Kotscho: "I voted for Dilma. So what? What's the crime?"
"Not only me, but 54 million other Brazilians voted for Dilma in the October election, and my vote is worth as much as any of theirs, that is, one vote. Have they all disappeared?", asks the journalist, who says that, because he is a PT voter, he is approached on the street "as if he were responsible for the crisis we are experiencing"; Ricardo Kotscho says, however, that he does not regret his vote: "Nothing guarantees me that, if the opposition had won, Brazil would be living better days today."
I voted for Dilma and I was an advisor to Lula. So what?
By Ricardo Kotscho, in your blog
"Aren't you Kotscho, the guy from television? I saw you yesterday..."
The approach starts something like this, then comes the inevitable question: "What do you think will happen?" Most people don't even wait for the answer, which, by the way, I don't have, and immediately start saying what they think about the situation, since now we are a country where everyone understands politics, economics, and even who should or shouldn't go to the Supreme Federal Court.
Well, now that I'm older, I'm becoming famous, being recognized in public places, thanks to Jornal da Record News and Heródoto Barbeiro. Like everything in life, this has its good side, the professional recognition, and its bad side, the loss of privacy. Some people even ask to take selfies...
This had never happened to me before, in all my years working in print media. As I'm a political commentator on TV, people want to talk about politics, of course.
And since the heated rivalry of the last election campaign never ends, especially here in São Paulo, where everyone already has their definitive opinions, almost all condemning the Workers' Party government, they generally only want to know when and how the president will fall, because they no longer have any doubts about it.
For those who have followed me for a long time, and have been reading this column since it was created almost eight years ago, what I wrote in the title of this article is nothing new. I have never changed sides nor hidden what I think, and I have always been frank with readers, internet users and, now, television viewers, seeking to preserve my freedom and professional independence.
But there are people who simply cannot accept the fact that I have always voted for the PT (Workers' Party) and worked as an advisor to former President Lula, even holding the position of Secretary of Press and Public Relations during the first two years of his government.
I left the Presidential Palace more than ten years ago, in November 2014, for strictly personal reasons, and I am proud of the work I did there, but even today people hold me accountable whenever something goes wrong in the federal government, in any area, as if I were responsible for the crisis we are experiencing: "Ah, but you voted for Dilma, you're a friend of Lula..." So what? What's the crime?
The other day, a taxi driver was quite surprised when, in the middle of a conversation – about politics, of course – I said who I had voted for in the last election. "Wow, you're the first person to get in this car and confess that you voted for Dilma. There's no one else with the courage to say that..."
Not only me, but 54 million other Brazilians voted for Dilma in the October election, and my vote is worth as much as any of theirs, that is, one vote. Have they all disappeared?
I know that today there are many more people against than in favor of the government, with ample and justified reasons to complain, but I don't regret my vote, given the options that the electronic ballot box offered me at that moment, because, unlike other journalists, I don't have the gift of predicting the future and I limit myself to seeing and reporting what is happening, which is the reporter's job. Nothing guarantees me that, if the opposition had won, Brazil would be living better days today.
Life goes on.