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(THE CONVERSATION) Two more Brazils may emerge after the electorate goes to the polls to elect a president on October 2, 2022.
In one scenario, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s current president, will manage to prevail, either by winning the vote or illegally ignoring it, and will continue to push the country down an authoritarian path.
Alternatively, the country will begin the procedure of rebuilding its democratic institutions, which have been undermined during Bolsonaro’s 4 years in power. This task will be the task of a broad center-left coalition led by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party. Party.
As experts on Brazilian politics and Latin American fashion history, we have studied Brazil from top to bottom. Seen from afar, the momentum playing out in Brazil’s elections is a transparent example of the broader crisis of liberal democracy, with the authoritarian right around the world. But the high-stakes selection facing Brazilians in this election has also been shaped through confusing social and political reports unique to Brazil.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Brazil led a region-wide “pink tide” in which Latin America, largely governed by leftist presidents, experienced unprecedented degrees of inclusive expansion through democratic politics. Lula’s economic and social policies, for example, lifted another 30 million people out of poverty and provided low-income, mostly non-white Brazilians with new opportunities for upward mobility.
However, after 2012, when Brazil’s economy slowed, the classical elites mobilized along this progressive path. Their efforts gained momentum with an explosive corruption scandal, dubbed “Car Wash” or “Car Wash. “The operation in particular targeted the Workers’ Party and generated widespread anger toward the party.
The anti-left sentiment that followed, led through privileged teams and skillfully controlled through social media campaigns, grew to reach an electorate across the economic and political spectrum. This provided a better opportunity for Bolsonaro, a former army captain and indiscriminate congressman to capture right-wing momentum. Building on the increased polarization generated through the illegitimate impeachment of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, Bolsonaro has rebranded himself as an outsider in a position to overthrow a corrupt political system.
Bolsonaro, like Donald Trump in the United States two years earlier, won the 2018 election by combining a masterful spectacle with derogatory language. Bolsonaro’s crusade rhetoric is explicitly sexist, anti-black and anti-LGBTQ. His victory is also related to the fact that Lula, the favorite then as now, arrested with false tariffs and prevented from competing.
Overturning Lula’s corruption conviction in 2021 repositioned him as the opposition’s top viable presidential candidate, and he has consistently led Bolsonaro in the polls.
And while Lula presents himself as a leftist, perhaps it is more as it should be noted in this election as the most productive possibility to return the country to democratic standards.
As president, Bolsonaro showed his authoritarian bent. He praised Brazil’s dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, cultivated nostalgia for army rule — while filling his closet with retired and active-duty generals — and denounced human rights, especially those of minorities. During his tenure, Bolsonaro has actively promoted the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and portrayed indigenous peoples and environmental teams as contrary to the nation’s interests.
It has also consistently attacked the country’s democratic institutions, Brazil’s Supreme Court.
At the same time, Bolsonaro has made serious policy mistakes that have shaken his popularity, such as his blatant mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis and the rollback of popular economic and social policies that have advanced the lives of Brazilians.
About a third of Brazilians continue with Bolsonaro’s candidacy for re-election. But the erosion of his polls has paved the way for some moderate conservatives to join Lula’s ranks in a bid to save Bolsonaro’s re-election.
Despite the labels, this choice is more complex than a traditional left-to-right lens suggests.
Both sides of the political spectrum have become deeply rooted in Brazilian society in a cross-cutting way that encompasses religion, race, gender and sexuality, and class.
For example, some low-income voters who benefited from Lula’s policies help Bolsonaro today, outraged by the corruption scandals and existing economic precariousness they themselves face. Meanwhile, nostalgia for a military dictatorship that most citizens have never known influences some voters, especially conservatives.
Brazilians are also experiencing an era of social change marked by the advancement of LGBTQ and women’s rights. Although many follow, some Brazilians are uncomfortable with the new roles of women and with the queer identities prevalent among the younger generation. Stimulated by evangelical and charismatic Catholic movements, this misery aroused a preference for “traditional” values in the circle of relatives and in network life, and saw some Brazilians call for a return to dictatorship, claiming that life was then more orderly and less violent.
So where does that leave things for the Oct. 2 election?
So far, Lula is far ahead in the polls. Strategically opting for a centrist and former presidential candidate as his vice presidential candidate, Lula combined progressive commitments with promises to lead a dominant economic path. In short, it attracts both the left and the center.
In turn, Bolsonaro has studied and militarized Trump’s playbook, stating that he will only settle for defeat in the next elections if he himself judges that they were carried out. Many Brazilians fear that, by attacking the effects before Election Day, Bolsonaro is paving the way for seeking to remain in force illegally. There are also considerations about the reaction of the Brazilian military if Bolsonaro refuses to settle for the electoral effects.
More than Brazil’s long-term is at stake in those elections. The left’s existing retreat in Latin America has rekindled hope for a resumption of the gains in poverty reduction, which took off 20 years ago. So far this year, leftists Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro have won elections in Chile and Colombia respectively. Brazil now seems very likely to join this group, swinging the region’s ideological pendulum to the left in an obvious revival of the “pink tide. “
But a Lula victory would do more than tip the left-right balance in Latin America. What unites Lula, Boric and Petro is their commitment to progressive agendas and their willingness to negotiate in democratic contexts. If Lula were to win and take place in Brazil, the policies of those leaders may simply complement those of President Joe Biden in a hemispheric effort for democracy.
The election, a Bolsonaro victory, or worse, a coup, would send hopes to full speed.
This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation. com/brazils-election-goes-beyond-a-battle- between-left-and-right-democracy-is- also-on-the-ballot-190872.