Opinion – Rodrigo Zeidan: Vote for democracy

Democracies also end through voting. And maybe today is the penultimate night of a democratic Brazil. This Sunday (30), we decided between a failed democracy and a power project that could really transform Brazil into a Venezuela; only on the extreme right.

Remember when a scandal was a candidate’s ex-wife badmouthing him? Well, that was Collor’s strategy against Lula in the early 1990s. Today, the president’s ally can throw grenades at the police who, in five minutes, his supporters enter the field to try to separate the image of the Bolsonaro family from that of their great ally. , Roberto Jefferson.

In Brazil, Bolsonaristas strictly follow the manual for a coup: they demonize enemies, try to demoralize the press, spread fake news and undermine the Judiciary. The game is dirty and can end in a blow. There is no lack of similar examples in history.

Worse, the Bolsonarista tactic of flooding the news with lies and one absurdity after another seems to work. Does the government not buy vaccines? The president goes there and announces to the whole world to stop mimimi, then saying that no country had a vaccine in 2020 (which is a lie).

Bad search results? It is invented that radios would be plotting against the president. Does the government invent private GDP metrics? No problem, because the secretary comes to announce that there won’t be a second wave. Does the president insinuate that Venezuelan girls are prostitutes? He goes there and supports someone who shoots the police.

The sequence of absurdities is infinite. Any of the government’s monumental mistakes should be reason enough for the president not to have 1% of voting intentions. The Trump-style tactic of making the world revolve around presidential insanity seems to be working. But for the good of Brazil, I hope only up to a point.

The risk to our democracy is not just the president winning reelection. His candidates for the governments of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, two of the richest states in the country, are ready to help him destroy Brazilian institutions.

Blows come in all colors. James II, King of England, was Catholic, but his two daughters from his first marriage were Protestant (as were their husbands). When his second wife gave birth to a son, some lawmakers announced that he had actually died at birth and another baby had been brought to the palace. So this would justify supporting a coup to ensure that no Catholics remained in power.

Result? The coup plotters wrote to William III to invade England, resulting in the “Glorious Revolution.” If the objective is clear, justifications are created at the whim of those who want to seize power.

The PT, with all its flaws, delivered a democratic country. Dilma was impeached and left as required by the political process. However, Bolsonaro and his team don’t care about rules. Destroy everything in front of you. My fear is not minimum wage (which will fall in real terms), pensions being cut or even more economic damage. We are on the verge of a bolsonarista coup.

It’s sad that I can repeat the same final paragraph from the column before the first round. “No matter how bad the PT candidacy is, it’s better than barbarism. Vote for Lula, for the love of Brazilians. You don’t have to be wise to know how the film ends with the extreme right in power. Brazil dies in the end.”