By: Gustavo Veiga
“The fight goes on until the final victory. I’ve always believed that we will win this election and I want to say that we will win it,” Lula said. The election in each state was very balanced.
From Sao Paulo
Without any apparent celebration, but with double optimism, Lula won the first round of voting against Jair Bolsonaro by a little more than five percent, but it wasn’t enough to get eliminated in the second round. That was his goal. Don’t spread uncertainty. Although it reached 48.36 percent. At 9:26 p.m. Sunday, it was officially reported that there would be no definition. The wait will last until October 30th to find out who will be the future president of Brazil. Whether it’s the far right and former military member of the Liberal Party (PL) – an oxymoron of politics in these postmodern times – or his opponent from the Workers’ Party (PT). Despite the clear margin in favor of the opposition candidate – around 6 million votes – he could not finally destroy the continuity project of a clearly inferior politician, but he still has his chances of turning around a vote that was defeated by others.
First of all, the pollsters missed the crucial forecast for the election. The consulting firm Ipec (formerly Ibope), which the Globo group hired for its election investigations, made a notorious mistake. He had expected a much more comfortable victory for the former president, but he failed to correctly calculate the strength of the official vote, the rabid anti-PT vote. This explains a certain uneasiness of the militants, who accompanied Lula in every mobilization across the country, in personal contact with the most important political leader of the last three decades.
The words of Lula and Bolsonaro
Lula and his party’s key leaders spoke at the Novotel Jaraguá at 10 p.m. Party leader Gleisi Hoffmann opened up contact with the journalists: “This victory in the first round means that we win twice. We need to bring together all sectors of Brazilian society that believe in democracy.” She was followed by running mate Gerardo Alckmin: “Democracy must be saved,” he added in a similar tone. And closed the man who will run for the presidency for the third time. It started with an optimistic message: “The fight goes on until final victory. I always believed that we would win this election and I want to say that we will win it. For us, this is just a reprieve. I thank the Brazilian people for this gesture of generosity.” On the stage to his left was Fernando Haddad, the PT’s candidate for governor for São Paulo, who also has to go through the second shift but ran from behind . With 35.59 of the votes, he escorted his main rival, the Bolsonarista Tarcísio de Freitas, with whom he will fight for position in the country’s most populous state and who went to the election with 42.32 percent.
Lula looked at his partner and said, “Haddad, the two of us together will win in Sao Paulo and Brazil. This will be a nation-state confrontation. We’re hardly in a truce. I’ve never won an election on the first ballot. And the second will be the chance to mature our proposals to society.” In fact, the former president had to go through two decisive instances in the 2002 and 2006 elections: Exactly twenty years ago he overtook José Serra of the PSDB and four years later his current one Vice-candidate Alckmin himself.
Last night, after contacting the journalists at the Novotel, Lula and his companions made their way to Avenida Paulista in front of the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP). There was a ceremony and speeches to the crowd. Dilma Rousseff, the former President, said: “We will win the election and start rebuilding this country. We will defeat this barbarian who holds the presidency of the republic.”
Bolsonaro made statements from Brasilia in front of a group of journalists. He was accompanied by his son Flavio, an incumbent senator. The President was measured but sharp and not very diplomatic on foreign policy. He has criticized the governments of Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia for considering them antagonists of his neo-fascist project, as if they were identical or similar to Alberto Fernández, Nicolás Maduro and Gustavo Petro.
“We have grown a lot and will now start the campaign again. I understand this will help get enough votes to win…” he speculated. Later he began with explanations of the economy and almost monothematically repeated his comparison with the economy of Argentina as a choice argument. “Brazil is doing better and getting out of its problems,” he insisted, and to round off his unkind remarks towards other countries, he added his simplistic view of the left Chile and Nicaragua.
The election in each state was very balanced. Lula became president in fourteen and Bolsonaro in thirteen out of twenty-seven. The PT leader won in the Northeast and North, Bolsonaro in the Midwest, South and Southeast (excluding Minas Gerais).
The development of voting
Initial calculations showed Bolsonaro to be in the lead in the presidential election, but not by decisive numbers due to the low percentage of votes counted. This trend continued for a few hours until 8:03 p.m. when Lula passed with 73 percent of the votes cast. The PT’s historic leader surpassed its rival for the first time that night with 45.99% vs. 45.29. Some figures that have already ratified the inevitable second round scheduled for Sunday October 30th.
The news pulverized most of the polls, giving Lula the win through Saturday without requiring a second round. The consultants, most notably Ipec – the former Ibope – to whom the Globo Group had turned in recent weeks made themselves look ridiculous. The most media-effective institute had given the former president a lead of almost fourteen points on the night of October 1st.
What was perceived as the most difficult result to assess – the possibility of a vote – was quickly clarified with the first percentage counts. The unease spread across the WhatsApp and Telegram groups of PT members hoping for a first-round win. That chance faded as more calculations were released, without even a chance to extend the definition into the last hours of the day. Brazil’s electronic ballot box system and the speed with which the voting card was completed blurred all previous trends. The country would no longer know its new president on Sunday evening. We’ll have to wait another 28 days to find out. With the tensions that entails as the campaigns – particularly those of Bolsonarism and its fake Nwes plants – continue to show signs of violent behavior, including fatalities.
The glass-half-full vision for Lula and his Labor Party is that now, after confirming his first-round win, Bolsonaro must reverse the result that set him back by just over five points in the Test. The final numbers, tallyed at 99.67 of the votes, were 56,986,258 for Lula and 51,004,634 for the former soldier. The current president has the problem of overturning the result with the aggravating fact that the majority of the electorate of Simone Tebet from the MDB (4.17%) and Ciro Gomes from the PDT (3.05%) supported the candidacy in October could migrate from Luna 30.
Even if the PT leader wins comfortably in the second round, he will not have a reassuring government with a minority in the Senate and representatives either. This election replaced a third of the House of Lords (a Senator retains his seat for eight years) and the entire House of Commons (renews his office every four years).
Among the candidates who were very far from Lula and Bolsonaro and could now be referees in the second round, there was one who was completely hazy: Ciro Gomes. Not only did it drop to fourth place – beaten by Senator Simone Tebet – but it fell almost five points from previous polls (down from 8% and 7% to 3.05). He said last night he was “deeply concerned by what is happening in Brazil. I have never experienced such a complex and threatening situation.” The third policy received 4.19 of the votes. Their voters may hold one of the keys that define the ballot. Although the crucial fact is that 32,660,681 people did not vote. Bolsonaro and Lula will now exceed that critical mass of voters.
Taken from page 12