There is a cliché repeated ad nauseam that says that history does not repeat itself, but it sounds the same. And although it is a saying that has many nuances, in Brazil's elections this Sunday everything sounds strangely similar. Almost a decade after the historic leftist leader, Lula da Silva, was convicted of corruption and the far-right Jair Bolsonaro came to power, the roles have been reversed. A free Lula after having his sentence annulled leads the polls to revalidate his mandate as president, while Jair Bolsonaro is serving a sentence of 27 years in house arrest for attempting a coup d'état after losing the last elections. Despite everything, in Brazil nothing is ever completely said. This Sunday, Brazilians will vote again for the same surnames: that of Lula, who at 81 years old is seeking his fourth term, and that of Bolsonaro, who through the candidacy of his eldest son, Flávio, intends to put his family back in power and, why not, regain his freedom through a pardon.
The first economy in Latin America will renew this Sunday 1,650 public positions, including the president, governors, two-thirds of the Senate and national and local Congresses. Almost 159 million Brazilians will go to the polls in an increasingly polarized country. A symptom of the times that in Brazil has been personified in two politicians who generate the same passions as rejections. "We are in one of the most important moments in the political history of our country, because it is an election that goes beyond the defense of democracy in Brazil, it also goes against the imperialism of the United States," says Wellington Amorim, a young director of photography who has attended Lula's last campaign event, on the imposing Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo. Regarding his last four years in power, he defends his social policies and the progress of the economy, although he does not deny that "there is still a lot to do."
Alexandre Barbosa and Lucía Masini, two university professors who say they have voted for Lula up to seven times since he ran for the first time in the late 1980s, express themselves in the same sense. "Lula has continued with his policies of social inclusion and appreciation of the minimum wage. The economy is much better than it was and education and health policies have also progressed. Therefore, although the management of economic policy is not exactly as we would like, in terms of social justice there is no comparison," they add. Asked about the opposition candidate, they believe that "he would be much worse than his father's government" and would mean "a disaster" for their country.
An opinion that Bolsonaro's followers replicate almost exactly, but referring to Lula. In Sao Paulo this antagonistic vision of the country and, also, fear of the adversary, is evident on the street. Gabriel, a middle-aged man from São Paulo who prefers not to give his real name, affirms that there is only one candidate who wants the best for Brazil, and that is Flávio Bolsonaro. "We have to refocus on what is important" and "recover the alliance with the United States," something that, he insists, "has been lost because of Lula." Aware that this city—the most populated on the American continent—and its homonymous state—whose population is almost the same as that of Spain—could be the key to the Planalto Palace, both candidates have ended their electoral campaigns there this Saturday.
What do the surveys say?
Both candidates appear in almost all surveys separated by about five percentage points: Lula leads the polls with a figure that ranges between 39% and 42% of support, while Flávio Bolsonaro does so between 34% and 37%. In addition to Lula and Bolsonaro, there will be ten other candidates this Sunday. Those who could get relevant percentages are the author of self-help books Augusto Cury; the former governor of Goiás Ronaldo Caiado; the former governor of Minas Gerais Romeu Zema Neto; and the far-right agitator Renan Santos. Although they are all very far from Lula and Bolsonaro in the polls, their presence fragments the vote and makes it very difficult for either of them to achieve the majority necessary to avoid a second round, scheduled for October 25.
We will then have to see where their voters will go, since, just as the left is in coalition with Lula, the right and extreme right will do so separately this Sunday. On election night, defeated candidates could directly request a vote for one of the candidates in the second round, although that does not mean that there is an exact transfer. For the runoff, the polls point to a reduction in the distance between Lula and Bolsonaro to 2% or, some pollsters, such as Quaest, a tie of 42%. The final result will be decided by a narrow margin, as already happened in 2022, when Lula beat the father of the current candidate by just 1.8%, which led Jair Bolsonaro to proclaim electoral fraud and mobilize his followers, who ended up storming the Plaza de los Tres Poderes in Brasilia, where the headquarters of the executive, judicial and legislative branches are located.
Lula and Bolsonaro, two different models
That the two candidates who are close to that 50% of the Brazilian electorate are so different in substance and form is one more example of the extreme polarization of the country. On the one hand, Lula has run a campaign marked by nostalgia, with videos in which he reviews his career from the unionist opposition to the dictatorship to his first two terms in power (2003 to 2011) and the praise of what he considers his achievements in this last legislature. Among them is the creation of 10 million formal jobs, lowering poverty and unemployment rates to historic lows, the expansion of social aid to mitigate the increase in costs such as fuel and the growth of the economy.
Among the criticisms made of his management is the failure to lower the basic interest rate, one of the highest in the world, at 13.75%, which makes access to credit difficult and has caused an increase in the indebtedness of families who, according to official data, already dedicate about a third of their salaries to paying their debts. Furthermore, the opposition accuses him of having failed to find a way to put an end to organized crime, which is still very present in the country.
