Brazil is holding presidential and legislative elections this Sunday, which are the third consecutive electoral duel between the democratic left represented by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the extreme right of the Bolsonaros. The protagonists change but not the substance. Lula, 80 years old, proclaims that the people are called “to choose between democracy and barbarism”; Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, elevates the battle to a confrontation “between Good versus Evil.” The elections are a head-to-head between a worn-out statesman seeking a fourth term, and the political heir, investigated for corruption, of an ultra political movement. An candidate that conservatives and everyone who hates Lula adhere to. The atmosphere is one of apathy although the favorites have been tied in the polls for months, they propose antagonistic models of the country and, literally, they are almost undecided. It is highly unlikely, but not impossible, that the presidential election will be decided tonight.
Disillusionment and resignation are rife among the Brazilian electorate despite the fact that these elections in America's second democracy have, at first glance, all the ingredients to be a dramatic duel: Lula fights the final battle of his political life; For the Bolsonaros, it is time for revenge. And, meanwhile, Trump's United States extends its long shadow over the only major Latin American country, with Mexico, which resists its offensive to expand its influence in the region.
Almost 159 million Brazilians are called to a gigantic election. They elect the head of the State, but also the Chamber of Deputies, two-thirds of the Senate, the 27 governors and the state parliamentary chambers. If any of the presidential candidates reaches 50% plus one of the valid votes this Sunday, they will be elected. A possibility that is considered highly remote. Most likely, on October 25, Lula and Bolsonaro will meet in a final duel for which polls predict a technical tie. Prediction markets, such as Polymarket, have enthusiastically embraced the far-right.
Bolsonaro Jr. promises to respect the results. Polarization has turned narrow electoral victories into an everyday occurrence, see Colombia and Peru in recent months. Four years ago, Lula won the closest victory in Brazil's history (1.8 points). Now, the polls point to an even smaller difference. Almost a toss-up to decide the course of an average power of 214 million inhabitants.
The useful vote has gained traction this week. Lula is risking almost everything in this first round because the left is united under his leadership and the secondary candidates, all right-wing or anti-Lula, opt to ask for support from Senator Bolsonaro for the second round. The candidate of the Workers' Party (PT) used presidential power in the campaign. He has just increased by 15% the Bolsa Familia aid against poverty that 20 million families receive, he has banned sports betting, which has generated an epidemic of debt and mental problems, and he promises that public health will offer free slimming injections. He also states that he will moderate spending to reduce public debt (82%) but without sacrificing social policies.
The Basilio family is a faithful reflection of the transcendental changes they generated. On Saturday, sisters Joana, 47, and Isabel Basilio, 55, cooks, were waiting with a crowd for Lula for a last electoral event on Paulista Avenue in São Paulo. They arrived from Jabaquara, a popular neighborhood on the outskirts where “we have a health clinic, paved streets and a daycare thanks to the left,” explains the minor. And he emphasizes: “The left continues to think about the collective, while the right is only concerned about the individual.” The oldest gives an example of the extent to which horizons have changed for poor black Brazilians. "We have three medical students in the family, they do dentistry, neurology and biomedicine. When we grew up, university was something very distant."
If he wins, Bolsonaro's first presidential decision will be to pardon his father and promote an amnesty for those involved in the assault on the heart of the Three Powers in Brasilia, seven days after Lula assumed the head of state with the mandate to rebuild the destruction of his predecessor. The Bolsonaro thesis that the former far-right president is a politically persecuted person and that attack was mere vandalism is extended beyond its radical core. In addition to the historical distrust of Brazilians in institutions, their attachment to democracy is the smallest in the region, only surpassed by Guatemala. The percentage of Brazilians who believe that democracy is preferable to any other form of Government has fallen from 45% to 41% in two years, according to the latest Latinobarómetro.
The few undecided people who remain, whose votes will define the result and the direction Brazil takes, did not even have the opportunity to see Lula and Bolsonaro come out of their echo chambers and debate face to face live. It was going to be this Thursday, in primetime soap operas. The only time that many neither-neither voters—neither Lula nor Bolsonaro—among the poorest who are stifled by everyday life in looking for a living have to get involved in the electoral campaign and choose a candidate.
President Lula, taking refuge in a slight advantage driven by false news about the Virgin of Aparecida, decided not to appear at the Globo debate, thus mortally wounding one of the star moments of the electoral campaigns in Brazil. He preferred to give an interview to a friend's podcast (followed by 1.5 million live Internet users). Meanwhile, Bolsonaro starred in one of those live shows on YouTube (with an audience of half a million) that his father turned into a weekly message to the nation.
Nobody remembers a campaign as atypical as this one in Brazil. A convoluted case of fraud that affects half the Supreme Court and important politicians on the right and some on the left has monopolized the debate along with the expectation of bombshell revelations that would sentence the election. The issues that most concern citizens, public safety and the economy, remained secondary. On the other hand, the fight against feminicide has made its way into the candidates' speeches, paradoxical in the most masculine election of this century in Brazil. Not a woman among the first six candidates and their vices.
And although millions of Brazilians longed for the appearance of a candidate who would break the dichotomy in which they have been trapped for a decade, no one other than Lula and Bolsonaro has managed to take off in the polls. The one who went the furthest is a writer of self-help books.
The fight for each vote is fierce and the fatigue is colossal. Both candidates have very high rejection rates. Bolsonaro Jr. was hurt by the revelation of his ties to the mastermind of the million-dollar fraud at Banco Master, but he has emerged unscathed, according to polls, from the corruption investigation that followed that revelation. Meanwhile, progressive Brazilians support Lula as the only dam against the danger of the regression of Bolsonarism, but there is a lot of fatigue with the PT leader.
Domingos, 65 years old, municipal sweeper in São Paulo, orange overalls and broom in hand, takes a break to wait for the arrival of Bolsonaro Jr., whom he plans to vote for. "In the last election I voted for Lula but we need a change. Enough. Lula has already given everything he could give. We need new ideas for the economy, to help those most in need." Not that he has full confidence, but Domingos wants to believe that Bolsonaro will take care of it. You have not heard that he is preparing a snip of public spending. Domingos says that, at his age, he continues to work because Social Security did the wrong calculations for his pension. So he has two or three years left sweeping streets in the metropolis until he solves this mess. He believes that his wife will remain faithful to the PT. And the six children… who knows.
On the sidewalk opposite Helena, 21, waves an electoral flag for the governor of São Paulo, who is right-wing and aspires to re-election. The young woman lives from jobs like this for which she is paid 100 reais a day (17 euros, 19 dollars). He will mark Lula's 13th in the electronic ballot box because “Lula is the least bad.” And because “Flávio wants to take away the vote from women”, an unfounded statement. And what do you ask of the next president? “Deliver what you promise.”
Eight years ago, when Jair Bolsonaro surprised and won the elections, Lula was in jail (for a case later annulled) and the far-right person embodied an isolated phenomenon in Latin America. Now he is in prison, sentenced to a long sentence for leading the most serious attack on Brazilian democracy, which included killing Lula, and the political movement he created in these years occupies a central place in Brazilian politics against the Workers' Party (PT). In recent times, Latin America has embraced the theses of Trump and the most reactionary conservatives, as demonstrated by the seven consecutive victories achieved in the elections held since the Republican returned to the White House less than two years ago. The Brazilians have it in their power to break that streak. Or not. And decide now or in three weeks.
