Guilherme pauses and stares: "I voted for Lula in 2022, but I won't vote for him anymore. He's a bandit." He utters the sentence and returns to concentrating on the tray he carries from table to table in one of the many bars in the center of Sao Paulo.
At 36 years old, Guilherme is a clear exponent of the middle class that improved its living conditions in the 18 years of government of the Workers' Party (PT), with four years of interregnum of Jair Bolsonaro's right. He was born and raised in Santo André, a peripheral city of greater Sao Paulo, but now lives in the capital. And he wants to buy a motorcycle, a matter that he takes the opportunity to praise Javier Milei's Argentina: "The same motorcycle that here costs me 25,000 dollars, there would cost me 12,000. Argentina is doing much better than Brazil, the weight is stronger than the real one."
Will you then vote to the right of Flavio Bolsonaro? No, no way, he tells EL MUNDO. "Lula is a bandit, and Flavio is a son controlled by his father. I vote for Renán," he says, referring to Renán Santos, a 42-year-old businessman, political activist and musician who attracts younger people with his talkativeness and forcefulness on social networks.
How did Guilherme become disillusioned in four years, when he went from voting for Lula to getting fed up with him?
Part of the problem is seen in Lula's electoral campaign, which more than the battle for a fourth term as president seems like a nostalgic farewell and gratitude tour.
Lula, president between 2003 and 2011 and between 2023 and 2027, is presented as a messianic leader, as the man to whom Brazilians should thank for their happiness and progress. His wife, Janja, appears with a gospel pastor, Kleber Lucas, singing a song, Tapete vermelho (red carpet), that aims to move voters in the northeast, the poorest region of the country and traditionally favorable to Lula.
"Red carpet for the son of the northeast!" sing Janja and the pastor, in a song that defines the president as "pride of Brazil" and "warrior", and that points out that Lula "does not need a crown, he does not need a throne", because "to be greater than the king is to be loved by the people."
In his videos, Lula, who will turn 81 on October 27, appears in a gym and says he is better, "physically and mentally," than he was 20 years ago, while epic music plays in the background.
The double round of presidential elections this Sunday and October 25 will reveal whether Brazilians are looking for a hero and something "bigger than a king," or simply a president who begins to solve new problems that arose after Lula's unquestionable achievements: expanding the middle classes, reducing poverty, removing Brazil from the United Nations "hunger map."
Facundo Guerra, legendary São Paulo nightlife entrepreneur, recently explained what he believes is happening so that the polls show a virtual tie between Lula and Bolsonaro and even an advantage for the right in the second round.
"I am on the left, but I am increasingly convinced that the right is going to win, because it is managing to tell a very convincing story. What is the right saying? That Brazil is bankrupt. That is the great narrative of Lula's third term. The PT has ruined Brazil. In the last elections, what was the great narrative that the right was telling? That Brazil was going to become Venezuela, that Brazil was going to become Argentina." And what does the left respond? 'We are less bad than them.' The truth is that even though the economy and various indices are better, no one is able to pay the bills. "The economy is growing, the labor market remains resilient, unemployment rates are the lowest in history, inflation is losing some steam, and yet every day we see on the news that some company has gone bankrupt and 34 million Brazilians are in default."
Guerra described a "perfect storm" that involves unpayable post-pandemic loans today, banks taking property and even agricultural farms, people going into debt "simply to survive" and the epidemic of sports betting and online casinos, which Lula banned at the last minute after benefiting from the tax collection they generated throughout his mandate. "Brazilians who were undecided are now simply hostile to Lula," Guerra concluded.
Added to this is the citizen security crisis, a traditionally complex issue for the left and which came to the fore in October 2025 with the massive raid in two favelas in Rio de Janeiro that left 132 dead. The raid, which Lula described as a "massacre", had majority support even within the favelas themselves.
Guilherme, the waiter, also points out that he tells an intimate story: "My cousin stole, he went to jail and with the Auxilio Prison program he collected money that he received when he got out. With that money he bought a motorcycle and stole again. When Lula won, he sent a video from jail to my cousin celebrating, celebrating that he was guaranteed to get out of jail."
The atmosphere, in the midst of the heavy humidity and heat of the largest city in the West, is one of almost nihilistic skepticism when the vote is asked. There is almost no enthusiasm, there is mostly disinterest or anguish. There are much more votes against than for.
Or you don't even vote for someone, as is the case with Eduardo, who makes a living in an Uber and will vote blank.
