Beyond 156 million of Brazilians are called today to vote not only for the presidential – with the duel between the president in office, Jair Bolsonaroand the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – but also for the renewal of the Congress, with the 513 deputies of the Chamber and the 81 members of the Senate. Elections are also held in the 27 territories that make up Brazil, for both governors and legislative bodies.
In Brazil, the voting is mandatory for literate citizens – 10% of Brazilians are still illiterate – of majority age, with full legal capacity, but it is optional between 16 and 18 years and after 70. In the first round of 2018 the turnout was 80%. Anyone who does not go to the polls risks a fine. Elections in Brazil are always held on the first Sunday in October and for the presidential and governor elections the ballot, which is necessary if no candidate reaches 50%, is scheduled for the last Sunday, this year on October 30th.
Even if the focus is on the Lula-Bolsonaro duel, they are there nine other presidential candidates, including former minister Ciro Gomes and senator Simone Tebet, although none appear to have the numbers in the polls to constitute an alternative to two main challengers. Brazil uses a electronic voting system and it is expected that the results of the first round of the presidential elections will be known within hours after the closing of the polls on Sunday evening. The start of the new presidential term is scheduled for January 1, 2023. The inauguration of the new Congress will also take place next year, with the current legislature ending on January 31.
La sfida tra Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Voters will have to sanction the duel between the outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro e Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president remained in prison for 580 days and then cleared of all charges by the Supreme Court. The latest polls indicate a clear advantage for the 76-year-old former trade unionist and former head of state, credited with 48-50% in voting intentions against the 34% for his great rival, so much so that some they speculate that he can win in the first round without waiting for the ballot on October 30th.
Bolsonaro prepares to welcome defeat instilling doubts on how electronic voting works and on election officials and accusing his challenger of being a corrupt thief. “He’s a new kind of thief, the one who wants to steal our freedoms, if necessary, we will go to warHe threatened in recent days in one of his speeches, evoking the ghosts, always painful in Latin America, of a coup. OR perhaps a more modern reissue on the model of the contestation of the electoral results of his great ideological ally Donald Trump, which resulted in the assault on Congress on January 6.
In recent months, the presidential elections have therefore turned into one sort of referendum on democracy, 37 years after the largest nation in Latin America overthrew the military dictatorship. Clashing are supporters of the strongman and what polls describe as the majority of Brazilians wanting to end his rule.
Elected in 2018, after Lula – even then leading in the polls up to the time of arrest – was sentenced to 12 years for corruption, Bolsonaro was accused of the dramatic acceleration of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, with deforestation increasing by 75.6% and fires by 24%, and encouraging excessive use of force by the police. But it is above all the its reaction to the pandemic of Covid which has sparked enormous internal protests, with a policy that has diminished and even ridiculed the alarm for what it called a “small fever”, refusing to enact federal measures. After the opposition and tens of thousands of demonstrators called for impeachment, inOctober of 2021 a Senate commission it has accused of crimes against humanity for causing 600,000 deaths from Covid with its mismanagement and delay on vaccines.
Then there are those who accuse him of having undermined the foundations of the young Brazilian democracy, filling key posts with military personnel, declaring war on the Supreme Court and putting his loyalists in the prosecutors and the police. Not to mention his own ultra reactionary statements about gaysgender issues, racism, Indians, the environment, sexual violence.
“It is at stake right now there choice between democracy and barbarismHe said in one of his speeches Lula, the iconic leader of the Latin American left who, with his ten-point advantage, moved to more centrist positions. But the future direction of Latin America’s main economy is also at stake. The choice is between the Bolsonaro’s unbridled liberalism andLula’s progressive and interventionist addresswhich ensured the success of his first two terms as president, from 2003 to 2011. Years that have been characterized by a series of social programs, such as Bolsa Familia or Zero Hunger, which have allowed 20 million Brazilians to emerge from poverty extreme and brought unemployment to a minimum.
In reality, a favorable conjuncture and economic growth played in its favor, with Brazil having established itself on the global market since the beginning of the 21st century thanks to the boom in raw materials and food, in particular towards resource-hungry China. The Country went from 13th to seventh economic power world. A momentum that allowed Brazil, a rare case in the world, to overcome the 2008 financial crisis unscathed, continuing to maintain a growth rate of between 5-6%, until 2014, when the scenario drastically changed. Since then, the country has never recovered, it is technically in recession, with a GDP that has grown by an average of 0.15% in the decade that ended in 2021.
Over the past four years, Bolsonaro and his finance minister, Paulo Guedes, have proposed a super liberal, pro business agenda aimed at cutting red tape, promoting privatization and reducing labor protection. Lula, on the other hand, now promises to put the initiative of the state back at the center in economic policy and investments, especially for the renewal of infrastructures. But certainly compared to his previous two presidencies he will face “a much more complicated world, being Brazilian president now is certainly not as fun as it was in the early 2000s,” said Brian Winter, vice president of the Council of the Americas.