STORY – The second round of the presidential election will take place on Sunday in Latin America’s largest economy, after an electric campaign marked by misinformation.
After months of an election campaign that has left the country fractured like never before, Brazilians are voting on Sunday to elect their next president, with certainty and questioning. The certainty is that the duel between Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77, and Jair Bolsonaro, 67, will be undecided until the end, despite the polls which still give the leader of the left a favorite. The question, incongruous in a democracy, relates to the attitude of the outgoing populist president: will he accept the verdict of the ballot box in the event of defeat?
In the last days of an interminable campaign, ex-president Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, slightly widened the gap on his rival if we are to believe a survey by the DataFolha institute published Thursday evening which credits him with a lead of 6 points (53% against 47% of the votes cast). But all the surveys show a remarkable stability in voting intentions since the first round. “It looks like two clubs of football supporters. Whether the club is doing well or badly, you don’t change clubs. noted a commentator on the Globo News channel.
“The Decisive Hour”
Lula came first in the first round on October 2, with some six million votes ahead of the current tenant of the Planalto Palace, a score much tighter than the forecasts of the polling institutes. In a campaign at loggerheads, where misinformation was king and low blows repeated, the president apparently failed to reverse the trend. The second debate between the two rounds was scheduled for last night, but should not change the decision of the voters, more than 90% of whom decided on their choice a long time ago.
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The two candidates have multiplied their trips in recent days in the south-east of the country, which concentrates a third of the 156 million voters, and in particular in Minas Gerais, a key state considered to be a kingmaker. Electoral tradition dictates that whoever wins in Minas Gerais wins the presidency. What is at stake in the election in Latin America’s largest economy goes far beyond a usual right-left duel. For the Bolsonaro camp, it is the struggle of “good versus evil” for that of Lula, it is the fight of “democracy against authoritarianism”.
“This election is the most important in the history of Brazil since the return of democracy (at the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, editor’s note). What is at stake is thirty-five years of struggle, implementation of public and social policies, and deepening of democracy. (…) Now is the decisive hour. The Brazilian people will turn this sad page and bury Bolsonarism and everything that the far right represents in Brazil.told the Figaro former centrist candidate Simone Tebet. Arriving third on October 2, she was the only revelation of the campaign. She rallied Lula and played a key role in bringing anti-Bolsonaro voters but rebuffed by the Workers’ Party (PT) to the left-wing candidate.
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Sign of feverishness in the face of a possible defeat? Jair Bolsonaro this week attempted to disqualify the election by claiming there was “a huge imbalance” against him in the broadcast of his campaign on the radio; an allegation refuted by justice, which denounced an attempt to “second round destabilization”. The former army captain, who has resumed his rhetoric against the electoral system, would also have considered, according to the local press, to ask for a postponement of the election, but would have been dissuaded by his advisers.
A grueling campaign
“Bolsonaro will try to react to a possible defeat by saying that it was illegitimate”, predicts Joao Feres, professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “But I think he’s going to be more and more isolated and won’t have support to delegitimize the election. The most radical bolsonarists can create disorder, but nothing that would turn into a civil war or a rebellion. Including because the military and the police have already made it known that they would not embark on an adventure of this kind”, underlines the analyst.
Read alsoBrazil: Lula, an existence made up of dramas, victories, falls and rebirth
With many fearing a aftershock of the January 2021 assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, the former US president sent a message of support to Jair Bolsonaro on Friday, “a great and respected leader, a great guy with a big heart”.
During a moment of respite in his exhausting campaign, Lula blew out his 77 candles in privacy on Thursday. This election will undoubtedly be his last political fight… He has already warned that he will not be a candidate a seventh time, whether he loses or wins this election.
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