Anthony William Matheus de Oliveira (born 18 April 1960), also known as Anthony Garotinho, is a Brazilian politician and radio broadcaster. He legally adopted his stage name "Garotinho" (Little Boy in Portuguese), originally a nickname he took while working as a radio sports broadcaster.Anthony Garotinho: Evangelical 'sniper', BBC News, September 18, 2002
He is also one of the best known Brazilian evangelical politicians. Garotinho believes he was reborn as an evangelical Christian following a car crash in 1994.The hunger strike of Antony Garotinho, The Guardian, May 12, 2006 He is married to Rosinha Matheus and has nine children, of whom five are adopted.
Early career A popular radio anchorman, fond of amateur theater, Garotinho entered politics through grassroots activism, joining the Brazilian Communist Party and helping to reorganize the sugar-cane workers' union in Campos.Paul Freston, ed. Evangelical Christianity and democracy in Latin America. Oxford University Press, 2008, , page 168 He entered electoral politics in 1982, presenting himself as candidate for a councilman seat in the same city on the Workers' Party ticket, failing to be elected because the party's list of candidates didn't achieve the necessary threshold of ballots to have a representation in the Municipal Chamber. Afterwards, he joined the Democratic Labour Party (PDT), being elected for the state legislature (1986) and winning the Campos mayoral elections in 1988 in which the party's head Leonel Brizola campaigned for him.
After his term as mayor of Campos (1989–1992), during which he took some measures to support small producers and to develop alternatives to sugar cane monoculture,Yves Fauré & Lia Hasenclever, eds., Novos Rumos para a Economia Fluminense: Oprtunidades e Desafios para o Crescimento do Interior. Rio de Janeiro, e-papers, 2008, , page 121 as well as supported MST settler projects,Helena Lewin, ed., Uma Nova Abordagem da Questão da Terra no Brasil: O Caso do MST em Campos dos Goitacazes. Rio de Janeiro, 7 Letras/FAPERJ, 2005, he was chosen by Governor Leonel Brizola as State Secretary of Agriculture (1993–1994), presenting himself as the PDT's candidate for governor in the 1994 elections, being defeated by Marcello Alencar (PSDB). After being reelected for mayor in 1996, he was eventually elected Governor of Rio de Janeiro State in 1998, for the 1999–2002 term of office,Cf. Gilberto Velho, ed., Rio de Janeiro: cultura, política e conflito . Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor, 2007, , page 77 posing himself as the "crown prince" for Brizola, who had already entered a process of political decay and loss of charisma and personal influence.Camille Goirand, La politique des favélas . Paris: Khartala, page 102
Governor of Rio de Janeiro State At the time already a conservative described by an American historian as a "responsible young man" with whom President Fernando Henrique Cardoso "could work"Ted George Goertzel, Fernando Henrique Cardoso: reinventing democracy in Brazil. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999, , page 191 as governor, Garotinho nevertheless targeted the poor by providing subsidized meals for R$1.00 (at the time equivalent to US$0.30) at "people's restaurants" (soup kitchens kept by private contractors),Ananya Roy & Nezar Al Sayyad, eds., Urban informality: transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia, Oxford: Lexington Books, , page 127 building 35,000 affordable homes and giving, - since 1999 - badly-off families a monthly "citizen's check" (actually, a R$100.00 coupon that could be used to purchase food and personal hygiene items at storesDulce Chaves Pandolfi, ed. A Favela Fala, Rio de Janeiro, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2003, , page 189.) - eligibility to whom was decided by a network of 807 religious organizations, mostly (82%) of them evangelical, specially from the Assembleias de Deus movement.Cf. Maria das Dores Campos Machado, Política e religião: a participação dos evangélicos nas eleições . Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2006, , page 61 At the same time, he balanced the State budget and renegotiated Rio's public debts. He won high approval ratings, but his time in office was also marked by serious corruption allegations.
