Pastéis in Brazilian political campaigns

During election campaigns in Brazil, the act of eating street market pastéis is often used by politicians as a way to get closer to the public. This gesture gains significant attention and becomes the subject of internet memes, leading people to nickname the election campaign period in Brazil as "pastel season."

Fernando Haddad (right), then a candidate for governor of São Paulo, in a pastel shop, alongside other politicians.

Motivation

Street market pastéis and sugarcane juice are often used by politicians as a strategy to try to get closer to voters and convey the image of a "people's candidate." According to Lúcio Remuzat, a political scientist and professor at the University of Brasília (UnB): "It's the need to go out on the streets, to expose themselves, to present themselves to the voter, to be present, to be close. It's a shame that this process intensifies greatly during the campaign, but it should be an ongoing process for the elected representative." Lawyer and university professor Francis Ricken, who holds a master's degree in political science, commented that the politician's idea isn't always to seem like "one of the common folk," but rather to show themselves in that urban context: "Being at the local market and eating a pastry is an attempt to project the image of an ordinary citizen, one who frequents urban spaces and can be seen mingling with people, without the idea of separation or of a politician who is detached from society. This image sticks much more with the urban middle classes than with the peripheral citizen." For Ricken, although some politicians use the act as a form of opportunism, that is not always the case: "local politician getting close to their base and asking for votes is not opportunism. It's strategy."

Reception

Jair Bolsonaro (left), then president of Brazil, at a pastel shop in Toritama, Pernambuco, in 2021

Seen by some as a cliché, this act gains traction on the internet and becomes the target of memes. The election period is satirized on social media, where it is nicknamed "pastel season." Scientist Camila Santos commented that this attempt to get close to the people can become a subject of mockery online when it is carried out by politicians from parties that have no history of connection with social movements, and therefore the idea of a "people's candidate" can ring false: "Candidates from left-wing parties have social movements as their base; it's an issue they are closer to. On the other hand, those from right-wing parties are often linked to higher social classes, and they engage in these actions during election time to garner votes."

Notable incidents

In 2016, João Doria, a candidate for mayor of São Paulo, was photographed making a face interpreted as either a grimace or an expression of disgust while eating a pastel and drinking coffee. Following the backlash, which involved internet memes, his press team asked that he not be photographed while eating. After being elected, Doria said he had "learned how to eat a pastel." Two years later, he posted an image on his Twitter account showing him smiling while eating a pastry, saying it was the "best moment of the day" and that he "loves pastel."

In August 2022, the pastel shop Gran Pastel Gourmet started selling pastéis named after the four main presidential candidates — Jair Bolsonaro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ciro Gomes, and Simone Tebet — each with some characteristic related to the respective politician. At the end of the month, however, the delivery platform iFood vetoed the sale of some of the pastéis, blocking three of them, except for Bolsonaro's.

Rosângela Moro, a candidate for federal deputy for São Paulo in 2022, posted a video on social media in September of herself eating a pastel. However, in the background, a woman could be seen rummaging through the trash of the pastel stall. After the backlash, she apologized and deleted the video. Francis Ricken classified Rosângela's attitude as opportunistic: "The meme arises when the gap between the politician's image and what they do is very wide. A politician who hasn't frequented that environment and tries to get close comes across as strange [...] She is much more connected to Curitiba than to São Paulo, but she tries it in São Paulo to reach a larger electorate and become a prominent party figure. That is opportunism."