Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Lula in the first round depends on Ciro, Simone and the wrath of the poor against Bolsonaro

The Datafolha survey reinforced the idea that the candidate’s strategy in the coming weeks will be dominated by the possibility of an early end to the presidential election.

Thus, the fate of Ciro Gomes (PDT) and even that of Simone Tebet (MDB) are relevant. To have a second round, Lula da Silva (PT) would have to lose four points, if other candidates don’t fall by the wayside. Considering the margin of error at the limit, she would have to lose two points.

It is a dispute “on the margin”, with a smaller share of votes, at the edges, perhaps bloody edges. That is, more violence from Jair Bolsonaro. But inhuman lowliness can worsen his image among the poor and women, qualitative research indicates.

To go to the second round, Ciro would need to take 7 points from Bolsonaro (that is, take 100% of Bolsonaristas who can change their vote) and 7 from Lula (64% of Lulas who may change their mind). In order to contribute to any second round, he would need to take 4 points from Lula. But Ciro is stagnant around 8%.

In the case of Simone Tebet, the senator would also need 7 points from Bolsonaro and 11 points from Lula (100% of Lulas who can now change their vote). Moreover, Datafolha indicates that the general migration of votes does not significantly favor the two.

How could the MDB pre-candidate at least help to tangle up the first round? It has little time before it is shelved or Christianized by its party or sabotaged by the PSDB (which does not want to share money with Simone and has a lot of Bolsonar candidate). What would be your big political-media explosion event? Would you violently attack Lula and/or Bolsonaro? It doesn’t seem like her.

The campaign will be short. It starts on TV and radio in late August. Hard for newbies and laggards to get there alive. To make matters worse, they still don’t have a new message.

Cyrus is known. Simone, despite the rarity of women at the top of politics, tends to come with a toucan-faced campaign, defeated in the last five elections. Bolsonaro has no political scheme to help the two survive; the gravitational pull of the leaders must take away votes from them.

What are Bolsonaro’s options? Get votes on the edges of blood, with the demolition of Lula. But there are obstacles outside that ring.

Qualitative research commissioned by two parties indicate that Bolsonaro’s violent ways are bad, especially among women, the poor and non-whites. There is anger or regret at the fact that Bolsonaro does not care about poverty, the price of food and lack of medicine, for having fun with motorcycles and jet-skis, for being “ill-mannered” and “not giving hope”.

Electoral measures may have an effect, but perhaps late, but not irrelevant: it is a question of obtaining four points for the second round. So far, they’ve helped Bolsonaro climb from the bottom of 2021 and maintain his vote this quarter.

Attempts to contain electricity and fuel prices by force should only take effect from July, and hey, if they don’t fall into political and legal disputes. The price drop is of uncertain electoral size and scope. In the case of diesel, cleverness can lead to shortages.

Bolsonaro will ruin the rest of universities and scientific research to give small readjustments to servers, with little electoral impact. Furthermore, the window for new favors with public money closes next month.

The second quarter may still have a positive surprise in the economy, although it worsens in misery. From July onwards, there must be frustration.

What remains is the campaign of demolition and lies, which to a lesser extent sticks, see the increase in discredit in the electronic voting machine. The filth remains.