Brazil Elections – Lula vs. Bolsonaro: Tense 2nd Round Ahead

Center-left former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva prevailed, but by a much narrower margin than polls had predictedin his face-off with outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro in the first round of presidential elections held yesterday in Brazil; the second round, on October 30, is expected to be inconclusive and tense.

Lula secured 48.4% of the vote, compared to 43.2% for Mr. Bolsonaro, according to near-final results, although the most recent poll, by the Datafolha benchmarking institute released on Saturday, gave a lead of 14 units to the former head of state.

“We defeated the lies” of the polls, the far-right president celebrated, declaring optimism for the “second half” of the presidential elections.

And in Lula’s camp, the metaphor used was a football one: “It’s simply about extra time. I can tell you that we will win this election,” said the center-left former president (2003-2010).

“The fight goes on until the final victory,” added the one-time trade unionist, 76, after admitting he had hoped to win a third term in the first round with the disappointment evident on his face when the result was announced.

“Uncertainty”

It is a “surprise, o Bolsonaro received more votes than expected, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two largest states of the country,” Paulo Calmon, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia, told AFP, as relayed by the Athens News Agency.

“In the second round, the race for the presidency remains open and heralded very ambiguously. Bolsonaro still has a chance to be re-elected,” he added.

Brazilians appeared far less than expected to punish the 67-year-old outgoing president for his refusal in the face of the new coronavirus pandemic (more than 685,000 dead), the economic crisis in the country where more than 30 million are suffering from hunger and the other crises that indelibly marked his entire tenure.

Until October 30, the populist leader will have the opportunity to electrify his followers in the streets and seek new momentum.

Yesterday’s result “intensifies uncertainty,” said Michael Shifter of Georgetown University.

Victories of “Bolsonarism”

Besides, numerous Bolsonarian candidates, among his former ministers, were elected to Congress.

The highly controversial Hicardu Sales, who was suspected of being involved in a timber smuggling ring in the Amazon when he was Minister of the Environment, secured a parliamentary seat for example.

Claudio Castro, an ally of the head of state in Rio de Janeiro, was re-elected governor of the state from the first round.

“It’s Bolsonaro that won the first round,” summed up Bruna Sandus of the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

The country is heading to the second round “in an extremely polarized environment”, in which the voters of Senator Simone Tembet (centre-right, 4% of the vote) and Ciro Gómez (centre-left, 4% of the vote), or in other words “nearly eight million people”, they will be the ones “who will judge who will be the next president”, she estimated.

In the camp of Lula’s supporters, Viviane Laureanu da Silva, a civil servant, 36, remains convinced: “The campaign will be difficult, but Lula will win in the second round.”

In Sao Paulo, Jose Antonio Benedetto, 63, did not hide his irritation: “Bolsonaro’s performance surprised us,” he acknowledged. “I don’t know what’s going on in Brazil, almost half the population is sick and only Lula can cure our people, vaccinate them,” he judged.

“Democratic maturity”

THE Lula is running for his sixth presidential race, 12 years after leaving office with a stratospheric approval rating (87%).

But he has struggled to shake off the taint of corruption after he was convicted in the huge Express Car Wash scandal and jailed for 18 months before his convictions were overturned or time-barred by the High Court.

Brazilians went to the polls en masse yesterday to elect a new president, the members of the next House, a third of the members of the Senate and the governors of 27 states. The queues were long.

The vote, in which 156 million citizens were invited to participate, unfolded without serious incident in Latin America’s largest country. Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly threatened not to recognize the result if he loses and there have been fears of violence.

“Brazilian society has shown great democratic maturity,” said the president of the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) announcing the result.

“We congratulate the Brazilian people and the country’s institutions for a successful first round of elections,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Twitter, saying he was “confident” that “the second round will be held in the same peaceful spirit.”

More than 500,000 members of law enforcement forces were mobilized to guarantee the security of the first round of the election, which was watched by dozens of foreign observers.