From what he presented as his miraculous conversion to Protestantism in 1994, Garotinho, although not himself a Pentecostal - he is member of a Presbyterian Church - came to stand as a spearhead of the constantly growing involvement of the Pentecostal Churches in Brazilian politics, as well as of their bid for the Federal Executive itself.Cesar Romero Jacob, Atlas da filiação religiosa e indicadores sociais no Brasil, São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2003, , p. 39. Given the notorious ties between Pentecostalism and the urban unorganized poor - for which a conversion to Pentecostalism tends to stand for a newly found sense of community as well as for an aspiration at upward social mobilityLe Monde Diplomatique, Brazilian Edition, April 2005, available at - one could say that Garotinho stood for the preferential social connections created by his political mentor Leonel Brizola, differing from him in that he gave such connections a more politically conservative hue, by means of a kind of Right-wing populism in what is seem by many as simply pandering for the bare needs of the poor by means of a shallow philanthropy reduced to the concrete minimum.Cf. Candido Mendes, Lula: a opção mais que o voto. Rio de Janeiro: Garammond, 2003, , page 249 Others, however, consider that, conversely, one could also say that Garotinho gave evangelical politics a leftist slant,John Anderson, ed. Religion, democracy and democratization. New York: Routledge, 2006, , page 35 in that his evangelicism is the personal choice of a recent and enthusiastic convert, who therefore acknowledges the most destitute ones by means not only of offering munificence, but of a shared identity.Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge University Press, 2004, , p. 50
Early during his gubernatorial term, Garotinho made a try at striking a progressive note on his public security policies, based on a think-tank of social researchers - who ghost-wrote Garotinho's electoral public security programmeKees Koonings & Dirk Kruijt, eds., Fractured cities: social exclusion, urban violence and contested spaces in Latin America. London, Zed Books, 2007, , p. 35 - led by the university professor of Anthropology and Political Science Luis Eduardo Soares, who was made assistant secretary of public security.Enrique Desmond Arias, Drugs & democracy in Rio de Janeiro: trafficking, social networks, & public security. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, , page 36 Police stations were made Internet-friendly, in what was called a program for "legal (cool) stations" (Programa Delegacia Legal).Merhi Daychoum, Gerência de Projetos - Programa Delegacia Legal . Rio de Janeiro, Brasport, 2005, However, Garotinho eventually dismissed Soares in March 2000, which was seen as a serious setback for upholding human rights, according to Human Rights Watch. Garotinho insisted that Soares' removal was legitimate, but the circumstances suggested that he was removed due to pressure from the Rio police, with whose corrupt and violent elements Soares had been coming increasingly into conflict. World Report 2001, Human Human Rights Watch, December 2000Brazil police row leads to sacking, BBC News, March 18, 2000 Due to allegedly threats received by him and his family, Soares went abroad for a time, becoming a "neoexile".Inés González Bombal & Rodrigo Vilar, eds., Organizaciones de la sociedad civil e incidencia en politicas públicas. Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal, 2003, , p. 68
State secretary for Public Security He moved to the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) due to problems with the PDT leader, Leonel Brizola, and was the party's presidential candidate at the October 2002 presidential elections. Garotinho had stepped down nine months earlier to run for president and received 18% of the votes cast. He backed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round. He helped his wife Rosinha Matheus re-election campaign for governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. She appointed Garotinho State secretary for Public Security.As Crime and Politics Collide in Rio, City Cowers in Fear, The New York Times, May 8, 2003
In August 2003 he left the PSB to join the historical Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), which supported President Lula. Garotinho "arrasta" 12 deputados para o PMDB e "esvazia" PSB, Folha online, August 19, 2003 The move was seen as an attempt to secure federal funding for his wife's tenure as governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro and to increase Garotinho's chances in a future run for President of Brazil. Quanto riso, oh, quanta alegria, Veja, August 27, 2003
Hunger strike and later setbacks As the 2006 presidential elections approached, Garotinho, intent on maintaining a candidacy that his party tended to turn down for supporting Lula's bid for reelection, announced on May 1, 2006 a hunger strike, allegedly in protest of what he called unjust treatment by the Brazilian media, after unanswered accusations of illegal campaign funding - mostly about his wife's spending of some R$120 million in contracts with various shadowy NGOs for providing undelivered services to the State's government, which the media saw as a way to divert funds to an electoral campaign."Garotinho inicia greve de fome contra 'perseguição'". Terra News, 30 April 2006, available at He later stopped his hunger strike, leaving charges unanswered- and his presidential candidacy turned down. The Brazilian press writing Garotinho off as a "clown" and a failing politician parading himself as a caricature of "a crucified Jesus Christ". Many satirists declared that they supported Garotinho going on with the strike "to the very end".
On May 29, 2008 the Brazilian Federal Police issued an arrest warrant against Garotinho for "mobstering" (formação de quadrilha) for his association to Rio's former plainsclothes (civil) police chief Alvaro Lins, now a Congressperson for Rio de Janeiro, who was charged with money laundering, criminal association, corruption and facilitating smuggling. According to the federal attorney's office, Garotinho had "offered political support for Lins' group to remain in charge of the civil police." PF: Operação Segurança Pública S/A prende deputado Álvaro Lins , O Dia, May 29, 2008Former Rio police chief arrested, ex-governor charged in corruption scandal, Associated Press, May 29, 2008
In May 2010, the State (Regional) Electoral Court rendered Garotinho and his wife Rosinha ineligible to run for public office for three years from 2008 on, for engaging in electoral corruption during the 2008 mayoral elections in Campos, where Garotinho had canvassed for votes for his wife, who was running for mayor.O Globo, 27 May 2010. Such a condemnation by a collegiate court would have rendered Garotinho ineligible for the ensuing 2010 national election, but the Federal Electoral Court decided to grant him the right to run for the Federal Legislative on the Partido da República ticket, pending an appeal.O Globo, 28 July 2010
In June 2014, Garotinho announced his support for incumbent President Dilma Rousseff in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election. He ran for Governor of Rio de Janeiro in the 2014 state elections, receiving 1.576.511 votes (19,73% of valid votes), finishing in third place, after Luiz Fernando Pezão and Marcelo Crivella, who disputed the run-off.
References
External links Blog do Garotinho