Jair Bolsonaro’s conflicting parties look to elections to end far-right president’s ‘Brazilian catastrophe’
In his torrid political diaries, prominent novelist Ricardo Lísias denounced the “Brazilian disaster” that was unleashed under its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. This power disaster.
“He’s a dirty, hateful person. . . It disgusts me,” Lísias said as he prepared to vote for Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at a university near his home in São Paulo.
“Bolsonaro is an insurmountable old mistake and it will have to be stopped,” Lísias said as the sun pounded the tree-lined streets of Brazil’s largest city.
Lísias is far from the only user with such sentiments, as 156 million Brazilians participated in a momentous election that will have profound implications for the long-term of one of the world’s largest democracies, the Amazon rainforest and climate emergency.
“I had never voted for Lula before. But Bolsonaro is with whom I surely have nothing in common, not even as a human being,” said Marcelo Pessuto, a 37-year-old actuary who also came here to vote for Lula.
Pessuto called himself a centrist and said that, economically, his concepts were closer to those of the pro-business Bolsonaro. However, the president’s homophobic and hateful rhetoric had convinced him to get Bolsonaro to leave. country. . . Sometimes you even think about leaving,” he said.
Gabriele Tissot Zappalá, a 23-year-old nursing technician, said Bolsonaro’s negligent and denialist handling of the covid pandemic, which has killed some 700,000 Brazilians, convinced her to back Lula, the leftist candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT), which has governed since 2003-11.
“I have never been a member of the PT, but I chose mine because I am against Bolsonaro,” said Zappalá, who came to vote wearing a red T-shirt with the slogan “Antifascist Social Club. “
“Anyone is less than Bolsonaro,” agreed his father, Attilio, who also voted for the 77-year-old former union leader.
Polls on the eve of the election recommend that Lula has four to eight percentage points of credit over his rival and is likely, though surely, to win when the effects are announced on Sunday night.
Paulo Celso Pereira, editor-in-chief of the daily O Globo, predicted that Lula would win a narrow victory due to Bolsonaro’s high rejection rates, with almost a part of the entire electorate rejecting the far-right headline.
“The country is absolutely divided, almost in the middle. Half oppose Bolsonaro and almost a part opposes Lula,” he said. “And I think it’s that ‘almost’ that will make the difference and Lula will win. “
However, while waiting to vote, Lísias expressed fear about what will happen if “the worst president in Brazil’s history” wins a four-year term. “I hope things will be sorted out and there will be changes, but I’m also a bit apprehensive. I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s going to happen with Array,” he said.
Re-electing radicals in favor of guns would “formalize this terror, this life in the Wild West way. “”Brazil would send a message: this is who we are and this is what we want,” said the author, whose Bolsonaro-era political newspapers simply call the president “Death. “
Lísias had felt firsthand the effect of Bolsonaro’s condemned reaction around the world to the coronavirus, which had seen him sabotage lockdown measures and promote fake remedies like hydroxychloroquine, with devastating consequences.
“I spent 20 days in the hospital, 15 of them in intensive care,” said the writer, whose most recent book, A Perfect Pain, chronicles his struggle for survival.
He expressed perplexity that more than 51 million fellow citizens supported Bolsonaro in the recent first circular of the elections, which Lula won with 6 million votes. “It’s terrifying. It’s amazing. . . It’s kind of blindness,” he said.
Many Brazilians disagree. While the conservative electorate demonstrated the incumbent president in Barra da Tijuca, a pro-Bolsonaro stronghold in western Rio de Janeiro, they expressed their durability and affection for the types called “myth” (legend).
“Bolsonaro is honest. Work hard; He’s a guy with values; he’s a guy I trust,” said Iolanda Dias, a 63-year-old psychologist.
Santiago Santos, a 37-year-old driver, voted for Lula 20 years ago when he made history by being elected Brazil’s first working-class leader. About two years, before his conviction was overturned, meant he would never back the left.
“Lula condemned. He is an ex-taulard. Full stop,” Santos said as he prepared to vote for Bolsonaro on the east side of São Paulo. “These are facts. “
Santos denied that Bolsonaro was guilty of thousands of unnecessary covid deaths, as Lula claimed. “I lost my mom to the pandemic. . . And I don’t blame him,” he said.
Lísias pleaded to disagree, comparing Bolsonaro’s “genocidal” handling of the pandemic to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević’s bloodbath of thousands of innocent civilians. “In my opinion, it should be brought before the International Criminal Court. “
As voters flocked to polling stations, Lísias said South America’s most populous democracy faced a stark choice: embrace fascism or begin a long and arduous process of reconstruction.
“We have noticed so much suffering,” he said solemnly. So much death. “