Viviane Reis, from the most voted councilwoman in the Amazon city of Belém to the first black and LGBTI+ federal deputy in the state of Pará

The year 2020 is coming to an end with a very positive result for the PSOL. After a hiatus of 16 years, the Left resumes the management of the capital and also brings to the Chamber of Deputies the elected councilwoman Vivi Reis, the first black and LGBTI+ federal deputy of Pará. With the election of Edmilson Rodrigues mayor of Belém, Vivi will occupy his seat in Brasília, which in the 2018 elections obtained more than 22,000 votes and became the party’s first substitute in the Federal Chamber.

“Having the possibility of becoming a federal deputy represents taking to Brasília the defense of the interests of Pará citizens, and amplifying the debate on inequalities and on the development model imposed on the Amazon,” explains Vivi. By electing herself as the woman best voted in the elections for the City Council of Belém and also the best voted among all the municipalities in the Amazon, physiotherapist Vivi Reis, consolidates herself as an important political leadership within her party and as the expression of voices that are usually silenced by traditional politics.

The arrival of Vivi in the Federal Chamber increases the participation of women in the PSOL bench from five to six, from a total of ten deputies. In the Belém City Hall, Vivi will be replaced by a councilwoman with a profile quite similar to her own, Nurse Nazaré Lima, another black woman, a health professional and born on the outskirts of the capital.

“This is very important and reflects what has happened at the national level, with the growth of women’s candidacies, of Black women, of LGBTI+, of Indigenous people, finally there has been a movement of groups historically invisible in search of greater institutional representation and, even having achieved some victories, we are still underrepresented. The fact that the position in the City Hall is occupied by a woman like Nazaré is a collective victory,” says Vivi.

Who is Vivi Reis?

Vivi Reis is 29 years old, a physiotherapist graduated from the State University of Pará (UEPA), a health professional, a postgraduate student at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) and a popular educator at Rede Emancipa, a social movement for popular education.

A black woman from the Amazon, bisexual, recently elected as a councilwoman, she received 9,654 votes that consolidated her as the most voted councilwoman in Belém, the fifth most voted councilwoman in the state capital of Pará and the most voted PSOL in Belém. Among her campaign focuses were the struggle for the insertion of more Black women in the spaces of power, the defense of public policies that take into account the black bodies and LGBTIs+ and a new vision of the city, accessible to all and everyone, where the center is the periphery.