A primeira prefeita do Brasil Alzira Soriano: a luta pela participação política da mulher na Primeira República/Lajes-RN e a participação da Federação Brasileira pelo Progresso Feminino. 1928 a 1930

Abstract

Women's participation in Brazilian politics is recent. Brazilian women gained the right to vote, through the electoral code in 1932, but the fight for women's suffrage in Brazil had been going on since the 19th century, gaining momentum in the 20th century, in line with global suffrage movements. During the First Republic, the struggle for the vote intensified, especially in the 1920s, with the emergence of several groups of women involved in the suffrage movement. In 1922, the Brazilian Federation for Women's Progress (FBPF) was created, formed by women from the intellectual and economic elite, led by Bertha Lutz, and having as its main objective the right to vote and political participation. The growth of women's groups and politicians in favor of women's suffrage, such as Juvenal Lamartine from Rio Grande do Norte, allowed progress in the fight for women's suffrage. In 1927, women were approved to vote in Rio Grande do Norte, where the FBPF had links with leaders of the state oligarchy. In the first municipal elections in the state, in 1928, a woman was elected, Alzira Soriano in Lajes (RN). She was the eldest daughter of the colonel from the city of Lajes/RN: Miguel Teixeira. Alzira also maintained contact with the leader of the FBPF, Bertha Lutz. The research aims to analyze, based on a case study by Alzira Soriano, the insertion of women in politics, within the historical context of the coronelista system, and understand the relationship between the Federation and its leader Bertha Lutz, with the election of the first elected mayor in Brazil. The study is developed mainly from three sources that show Alzira Soriano's connection with the FBPF and the coronelistic context. The newspaper O Paiz do Rio de Janeiro, used by the FBPF to publicize its actions; correspondence from Alzira Soriano and Bertha Lutz and the biography “Luiza Alzira Teixeira de Vasconcelos, the first woman elected mayor in South America” (1993) written by journalist Heloisa de Souza. The case study of Alzira Soriano's election shows the importance of her election and her mandate for the fight for female suffrage at the national level in the 1920s, at the same time that there was no complete detachment from the coronelistic context.