São Paulo – Brazilians living in several countries around the world participated in elections to choose the first Council of Representatives of Brazilians Abroad. There were 18,500 votes that elected 16 councillors and 16 substitutes for four regions: South and Central America, North America and Caribbean, Europe and Asia, Africa, Middle East and Oceania.
In the latter region, the Lebanese representative, Siham Hussein Harati, was the most voted councillor among the candidates. “The surprise was that in Lebanon, where the size of the Brazilian community is the smallest, she got an expressive number of votes, more expressive than the number of votes received by the second place candidate, in Japan, where we expected most of the positions to be taken, due to the number of Brazilians," said ambassador Eduardo Gradilone, undersecretary general of the Brazilian Communities Abroad, in a press conference on the 12th.
The vote was on the Internet, between November 1st and 9th. To vote, Brazilians viewed an on-line form, where they identified themselves according to their official documents, and chose the representative for their region. In all, 298 expatriates ran for the post of councillor.
One of the main functions of the new council will be the assistance in organisation of the Brazilians Worldwide Conference, which has already taken place twice over the last two years, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. “Once the councillors have been nominated, we are going to start dialogue with them and promote meetings prior to the conference, giving our ideas and, more importantly in this respect, discussing the list of requests," said Gradilone.
According to the ambassador, there are minutes with hundreds of requests by Brazilians over the last fifteen years. “Now, we have established a system for accountancy. Each of these requests will be turned to the ministry responsible, most to the Foreign Office, but many to the ministries of Education, Health and Labour. The council’s work for verifying these minutes is very important, seeing what is and what is not being complied with, seeing what may improve."
Gradilone explained that the council will have a term of two years and that each group of councillors will have to establish his own work structure, organizing the meetings between members and activities in the region. The activity of a councillor is voluntary and receives no funding from the government of Brazil. Members of the Foreign Office should meet with the councillors at least once a year.
According to the ambassador, the council should also promote the positive image of Brazil abroad. “We have as principles for this policy the appreciation of Brazilians abroad, the use of Brazilians abroad for preservation and promotion of our culture, to show Brazil abroad, including Brazilian products". The substitutes elected for Lebanon were Khaled Hamad Haymour and Roberto Khatlab.
*Translated by Mark Ament
