Voting on São Paulo's isolated island

Report 12: São Paulo

As Brazil gears up for presidential elections starting on 6 October, BBC Brasil's Paulo Cabral has completed a journey through remote mountains, arid countryside and deep jungle to find out what 21st Century politics mean in the Brazil that normally goes unreported.

Bororé Island is a district in the southern part of the city of São Paulo.

Some people will have to travel two hours by bus and ferry to vote

Bororé is not quite an island, but 90% of it is surrounded by the waters of the Billings Reservoir.

One precarious, barely used road is the only access by land.

Two ferries link the district to the cities of São Paulo and São Bernardo do Campo.

Not a single ballot box for the island's 3,000 or so residents will cross the waters.

Click here to read Paulo's answers to your questions about his trip

The president of the Association of Residents of Bororé, Eduardo Freire, says that the community has requested its own polling station at the local school numerous times.

Augusto Silva: "I don't have great faith in politics"

"The election interests people because of the politics, but the fact that they have to take a ferry followed by a bus to get to a voting booth is a great dampener on their enthusiasm," said Mr Freire.

"If voting was not compulsory, I am certain that a lot of people would not go to all that trouble just to vote."

Local resident Augusto Silva will face a two-hour journey to get to the polls in Capão Bonito in São Paulo.

"Just to get there, vote and then come home, will take me all day. The journey alone will take me four hours," he said.

And he held out little hope for the impact of his vote: "I don't have great faith in politics, I really don't," he said.

The 'island' is 90% surrounded by water

Shopkeeper Anisia Silva will also have to travel a long way.

She believes that voters "have a duty to vote, to choose the candidate who best responds to their hopes and who can make a difference for the better".

Ms Silva has lived on the island of Bororé for the last 18 years but she has never bothered to transfer her voting registration to Grajaú, which is a lot closer.

"I have to catch the ferry either way," she said.

Isolated

The district of Bororé is a peninsula.

Buses do not use the road route to it, which crosses marshlands and areas of forest to link the island with the rest of the city.

The residents have now had some roads surfaced

Instead, the buses travel on ferries run by Emae, a part of São Paulo's electrical company which has not been privatised.

Emae inherited this obligation 20 years ago from the former state company, Light, when the dam was built and the area flooded.

The newly isolated areas had to be guaranteed ferry services provided by the state.

Presidential election

First round: 6 October

Run-off: 27 October

Key candidates

Jose Serra - ruling centrist coalition

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - Workers' Party

Ciro Gomes - centre-left Labour Front coalition

Anthony Garotinho - Socialist Party candidate

But, even in one of the biggest cities of South America, isolation remains a problem.

Mr Freire explained that, for example, political campaigning is still a novelty in Bororé.

"Until 1994 the candidates did not come here and there were no campaign posters or leaflets in the streets," he recalled.

This year, the Association of Residents, has secured new benefits for the community, such as road surfacing, rubbish collection and a post office.

Eduardo Freire: Travelling to vote 'dampens election enthusiasm'

"And now the interesting thing is that the candidates are claiming these improvements as their own - improvements that the community won without any help from political parties," said Mr Freire.

He believes that the effort of bringing the elections into Bororé could help increase the community's interest in politics.

"We need public help to develop the district," he said.