The President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro during the press conference he gave in Brasilia after coming second in the first round of the presidential elections on October 2, 2022. Eraldo Peres (AP)
If there was one voice that was opaque to the polls, it was Jair Bolsonaro’s. The President had for months shot at opinion polls, which gave him less than 35 percent. It shattered all expectations. On a 99% count, he received 43.2% of the vote, five points behind Lula da Silva. The most optimistic forecasts were between 10 and 15 points below. Bolsonaro even led the count well into the night. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s supporters gritted their teeth and put their trust in the voices of the Northeast and the big urban centers. They could celebrate, but they suffered. The extreme right was stronger than all the polls showed, entering the second round with the adrenaline of a winner in the final sprint.
Bolsonaro had already said so during the vote this Sunday morning. “It’s time for Datapovo,” or Datapueblo, he told journalists who approached him at the door of the school in Rio de Janeiro, where he has adopted his residence. It was a direct attack on Datafolha, the big survey company in Brazil, which was way behind. They weren’t too wrong with Lula, who ended up with 48% and a narrow first-round win, but they didn’t see the phenomenon of a pugnacious ultraconstituency.
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“We have defeated the lies,” the President stated of the end result. However, his presentation wasn’t as exuberant as one might have expected. He even spoke with a certain dejected tone from Brasilia in front of his residence and in front of some journalists. “I understand that there are many voices [a Lula] which was due to the state of the Brazilian people who felt the increase in products. More precisely from the basic basket. I understand that there is a desire for change on the part of the population, but I also know that there are changes that could be for the worse,” he said.
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The result in the state of São Paulo, a country within another, with 46 million inhabitants, just like Colombia or Argentina, was crucial for Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro received 47.8% of the vote there, seven points more than Lula, which translates to 1.8 million votes. The president’s election push was even carried over to the dispute over the governorship. Bolsonaro appointed an unknown candidate in the district, Tarcísio Gomes, a military man born in another state, Rio de Janeiro, who was his Minister of Infrastructure. Gomes received 42% of the vote, nearly seven points ahead of Fernando Haddad, a political heavyweight running for Labor Party president in 2018, precisely against Bolsonaro.
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The President is in good shape for the second round fight, which is scheduled for October 30. He also knows that whoever is the ultimate winner has become strong in Parliament, which will be more conservative than the current one. Brazilians can expect a more radical president in his speeches against “the convict,” as he disparagingly calls Lula every time he recalls spending 20 months in prison for corruption before his trials were overturned on formal grounds. Bolsonaro spent a good chunk of his campaign spreading false news against Lula and attacking the Supreme Electoral Court. He questioned the security of electronic ballot boxes, the same ones that now put him in the running for a second term.
The Labor Party celebrated Sunday night on Avenida Paulista, the heart of the country’s largest city. It was a great party, but with a bitter aftertaste. Lula’s faction knows there’s a tough rival lurking just around the corner.
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