Brazil’s Unidade Popular (UP), or Popular Unity, officially launched Samara Martins as its candidate for president on July 27, forming an all-woman ticket with Pará-based port security officer and labor union activist Raquel Bricio as her running mate.
The nomination convention took place at the Zumbi dos Palmares University in São Paulo. The party also launched 13 candidates for state governments. The UP currently has no formal alliance with another party, although possible coalitions were discussed during the convention, according to single-source reporting from CNN Brasil.
A Socialist Platform
The party presented Martins and Bricio as working-class candidates “formed in the heat of popular struggle” who would offer Brazilian voters a program based on “Revolution and Socialism.” Their campaign will focus on issues such as outsourcing, the expansion of the practice known as pejotização—in which workers are hired as companies rather than employees—and ending Brazil’s six-day workweek with one day off.
The UP also listed policies focused on gender and racial issues, including measures to combat violence against women and Black Brazilians. Martins said her candidacy would seek to confront violence against women, end femicide and criminalize conduct that contributes to exploitation, oppression, discrimination and hatred directed at women.
Other proposals include nationalizing banks, returning strategic companies to state ownership, strengthening the Unified Health System (SUS), expanding free education, taxing large fortunes and increasing public-housing programs. The source did not provide cost estimates or details on how the proposals would be implemented.
Polling and Background
Martins received 1% support in a Datafolha poll released on July 24, according to CNN Brasil. She was tied with Cabo Daciolo of Mobiliza and Rui Costa Pimenta of the Workers’ Cause Party (PCO). The source did not provide the poll’s margin of error or sample size.
Martins, 38, was born in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. She works as a dentist in the SUS and serves as the UP’s national vice president. She is also active in the Olga Benário Women’s Movement and the Revolutionary Black Front.
She began her political career in student movements, working with the Metropolitan Association of High School Students of Greater Belo Horizonte and later serving as director for women’s affairs at the National Union of Students (UNE), Brazil’s largest student organization.
Martins also ran for vice president in 2022 on a ticket with Leo Péricles, another UP candidate. That ticket was the only presidential slate that year composed entirely of Black candidates, according to CNN Brasil. Martins has described herself on social media as a reflection of Brazilian women because she is a mother of two boys and divides her time between home, political activism and work.