Lula and his supporters have “thrown the rest” to secure the absolute majority that will allow him to be declared president this Sunday. But when the days of propaganda and uprisings ended, there was no telling that they would achieve it.
No poll in the time they’ve taken the pulse of Brazilian public opinion ahead of this Sunday’s elections – and that time has lasted more than a year – has given him the 50 percent plus one of the votes that the leader the worker has ‘ party to declare himself president today.
Although favoritism over him has remained over 45 percent of voting intentions, even since the 2018 election when he was falsely accused and jailed to keep him out of the way, this hard and steady vote they cast would far and away the Polls are not sufficient for the ballot boxes to be dismantled immediately.
If this prediction is confirmed, Brazil’s most respected leader will have to agree in the second round on October 30 with the one who has become the number one public enemy of Brazilian progressivism, more so than his competitor: outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. Eleven candidates are on the ballot, but everyone knows the fight will be between the two of them.
And opinion polls assure Lula would win the election, but the re-election candidate would hardly allow it.
Bolsonaro’s constant “complaints” about alleged irregularities and alleged inefficiency of Brazil’s tried-and-true computerized voting system compel us to believe that if the president doesn’t win, as the polls are predicting, he will nail the false charge of cheating with nails and bite to the Power, echoing the bellicose stance of his paradigm, the American Donald Trump, sponsor of the riots in Washington Congress that still have the ex-president in the sights of his country’s judiciary.
Although quite a few analysts consider the stance that the military might take in the context of an unstable scenario after today, and given Bolsonaro’s staging, the truth is that there is nothing to suggest that the armed forces would support an adventurous coup of nature.
Although the active and retired military – like the former Captain Bolsonaro himself – have filled a large number of ministries and public offices himself at the invitation of the President, in truth they seem to be more than a catapult but like a retaining wall for his loquacious incontinence and the president’s bad manners — pardon the redundancy — and, yes, the support of a president who at one point seemed shaken by what little talent he has to govern, whose target, as he was, was dozens impeachment motions never tabled in Congress.
The violent climate that preceded these elections must be attributed to his inherently aggressive attitude and ignorance of the canons – irreverence is too small a word for his behavior – with attacks by his followers – the “Bolsonaristas” – on supporters of Lula, which have left at least two dead, although outside of the election campaign events there have also been violent scenes between “members” of one side and the other, who express how deeply the pulse beats in each other, which they decide.
But in reality it is not a matter of now. The events of the last six years could also explain the heightened political feelings of Brazilians.
Since the unjust impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and going through the ten trials of lying against Lula circa 2018 and his imprisonment, there has been an attempt to demonize the left, which could manipulate its political opponents to grow, even though they it should have reinforced the sense of injustice experienced by defenders of progressivism. These are the conditions that have increased what observers call polarization.
To top it off, the arrival of the underdog Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, without the “oxygen” that many expected from those who voted for him, betting on a sort of third way after the institutional collapse experienced in Brazil – including the In many ways, the performance of Dilma’s deputy, Michel Temer, marked the intensification of the hatred.
It cannot be ignored that this apparent “lack of strength” has won Bolsonaro his supporters, as evidenced by the fact that despite the more than 685,000 deaths his anti-scientific disbelief and mismanagement of COVID-19 has cost 19, an environment between According to the latest polls, 33 and 38 percent of voters remain loyal to him and he has even managed to regain the gap he lost over Lula.
However, the “broad front” policy pursued by the PT candidate, with the intelligent strategy of forging alliances with the center and uniting with all “anti-Bolsonarian” forces – which are not few – had borne fruit, and for the last week the opinion polls gave Lula up to 48 percent of the vote; very, very close to the 51 percent you need.
Even a final study released Monday predicted the PT leader 52 percent, which would mean an instant and resounding victory that would leave no attempt at questioning.
That’s why it’s definitely for Brazilian progressivism to take the cat to the water in this first round.