It's an unusual campaign pledge: a strip club in every town. That, however, is what Adriely Fatal, a stripper and “erotic actress” from north-eastern Brazil, is promising voters as she hits the campaign trail in search of a place in Parliament.
With general elections taking place in October, four adult entertainers are preparing to battle it out for a seat in Ceara state's local Assembly, aiming to form a “sex lobby” within government.
Leading Ceara's campanha erotica is 23-year-old Fatal, who also promises to focus on hospitals and education and is campaigning on an open-backed truck outside the local football stadium, where she dances dressed in skin-tight shorts.
“My campaign is different to the others. I'm using sensuality to attract votes — I'm trying to attract young people and men,” Ms. Fatal, a former stripper in Boate Tropical, one of the state capital Fortaleza's most popular erotic clubs, told the Guardian .
“I campaign outside football stadiums, in squares and bars, in car garages, on the beach. I'm going to concentrate on healthcare and on showing people that just because I use tight clothes it doesn't mean that I can't do a proper job,” added Ms. Fatal, a member of the Christian Workers party, who counts waiters and taxi drivers among her supporters and cites the leftist presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff as one of her political idols.
Ms. Fatal is joined on the campaign trail by the Democrats party candidate Maria Adelina Nascimento, AKA Katia Heffner. Named after Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy , she runs a swingers' club in Fortaleza. Another adult entertainer, nicknamed Deborah Soft, is running for office with the slogan “Vote with pleasure”.
In the national election Ms. Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chosen successor, appears to be pulling ahead, with polls giving her about 45 per cent of the vote. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
