Most likely, Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva will overthrow the president. Even if he does, a turbulent era awaits him in force.
The first lesson to be learned from Sunday’s Brazilian election is that public opinion polls have failed badly. Just days before the race, many reported a 15% lead for Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro; and many also predicted a victory for Lula in the first round. The lesson of the moment is that, far from being lightning, as many expected, the right-wing populist movement of Bolsonarism is a concerted political force, and it is here. stay, at least in the medium term.
Bolsonaro finished by five percentage points with former leftist leader Lula, as he is popularly known. Bolsonaro’s party and its allies also surprised in the legislative elections of the same day, winning about 20 seats in the Senate and barely a hundred in the Chamber of Deputies. While Lula’s victory is even more likely on Oct. 30, the narrow margin separating the two candidates promises an even deadlier and bloodier campaign, and increases the threat of post-election violence if the incumbent misses the opportunity.
For months, President Bolsonaro questioned the integrity of Brazil’s electoral formula and said that if he did not win, it would be the result of electoral fraud and involve the complicity of Brazil’s electoral and judicial authority. These claims were made without evidence and despite audits through independent auditors. However, about 30% of Bolsonaro’s supporters do not accept the country’s electoral formula as true.
Even if Lula wins and pro-Bolsonaro election protests subside, the former metallurgist will face a faltering economy and a deeply divided electorate, with much of Brazil’s population suspicious of the country’s democracy and political class. None of this bodes well for a country that will have to heal its deep political divisions and combine for a series of much-needed economic reforms and tough decisions.
When Lula first took office in 2003, the world economy was developing, driven in large part by China’s double-digit growth. At the same time, Lula’s predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, had left Brazil’s economy healthy. Brazil has one of the main suppliers of China. de raw fabrics — from iron ore to birds — and Lula’s management has invested the profits to expand social programs. During his 8 years in power, Brazil’s economy grew an average of 4. 5% and nearly 40 million people were lifted out of poverty to sign up for a developing, albeit fragile, middle class.
Twelve years later, Brazil is another country. Over the past 8 years, Brazil’s GDP expansion averaged -0. 1%. 5 Even before the -3. 9% contraction of Covid in 2020, the South American giant’s economy was operating at an expansion of less than 2%. China’s economy has cooled, relatively, to a projected expansion rate of 4. 3% in 2022. It can no longer bail out Brazil. like its Covid stimulus package, they have left the Brazilian state with a fiscal excess.
According to the government’s own projections, the budget deficit is projected to reach $12. 25 billion (£10. 8 billion) by 2023, requiring a long-term belt tightening that will diminish Lula’s ability to expand social systems at exactly a time when poverty has increased. .
Bolsonaro’s tenure has also been marked by social regression. Nearly 700,000 more people have died from covid (the deadliest time in the world), largely because the “Trump of the tropics” was selling fake remedies and refusing to endorse fundamental practices. such as wearing a mask and social distancing. And according to Oxfam, more than 33 million people in Brazil went hungry in the six months to April this year. At the same time, the president’s misogynistic, racist and homophobic rhetoric has sharpened social divisions. and given freer leave to discrimination and even violence.
The political landscape is also more challenging. Brazil’s factional Congress will be harder to control because of a Bolsonaro reform that transferred discretionary spending from the executive, used to record roll call votes, to Congress, cutting off a key tool used by former presidents to build coalitions that can simply pass legislation. .
Unlike the heady days of the early 2000s, when the charismatic leader of the Workers’ Party ascended the presidential palace, Lula is now a tarnished politician. have become a stain on Lula’s economic boom days, and the former president spent a year and a half in prison for allegedly accepting a beach apartment and renovations from corporations involved in the program. While relatively minor compared to the larger scandal, the total story looms over Lula’s legacy and appeal. This is helping the former president’s high disapproval ratings, which were something that fueled Bolsonaro’s rise as a predicted foreign politician who would blank the country’s corrupt political class.
Even if defeated, Bolsonarism will remain a political force, which will not restrict its strength to classical political establishments and voting. Despite Bolsonaro’s many failures, he maintains a strong popular grip on his base. This mixture of the so-called bible (evangelicals), beef (farmers, many of whom have rolled back environmental protections and contributed to deforestation in the Amazon), and bullets (armed Brazilians who, as a result of looser regulations on gun ownership, now number in total more than 2 million) will most likely remain unshakable and mobilized. And his party’s successes in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies keep the party a cursed opposition even within the state.
It will be difficult to force this time for Lula, if he wins. And with 3 children, Bolsonaro’s legacy and coalition are poised to remain a vocal, legislatively-implacable, popularly volatile, and potentially violent opposition.
Christopher Sabatini is a Senior Fellow in the Latin America, United States and Americas Program at Chatham House