Faced with the results of the Brazilian elections, the two main political-electoral forces are building their own victory narrative. Lula da Silva’s campaign invested all its energies in winning the first round. They knew they were close and that in the second round the dispute would be even more hostile. What they didn’t expect was that bolsonarismo would grow so much. The electoral results show an ambivalent scenario, in which there are antagonistic celebrations, given that both petismo and bolsonarismo advanced objectively.
The Workers’ Party grew. Lula came close to winning the first round with 48.43% of the votes, beating Bolsonaro by more than 6 million votes. It was also 25 million votes more than the performance achieved by Fernando Haddad of the PT in the previous elections. In addition, the PT’s presence in the National Congress increased from 56 to 68 deputies, although it may have more weight if it wins the elections and manages to form support and alliances that allow it to build a governance scenario. To the left of the PT, a series of candidates from social movements emerged, some with greater organicity (landless, homeless and indigenous), and other collectives and anti-racist, feminist and dissident groups in the sex-gender regime.
At the same time, the rise of Bolsonaro and the authoritarian and reactionary right is overwhelming and worrying, achieving a historic result. Bolsonaro won 43.20% of the votes, nearly two million more than he won in the 2018 presidential race. Several of Bolsonaro’s allies did well in different states of the country, winning in Rio de Janeiro in the first round and leading the contest in São Paulo. Paul in the second round. Bolsonaro’s biggest breakthrough was in Congress and the Senate, becoming the main political force in both chambers.
(Anti)petismo, (anti)bolsonarismo and more
The polls were right about Lula, but not about Bolsonaro. But the problem is not with the surveys, but with the expectations generated. In the last two days before the elections, there was a meteoric increase in the pro-Bolsonaro vote for several reasons: last-minute decisions by the undecided, the last electoral debate, the displacement of the “useful vote”, the invisible mobilization in territories and on digital networks. . Surveys are not static and try to project forecasts, which are fickle for rapid changes, especially at the last minute.
In addition to the electoral terrain and the use of institutional and governmental machines, Bolsonarism has taken root in Brazil in recent years as a cultural and social project. Bolsonaro’s presence on social media is overwhelming: twice that of Lula on Twitter and TikTok, and three times that of Lula on Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp and Telegram were instrumental in spreading fake news and mobilizing supporter networks. In the last four years, Bolsonarism continued to gain ground in the territories, either through the militarized control of life and bodies through its militias, or through material and subjective disputes, which were mobilized from the churches for social policies such as Auxilio Brasil, an income transfer policy for the poorest population, which has been reinforced in recent months.
For all these reasons, we cannot think that the Bolsonarista vote is, once again, just an anti-PT vote. That was true for the 2018 presidential election, but no longer for this occasion. The four years of the Bolsonaro government had an ambivalent effect. On the one hand, it increased his rejection among part of the population, mainly the moderate and liberal right that had initially supported him. On the other hand, Bolsonaro delivered much of what he promised, benefiting the elites and nurturing, among his followers, an idea of ”coherence”, which strengthened him in the eyes of his social base and of various sectors.
Challenges for the next few weeks
Assuming this diagnosis is essential for Brazilian democratic forces to be able to face the second round on October 30 as a complex and critical scenario, which cannot be summarized in a calculation of numbers. Ensuring support for Lula from the third and fourth electoral forces (Tebet and Gomes) is important, but it does not guarantee that his electorate will vote for the PT candidate. The same goes for the strategy of betting all its chips on votes in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, key locations where the PT expected more votes in the first round.
More than that is needed. It is necessary to try to massively mobilize society (also in the places where Lula won in the first round) and get all anti-Bolsonaro voters actively involved in the campaign in the coming weeks. In the first round, the climate of fear imposed by Bolsonarism restricted wider electoral mobilization. But if we want love to conquer fear, fear must be faced.
Furthermore, Lula can no longer be just a candidate of the past, who takes refuge in his previous successes. He must assume the dilemmas of the present and think about the future. It must mobilize the concrete agendas and proposals of its program, both in terms of central issues of popular concern (security, employment, hunger, poverty and inflation), as well as the fundamental agendas of our historical epoch (water, climate change, energy transition). .
It should also not be forgotten that there was a 20% abstinence rate. And that, of the 156 million voters in Brazil, a third did not vote for either Lula or Bolsonaro, opting for abstention, blank or null votes, or for other candidates. This significant part of the population does not identify with the polarization that has taken over Brazilian politics in recent years. They are tired of Lula and fed up with Bolsonaro.
During the campaign, the construction of a “third way” to polarization did not work, because it continued to reproduce the logic of the old politics. The challenge, in this case, is to advance, with part of this population, towards a new social project for the transformation of the country that inspires hope and re-politicizes conflicts. This cannot be done overnight. But we must take advantage of the coming weeks, in which politics will be at its most intense, to start moving between support for Lula and democracy and the path to the world we want.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
