Jeso Carneiro
Far-right incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro faces a tight election with Luiz Inácio da Silva, commonly known as Lula, a former leftist president of the Workers Party.
On October 30, Brazil will hold a runoff election for the presidency of the country. This second round is between former president Luiz Inácio da Silva and the current incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, after neither was able to obtain a majority of votes in the first round of the election earlier in October.
The stakes in this contest between the former leftist president of the Workers Party (PT), commonly known as Lula, and his far-right opponent couldn’t be higher.
“These elections are very important because they mark a period of extremely high polarization, perhaps the greatest period of polarization since the democratization of the country,” Ana Tereza Duarte, a Brazilian political analyst, tells The Progressive. “With Lula and Bolsonaro, it is basically [a choice] between democracy and authoritarianism.”
But in the event of Lula’s victory, he will still face a challenge from the country’s legislative branch. During the October 2 election, Bolsonaro’s Partido Liberal (PL) party won more than ninety seats in the country’s congress and a majority of seats in the senate. Other rightwing parties also won seats in the congress.
“These elections are very important because they mark a period of extremely high polarization, perhaps the greatest period of polarization since the democratization of the country.”
“If Lula wins, he is going to face a super conservative legislature,” Duarte says. “[Lula] is going to have a lot of governance problems and problems approving his agenda. And, given the very high number of political parties in this legislature, it will be difficult to make coalitions—especially given that the majority are from the right.”
The far right’s control over the legislative branch will mean that Lula will be unable to pursue radical change in the country. Both chambers of the legislative branch will be among the most conservative in Brazil’s history, according to Duarte. If Bolsonaro wins, the situation will be far worse, sociologist Thiago Aguiar at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas tells The Progressive.
“Bolsonaro will have a plebiscite decision in favor of consolidating his regime, not with a coup or the construction of another regime,” Aguiar says. “That would be very dangerous for the labor movement, popular movements, leftist parties, and even the intelligentsia, students, the LGBTQ+ community, and women.”
He adds, “It would be a danger to the whole society.”
While the runoff pits two titans of Brazilian politics against each other, the 2022 election has exposed the deep and extreme polarization within the South American country. A large portion of this polarization has been fostered by the far-right incumbent, who has been called a “tropical version of Donald Trump.”
Bolsonaro, a former army captain, was elected for the first time in 2018 on an anti-corruption platform, as well as for his support for “traditional” family values, nationalism, and being tough on crime. His administration quickly took on an authoritarian nature.
“Bolsonaro has manifested his authoritarianism from the beginning of his government,” Aguiar says.
“He was elected with a promise to fight corruption and to re-found the State,” he explains. “But what has been shown over the last four years is that he wants to create a government for the economic elites, in particular transnational capital linked to transnational agribusiness.”
Throughout his administration, Bolsonaro sought to empower the military and animate his populist base. “He is nostalgic for the military dictatorship,” Aguiar says.
Support for Bolsonaro waned following the COVID-19 pandemic, which left more than 685,000 Brazilians dead. Many in the country criticized him for his lackluster response to the pandemic, during which he sabotaged local efforts to control viral spread, and echoed Trump’s rhetoric—that the virus was like a mild cold, and that malaria drugs or horse dewormers were a viable cure. The Brazilian senate has suggested that Bolsonaro could face criminal prosecution for his pandemic response.
Bolsonaro, much like Trump, has also suggested that he would not accept the results of the election if he is not declared the victor.
On the left, Lula, a former metal worker, has run his campaign using nostalgia for the years he held the presidency between 2003 and 2010. His administration was widely praised for raising tens of millions of people up from poverty due to his social welfare programs.
In April 2018, Lula was convicted and imprisoned for twelve years on charges of corruption and money laundering. But nineteen months later, the country’s Supreme Court annulled the conviction, opening the door for him to run for office again.
Lula’s return to politics has brought a ray of hope for many Brazilians, especially as the far right has gained more power and influence in recent years.
Bolsonaro’s second place success in the October 2 election came as a surprise to many observers, as polls had suggested that Lula maintained a vast lead over the incumbent, which many thought would assure him a first-round victory. But Bolsonaro’s showing shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially as he has found support in the country’s evangelical communities.
“He has the support of the majority of evangelical groups,” Duarte says. “Evangelicals are quite conservative and are against progressive programs, like abortion or more representation of women.”
Bolsonaro sought to gain evangelical support in his 2018 presidential run, relying on the campaign slogan “Brazil above all, God above everyone.” The evangelical support for Bolsonaro has continued during his presidency.
“Those evangelical churches, in particular the leadership of those churches, did not have a power strategy,” Aguiar says. “Bolsonaro opened the way for them…The churches today find great possibilities to expand their political influence, as well as to see their moral positions strengthened.”
“They not only want to maintain them, but also to expand them,” he adds.
The number of people in Brazil who identify as evangelical has increased greatly since the 1970s, with evangelicals making up about 31 percent of the population. Their influence is now key in elections.
Lula, too, is seeking support from evangelical voters. He has stated that his administration would respect religious freedom.
“We are living at a time in which lies are used intensively with the objective of stoking fear in people of good faith, pushing them away from a candidacy that is defending them more,” Lula said in a letter to evangelical leaders. “That is why I felt a need to reaffirm my commitment to freedom of religion in our country.”
But evangelical support continues to rally around the far right.