Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we take a look at Brazil’s close elections, Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, and Paraguay-Taiwan’s fragile alliance.
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Brazil prepares for high-stakes vote
Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we take a look at Brazil’s close elections, Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, and Paraguay-Taiwan’s fragile alliance.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every day of the week, sign up here.
Brazil prepares for high-stakes vote
In the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, many worry that current President Jair Bolsonaro will borrow from former U. S. President Donald Trump should he lose his bid for re-election.
His main rival, and the favorite to win, is former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, a leftist leader who has maintained a steady lead in the polls. As Lula’s popularity grew, Bolsonaro gave the impression of laying the groundwork for challenging an unfavorable end result through bizarre voting machines, military hiring, and unfounded claims that government workers can simply “manipulate election results. “
Brazil is facing the “moment of truth” about how Bolsonaro’s electorate reacts to the election outcome, said Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor of foreign relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.
“The big thing is whether this election is a turning point or whether it is a traumatic occasion that will lead Brazil to continue the downward spiral it is in now,” he added.
Brazilians will go to the polls on Sunday for the first round of voting, where they will have a selection of 11 candidates, polls recommend that 8 out of 10 Brazilians will help Lula or Bolsonaro. If no one wins at least 50% of the vote on Sunday, either politician will head for a runoff on Oct. 30.
When Lula’s presidency ended more than a decade ago, he had an approval rating of nearly 90 percent and Brazil had lower poverty rates. He was then embroiled in a corruption scandal that sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
After a year and a half behind bars, his conviction was overturned on procedural grounds, amid reports of judicial bias and misconduct by prosecutors, as well as a Federal Supreme Court ruling that the original prosecution was motivated by political animosity, paving the way for his possible return to force now.
As Lula took a decisive lead in the polls, Bolsonaro suggested his supporters prepare to clamp down in the event of an electoral defeat. “There is a new kind of thief, those who need to borrow our freedom,” he said in June, adding that “if necessary, we will go to war. “
In recent months, violence has gripped Brazil and gun ownership has also increased. This year, the Brazilian Observatory of Political and Electoral Violence registered more than two hundred cases of political violence. According to polling institute Datafolha, more than two-thirds of Brazilians said they were afraid of being attacked over political differences.
This rise in violence, as well as Bolsonaro’s efforts to cast doubt on the country’s electoral systems, have further fueled uncertainty about what will happen after the election.
“If Bolsonaro loses and leaves power. . . democracy will necessarily survive,” Stuenkel said. “But if he wins, he would be very pessimistic about the long term of Brazilian democracy. “
What we are today
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to hold a signature rite today to annex 4 partially occupied Ukrainian territories: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Its Russia-based leaders had in the past held sham referendums to succeed in Russia despite global grievances and illegality under foreign law.
U. N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the move as a “dangerous escalation” that “would have no legal value. “The annexations come as at least another 200,000 people flee Russia in reaction to Putin’s partial mobilization order.
Paraguay has asked Taiwan for a billion-dollar investment to help it cope with financial pressure to move its alliance to China, the Financial Times reported. Only 14 countries, besides Paraguay, have established official ties with Taipei than with Beijing.
“This will allow us to build the case on the importance of this strategic alliance with Taiwan,” Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez told the Financial Times.
Nearly 3 million young people in Pakistan could be forced to drop out of a semester of school because their schools were destroyed during months of excessive flooding, the government told The Associated Press. In one of the hardest-hit parts of the country, the deluge affected 15,000 schools.
North Korea tested two short-range ballistic missiles after U. S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ vacation in South Korea and the demilitarized zone. Pyongyang also introduced missiles before it went on vacation and stopped in Japan this week.
most of Thursday
• Russia removed its western borders to boost fighting in Ukraine through Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch
• Russia’s defeat would be a U. S. problem through Stephen M. Walt
• Liz Truss will be Thatcher. It’s not. by Garvan Walshe
Tips
A herd of cows in Germany followed a lost wild boar piglet after being separated from its group. The piglet, nicknamed Frieda, will remain in the same shed as the mother cows of the herd during the winter, local farmer Friedrich Stapel told dpa news agency.
“Leaving it now would be unfair,” he said.
Christina Lu is a journalist at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @christinafei
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