Public pessimism reigns in Brazil as World Cup looms

RIO DE JANEIRO -- On the Friday night before Easter, as the city's bus stations and highways congested with a multitude of travelers, the lights suddenly went off in the arrival area of Rio's international airport's Terminal 2. With stars now visible outside the glass windows, passengers and employees raised their lit cellphones and several yelled, "This World Cup is here!"

Their sarcasm captured what has become a prevalent sentiment here: As Brazil readies to host the competition and more than half a million foreigners, locals see the heightened irony of carrying out a logistically demanding international event when compared to their day-to-day frustrations in crowded and often inefficient cities.

Their pessimism has been distilled into a popular social media hashtag — #ImaginaNaCopa, or, "Imagine during the World Cup."

"I hope Brazil loses in the first round," said Maria de Lourdes, 39, a street vendor who participated in a recent anti-World Cup demonstration. She said the Brazilian team falling early would make locals lose their nationalistic goodwill toward the event. "Brazil, with all its problems, Rio with all its problems — many people still die from hunger while others are spending money on these games," she said.

Public opinion polls have shown a steady erosion of enthusiasm for the event among Brazilians. In 2008, the year after Brazil was announced as World Cup host, 79% of respondents to a Datafolha poll supported the event. By April this year, the number was 48%. The same poll this year showed 55% of respondents saying the event will bring more harm than good to Brazilians. The government is spending an estimated $11 billion on stadiums and infrastructure.

As organizers scramble to put the final touches on stadiums before the World Cup opener featuring Brazil and Croatia on June12, locals are exasperated about basic needs such as mass transit. A bullet train between Rio and Sao Paulo promised in 2009 to be ready for the World Cup is now projected for 2020.

Tunnels are still being dug for a new metro line that would serve the west zone of Rio. It's called Line 4 despite the fact only two lines exist today, since a third line to run across Rio's Guanabara Bay was proposed but remains non-existent.

A bus rapid transit line, which functions with the speed of a metro in exclusive highway lanes, would be the first and only mass transit option from Rio's international airport to the city center. City officials have promised in the local news media that it would be ready on the eve of the World Cup, which is 17 days away.

In the meantime, bus worker strikes in Rio and Sao Paulo have left hordes of frustrated citizens in recent days.

"We're going to receive even more people (during the tournament) than we do in high tourist season," Kelly Farias, 30, an administrative assistant in an accounting office, said as she waited for her afternoon bus back home. Her morning bus, which usually comes every 10 minutes in the blue-collar Bangu neighborhood on Rio's outskirts, had taken an hour that day.

"Those who come to see just Copacabana and the Christ statue think it's great. They don't see this," she said as she waited in the stuffy underground terminal in Rio's downtown. "It's pretty, yes, but the structure is just not plausible to receive so many visitors."

In addition to transportation, Brazilians frequently complain about the quality of services such as public security, schools and health care. Brazilian citizens pay high taxes for public services, but many in the middle class still feel they need to pay for their own security guards, private schools and out-of-pocket health care.

The Curitiba-based Brazilian Institute of Tax Planning ranked Brazil last in a survey of 30 high-tax countries when it compared the level of taxation with the return in services, measured through the country's human development index.

Complaints about the quality of public services were a mantra of protests last year that began as an outcry over a 10-cent rise in bus fare but soon spread into generalized discontent, bringing hundreds of thousands of Brazilians into the streets across the nation in a display of public outrage unlike any seen here in a generation.

"The problems that are exploding now are old problems. But the World Cup motivated people. The World Cup politicized a group," said Carol, a middle school teacher who was on strike and attended the recent anti-World Cup protest in Rio. (She asked not to use her last name because she works for the government and feared upsetting her superiors.) "In the beginning, people supported the World Cup when it was announced. Then they felt in the skin what it meant to have the World Cup here," she said.

Around her, several school employees wore imitation uniforms similar to the city's garbage collectors, who staged what was considered a successful strike during this year's Carnival celebrations. About 11,000 tons of trash accumulated across the city and its beaches, and the mayor assigned armed escorts to accompany non-striking workers on their trash trucks, alleging the strikers could lure them away from work.

Even FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, has conceded there is disgruntlement among Brazilians ahead of the event that was presented as a source of national pride.

"Brazilians are a bit discontent because they were promised a lot," FIFA President Sepp Blatter said in a recent interview in French with Switzerland's RTS TV.

But he downplayed fears that the mood would continue once the World Cup began. "I am sure now that, from the first kick of the ball at the opening match in Sao Paulo, Brazil will take on this atmosphere of soccer, samba, music and rhythm."