Brazil is particularly important in Latin America despite the fact that the two entities live back-to-back separated by language and idiosyncrasy.
It remains to be seen who will win on October 30, Lula or Bolsonaro. The left or the right? The disparity in the polls has already been pointed out. Lula thought the first round was going to be a breeze, but it didn’t happen. Some thought that the former trade unionist was going to win by 15 points. Lula won by four and a fraction—48.4 to 44.2. Bolsonaro won in almost all the major cities and Lula in the periphery.
Bolivian Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, a key person at the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, thinks that the winner will be Jair Bolsonaro. Why? He mentions three reasons:
First, because Bolsonaro has been rising and Lula has stagnated or dropped in voting intentions. When that happens in a “runoff election,” says CSB, there is some guarantee that the vote will go to whoever is moving up.
Second, because Bolsonaro is the underdog, despite being the president of Brazil. Voters see it that way in poll after poll.
Third, because Lula is an old man who has spent several years in jail accused of corruption. It is true that the justice system pardoned him, but not because they found him innocent, but because there was no manifest guilt. That is not enough to convince a disbelieving and skeptical society.
Among the three reasons put forward by CSB, the first one seems reasonable and has a certain forcefulness. A tradition indicates that whoever is going to get to the first place in a better position, is second in the initial stages. This became very clear in 1990, in the election between Fujimori and Vargas Llosa. The other two reasons put forward by Sánchez Berzaín lack strength.
In any case, whoever wins will win by 51% to 49 or 52% to 48%. That means the country is totally polarized between progressive left-wings—although they follow the models that bring about the least progress on the planet—and right-wingers, although in fact, left-wing populism confronts right-wing populism. Lula is the embodiment of leftist populism. Bolsonaro belongs to right-wing populism in a country that has the precedent of Getulio Vargas.
Donald Trump’s influence on Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro has been called “the Trump of the Tropics.” They have similarities (and of course, differences). But it is worth to examine the similarities.
The most serious are those that reflect the attitude towards science expressed in the delicate issue of vaccines against Covid-19. Bolsonaro does not believe in them, to which he has every right, but not to lie or scare people. He has expressed orally through Facebook, then reproduced by CNN en Español, that the vaccine increases the risk of contracting AIDS, for which he was sued in court.
Vaccines, especially those from Pfizer and Moderna, are over 90% effective. That’s not speculation; it’s science. In the same way that when both laboratories affirm that they have developed vaccines for children between 5 and 13 years old, there is no need to be afraid of them. Vaccines are infinitely safe. Putting them in the arms of children is the best and most economical way to care for them to develop into adults.
In any case, Trump’s most serious and pernicious influence is not in the field of science, but in what the United States is called “the big lie,” that is, saying that Joe Biden is not a legitimate president because he won thanks to a monumental fraud committed in the swing states, something that Trump says without providing any evidence.
Indeed, Bolsonaro has made this big lie his own, and we don’t know to what extent his supporters will be willing to support that lie. We know that in the US there are up to 30 percent of Republicans willing to believe Trump, despite the fact that 62 courts have rejected his demands, but we don’t know what will happen in Brazil.
Can Jair Bolsonaro unleash a civil war in Brazil?
The short answer is that he can’t. The long one is that he may not want to. It would be so dreadful that he might not be able to decisively involve the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces have not yet recovered from the coup they gave in 1964 against Joāo Goulart, accusing him of being under Cuban influence. It lasted until 1985. It is true that it was “barely” 21 years, and that it is a new generation of officers, but it was not entirely clear what Brazil “took out” of that nationalist adventure, except for a huge loss of prestige.
Since then, the states acquired great autonomy. Bolsonaro has won in 12 states, including the Federal District, where Brasilia, the nation’s capital, is located, a city conceived and designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, two of Brazil’s best architects. Bolsonaro has also won in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Actually, Jair Bolsonaro has won where there were middle-class social groups capable of supporting his candidacy. Lula da Silva, in all the others. We will see on Sunday October 30 who has more voters in that huge country. [©FIRMAS PRESS]
*@CarlosAMontaner. CAM’s latest book is Sin ir más lejos (Memories). Published by Debate, a label of Penguin-Random House, the book is available through Amazon Books.
“The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author”.
