When the comparison sample of the results of last Sunday’s elections (30) is the eight Portuguese-speaking countries that, along with Brazil, make up the Portuguese-speaking community, there is no consensus on who would be the best president for the country — at least not at the polls.
Even so, confirmation of the victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was received by most Lusophone leaders with messages that showed the hope of resuming relations that were partially frozen during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
In three countries (Portugal, Angola and Cape Verde), PT received the most votes. In three others (Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and East Timor), the electorate sided with the current president. In the Portuguese-speaking countries of Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe, there was no voting, because the number of registered voters is less than 30, the minimum number established by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) for opening a section.
In general numbers, the vote of Brazilians living in Portuguese-speaking nations was favorable to Lula, who gathered 63.7% of valid votes (23.6 thousand), compared to 36.3% for Jair Bolsonaro (13.4 thousand). The values are tiny within the total support of each one: they represent 0.04% of the PT’s 60.3 million votes and 0.02% of the reelection candidate’s 58.2 million votes.
They, however, are largely a reflection of Portugal, destination of thousands of Brazilians for residence. In the country, the three electoral colleges —Lisbon, Porto and Faro— gave the victory to the PT, with 23,200 votes in all.
The small figures in Portuguese-speaking Africans and in East Timor, the only Portuguese-speaking country in Southeast Asia, allow us to better observe the dissent of opinion. In the Mozambican capital, Maputo, for example, Bolsonaro received 166 votes (54.3% of valid votes); Lula, 140 (45.7%). In Luanda, Angola, the result is almost the opposite: 55.6% for the PT (124), 44.4% for the president (99).
In both countries, the government is in charge of figures more sympathetic to the PT — not just because of the reflux of bilateral relations with the Palop (Portuguese-speaking African Countries) in the Bolsonaro government.
President João Lourenço said in a note that Angola and Brazil “need to rescue the rich memories of bilateral relations that accumulate in the recent past”, in a clear message about the recent distance between the nations.
Lourenço, re-elected in August in an election contested by the opposition, is the political heir of the MPLA, the party that has ruled the country since independence. Lula was close to his predecessor, the autocrat José Eduardo dos Santos, who died in July.
From Mozambique, the message of President Filipe Nyusi, from Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front), who called Lula his brother, also denotes hope for the resumption of relations: “His election opens a new path of hope towards a new era of cooperation and strengthening our brotherhood”.
From the leader of East Timor, the Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos-Horta, came an even more emphatic message. “Justice was done by restoring the vibrant Brazilian democracy and thus correcting the serious violations of the rule of law, the injustices and the manipulation of the judiciary,” he said, referring to Lula’s arrest.
Ramos-Horta, one of the main faces of independence, and other East Timorese leaders have a historical relationship with PTismo. THE Sheet in May, Roque Rodrigues, former defense minister, credited Lula with the ability to warm up the CPLP (Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries).
The Timorese leader’s tone, however, did not find an echo at the polls: the capital Dili was the Portuguese-speaking section abroad in which Bolsonaro won the largest proportional share of votes: 62.7% (or 37).
In the Cape Verde archipelago, 64.5% (40 voters) voted for Lula and 35.5% (22) opted for Bolsonaro. President José Maria Neves, in a social network, said he hopes that the countries can work together to “further strengthen relations of friendship and cooperation”.
From the center-left, Neves carried out a good part of his academic training in Brazil. THE Sheet last November, he said that Lula, when he was in power, had a “perspective of promoting Brazil in the world” and that without PT in the Planalto, Brazil isolated itself.
In Guinea-Bissau, the majority was in favor of Bolsonaro’s re-election — 55.5% or 25 voters. In charge of the country is Umaro Sissoco Embaló, an autocrat described by the Brazilian president himself as “Bolsonaro of Africa”. He even used the rise of the military to positions in the government and in state-owned companies in the Bolsonaro administration to justify a similar move in his government.
After the result, the Guinean was one of the first to congratulate Lula. “We will work for solid and prosperous bilateral relations,” he wrote on Twitter, in… French —surrounded by francophone nations, the African country has increasingly seen Portuguese lose space for the language, used mostly in government and in spaces of work.
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