies elected so far. But the project continues. The 56 elected mandates will have all their work closely monitored by FALA cells spread across all states of Brazil, with accountability made through the website. If any elected mandates do not comply with the 33 signed and assumed commitments, their names will be disapproved by Animal vote in the next elections. With this, the idea is to cleanse the Brazilian political system of governments that do not honor their commitments to the animal cause and that do not respect Animal Rights.

Understand how the Animal Vote project came about

During the 2014 election campaign in the Federal District Government (GDF), FALA presented a letter of commitment to all candidates for the Palácio do Buriti. With the signing of the letter, the candidates would commit, if elected, to implement an animalist agenda in their governments. The then candidate Rodrigo Rollemberg was the only one who signed it. Then, both he and FALA published the signature of the letter of commitment on their social networks, bringing great repercussion to the fact. All this mobilization helped the candidate to be elected governor of the Federal District. After the election, a FALA representative was appointed to participate in the government’s transition team. In this new condition, FALA managed to stop the project to build a mega-aquarium at the Brasília Zoo. In February of that year (2014), FALA had made a public petition to bar the project, which, along with other activist actions and participation in the transition team, was able to ensure this victory for the animals.

Bruno Pinheiro in the plenary session at the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District (2014) to deliberate on GDF measures regarding animal deaths at the Brasília Zoo

FALA Paulo Castro/

Some guidelines of the letter of commitment

● Combat violence against animals, face the speciesism and all other forms of discrimination and oppression in our society, guaranteeing rights and defending democracy and Brazilian democratic institutions, encouraging a culture of peace, non-violence, and disarmament, promoting sustainability in all its dimensions.

● Act for the creation of the Municipal Animal Protection Fund and, if it already exists, for the increase of its resources, as well as establishing connections with managers from other Brazilian or foreign cities that implement animal protection policies, to establish the continuous exchange of experiences of management in benefit of animals. ● Articulate the creation and strengthening of a Parliamentary Front in Defense of Animal Rights.

FALA Paulo Castro/

Peaceful demonstration by FALA volunteers against a well-known worldwide fast-food chain (2015)

On the other hand, FALA will seek to give visibility to those who legislate in favor of animal abolitionism in all its aspects, to those who defend sustainability in all its dimensions and to those who fight all forms of exploitation and oppression of human and non-human animals, no exception.

Aligning the debate with political leaders

“It is important to point out that Animal Vote does not constitute any alignment between FALA and the supported candidacies or any political party. After all, we are non-partisan and our performance is independent in relation to governments and political parties,” highlighted Bruno Pinheiro, president of FALA. “Nevertheless, we know that the political agenda is essential for us to be able to maximize the number of laws that respect Animal Rights, in order to provide achievements for the movement. All our efforts in the Animal Vote project come from this understanding”, he adds. To publicize and expand the reach of the project to representatives of various political parties, FALA held meetings with leaders in 2021 and intensifies this dialogue in the coming months until October, on the eve of the national elections. In the middle of last year, FALA was invited to be the speaker at the Inaugural Seminar of the National Animal Rights Sector of the Workers’ Party (PT, in the acronym in Portuguese), to talk about the importance of the animal agenda in the party’s political planning and about the movement of emergence of the said Sector. Towards the end of 2021, FALA met with the pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Gleisi Hoffmann, national president of the PT, to present to the Workers’ Party the Animal Vote platform and to discuss with them the PT’s proposals on the subject for the 2022 elections. With Voto Animal, FALA seeks to achieve, in fact, a political and social transformation in Brazil, beyond utopias. For this, FALA considers the elections of 2022 as a watershed for the national animalist movement, with the Animal Vote as a strategic and political instrument capable of materializing achievements for all defenders of the cause on Brazilian soil, based on the commitment with all human and non-human animals on the planet.

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