On 4 October in Brazil, citizens were called to the polls to choose the country's president, and the names that resounded in the streets were two: Lula and Bolsonaro. However, neither reached the necessary voting threshold: Lula stopped at 48% and Bolsonaro, against all odds, came in at 43%. The two will now compete in the ballot to be held on 30 October: but who are the candidates?
Luiz Inácio da Silva, known as Lula, is a Brazilian trade unionist and former President of Brazil from 2003 to 2011. As a candidate with the Partido do Trabalhadores during his last terms in office, Lula implemented one of the most massive policies of social welfarism. In a short time he achieved significant GDP growth and a reduction in unemployment, while launching social programmes such as Hunger Zero or Bolsa Familia, which helped lift some 30 million people out of poverty in less than a decade.
Lula's successor was Dilma Rousseff, his chief of staff since 2005. During Rousseff's presidency, in 2016, Lula was arrested as part of Operation Lava Jato, which investigated alleged bribes to politicians and businessmen with resources from Brazil's semi-public oil company Petrobras. Rousseff appointed Lula as Minister of the Civil Household, a political manoeuvre that, according to the opposition, was intended to grant immunity to the former president and prevent him from going to prison, but the Brazilian judiciary annulled the appointment. After serving 580 days in prison, Lula's imprisonment was declared unconstitutional in 2019. At 76, the presidential candidate now faces his fifth election.
On the other side is Jair Bolsonaro, the country's current president. The former military and conservative took over the presidency of Brazil in 2018, winning the support of almost 58 million Brazilians (55.13% of the vote) in the second round. Raised in a rural environment, the young Bolsonaro witnessed the coup d'état that Brazil experienced in 1964, which led to the establishment of a military dictatorship in the country (which would last until 1985), to which Bolsonaro referred on more than one occasion. The Brazilian newspaper O Globo has collected up to eight occasions on which the President praised the dictatorship, before and after his inauguration.
During his tenure, denialism has been part of Bolsonaro's typical discourse. In November 2020, when the coronavirus had already caused almost 800,000 deaths in Brazil, Bolsonaro launched provocations claiming that “maybe Brazilians will not die of Covid, but of hunger and poverty”.
During the election campaign, Bolsonaro posted videos on his Instagram profile in which several political figures appear to show their support. "For the Brazilian people, you have the opportunity to re-elect a fantastic leader, a fantastic man, one of the best presidents of any country in the world, President Bolsonaro," said Donald Trump in a video. For his part, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addressed Brazilian voters to assure them that, in 30 years of working in the public sphere, he has met many leaders “but very few who are as exceptional as Jair Bolsonaro”. And also former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader and self-proclaimed president of Venezuela Juan Guaidó.
Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will contest the Presidency of Brazil on 30 October, in an electoral round that will be tighter than expected: already the results of this first round were the tightest since the country returned to the path of democracy with the 1989 elections. As the results of the first confrontation between Lula and Bolsonaro showed, the polarisation of the Brazilian people not only continues, but also leaves two antagonistic propositions with a more evenly expressed approval rating than might have been expected. The Brazilian president broke all predictions and obtained 43.3 per cent of the vote against his rival's 48.2 per cent, a difference of 5.1 points.
A country divided into two halves: a north and north-east one that bet mostly on the left-wing Lula da Silva and a south and south-east one that gave its vote to the extreme right-wing Jair Bolsonaro. The political map after the first round of Brazil's presidential elections reflects the most polarised campaign in recent times and shows a similar dynamic to the 2018 elections. In total, Lula won in 14 states and Bolsonaro in 12 plus Brasilia, the federal district.
A second important sign of the indecision and divisions is offered by the votes cast for the renewal of parliament in the country: three former ministers of Bolsonaro's government obtained enough votes to be re-elected, along with the governor of Rio de Janeiro and the state of Minas Gerais. These indices are usually the ones one looks at to try to make a realistic prediction of the results of the runoff, but not only: should Lula succeed in wresting the presidency from his conservative opponent, he will still be forced to work with a Parliament where the right wing has maintained a firm position and will therefore have the numbers to create an opposition current that can counter the President's actions.
During the press conference after the publication of the election results Lula said that going to the second round “is just an extension” and assured that he will win the election. Later, in front of thousands of his supporters on Avenida Paulista in São Paulo, Lula said: “We will win the elections again. It's just a matter of time, wait a few more days, so we can talk more: let's improve our programme, let's convince more people,” he said. “Brazil needs us (the Workers' Party)”.
For his part, Bolsonaro appeared after the vote count and acknowledged that Lula's partial victory shows a “will to change in Brazil”, but warned that “some changes could be for the worse”. The president denounced polls that even indicated a victory for Lula in the first round: “We have beaten the lie of Datafolha, which gave 51% to the 30-year-olds,” he said referring to the poll by one of the country's main polling organisations.
The candidates' cards are on the table, and there are only a few weeks left to convince public opinion: Lula and Bolsonaro have polarised the country's political debate, but only one will manage to secure the mandate. It is up to Brazilians to choose their future, which will change radically depending on who they elect.
Translated by Margherita Folci
Sources consulted for this article:
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noti...
https://www.newtral.es/jair-bo...
https://riviste.unimi.it/index...
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noti...
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