Doña Lindu’s son made history two decades ago when he became Brazil’s first president without a university degree, the first worker to hold power in an unequal and neoclassical country like few others. Now is your chance to offer your compatriots a new horizon and rewrite the final chapter of their history. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (76 years old, Garanhuns, Pernambuco) caresses his return to the presidency through the front door this Sunday. If the picture that has been coming from the polls for months is correct, the left will defeat the right-wing extremist President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 67. It would mark the return of progressives to government after the trauma of President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 and the great climax of the left turn in Latin America after Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.
The main question is whether Lula gets 50% plus one of the valid votes – with no zeros or spaces – to condemn the dispute this Sunday, or whether he has to go to a second round with Bolsonaro – a former military officer involved in the coup flirtatious – within four weeks. Most likely, Brazilians will return to electronic voting on October 30th. The last poll this Saturday gave the left 50% and the extreme right 36%.
When Bolsonaro scored a goal by getting Neymar to ask for a vote for him on TikTok, the network that’s all the rage among youngsters, composer Chico Buarque appealed to “those who don’t like Lula” on Instagram this Saturday like”, choose to ask her because “it’s about saving democracy”. The singer’s parents took part in the creation of the Workers’ Party (PT) during the dictatorship.
Another big unknown is how the far-right leader will react to the defeat predicted by the polls given the major campaign he is promoting against the voting system that is undermining the credibility of the electronic ballot box that Brazil has been using for 25 years. A good portion of Bolsonaristas – a third of the electorate – declare themselves convinced that everything is rigged to steal victory from their leader. The matter is technical and delicate. Fears of a collapse of the constitutional order and speculation about it have been in the air for months. Even Bolsonaro loyalists do not trust the polls. His constant attacks on the judiciary, the press and anyone who disagrees – whom he considers an enemy – have undermined Brazil’s democracy, one of the largest in the world.
For Lula, it’s a struggle between democracy and barbarism. For Bolsonaro a fight between good and evil. The voters – 156 million people – elect the governors and parliamentary assemblies of the 27 states as well as the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate.
Brazil’s convoluted electoral regulations prevent rallies, but not walks, from Friday. So this Saturday Lula appeared in a kind of popemobile on São Paulo’s main street, Paulista. And Bolsonaro is in the north of the metropolis at the head of a group of bikers.
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The leftist’s biography is extraordinary, but he was dragged into the mud by the Lava Jato corruption scandal that swept away untouchable politicians and businessmen. He had been imprisoned for more than 20 months and convicted of corruption. Those sentences, now overturned on procedural grounds, prevented him from running in the previous election in 2018, in which he was also considered a favourite. He has always defended his innocence.
An illiterate son and the youngest of seven children, he was born in Pernambuco, in poorest Brazil, the Northeast historically plagued by drought. As a child, he emigrated as a family for a 13-day trip to São Paulo, where they were reunited with his father, Aristides, who always tried to guarantee food, but mistreated the children until one day his wife grabbed her and took him with, they left him She stars in many of his speeches.
Lula – who was never a good student but always had a good sense of humor and charisma – knew how to take advantage of the opportunities that São Paulo offered. As a child he worked as a shoeshine boy before attending a technical school which opened the door to permanent employment in metallurgy. There he lost his left little finger, which is why Bolsonaro calls it “nine fingers”.
strikes against the dictatorship
The lathe operator became a union leader. And he, who didn’t blame the military taking power to order Brazil in 1964, led the great strikes against the dictatorship, according to Lula’s biography, Volume I. Since the first attempt in 1989, he lost three times before reaching the presidency and being re-elected. His eight years in power (2003-2010) were prosperous thanks to Chinese demand for commodities. He was able to implement ambitious social programs for the historically disinherited. “We put the poor in the household,” he often says. The lives of millions of people have improved like never before. Electricity, the fridge, the washing machine came for many… The children of domestic workers entered the university. He caused blisters. The elites thought they had evicted their children. Thanks to this prosperity, many poor people, black and mestizo, flew by plane.
It was Brazil that seduced the world and Barack Obama. In the crowd of a G-20, the then President of the United States said: “I adore this guy. He’s the most popular politician in the world!” The following year, Lula left power with an 87% popularity rating.
This is the Brazil he sold in that campaign, not what came later, with Dilma Rousseff whom he chose as his political heir. That of systemic corruption and recession that led to the impeachment process that ended 14 years of progressive governments. From this breeding ground germinated a fierce hatred of politicians in general and the PT in particular, a wave that Bolsonaro, a mediocre MP, ably rode to become the surprise of the 2018 election.
Now the economic situation is grim. More than 33 million Brazilians are starving, unemployment is hovering around 9%, inflation is hitting 8.7% and the International Monetary Fund expects GDP to end the year up 1.7%.
If he loses, Bolsonaro will become the first president of this century not to have been re-elected. His inhumane and disastrous handling of the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 670,000 Brazilians, is the main reason why many of those who counted on him to be their savior have turned their backs on him. To survive in office, he threw himself into the arms of the old politics, the parties offering parliamentary support to the highest bidder, and launched a lavish economic aid program for 20 million poor people. The economy has endured the pull of the pandemic.
Nostalgic for the dictatorship, ultra-conservative, sexist, he has made good on his promises to dismantle environmental policies, facilitate gun sales and add what Bolsonaro has said to be a “terribly evangelical” judge on the Supreme Court. With him, deforestation has accelerated, Brazil is considered an environmental villain and is diplomatically more isolated than ever.
In the eyes of many, the leader of the PT is the new savior. Others will reluctantly vote for him or turn their heads because they think he’s the only one who can kick Bolsonaro out. To improve his chances, this time he’s nominating Geraldo Alkcmin, a former center-right classic and staunch supporter of Rousseff’s impeachment, as his vice presidential nominee. Now the audience at the Lulista rallies is cheering him on.
Lula offers a return to a happy and prosperous Brazil, where anyone can have a weekend barbecue and a beer without getting into uncomfortable details about how he intends to revive an economy that has had stagnant growth for nearly a decade and where the money will come from shall pay for the inclusion of this poor majority.
Lula’s team has reserved Paulista Avenue for Sunday night, but Lula will only be seen if he wins the first round. If not, it will be reserved. The Bolsonaristas also wanted to meet there, but they can only do so in the unlikely event that the president is re-elected that same night. Thanks to the electronic ballot boxes, which are now only a national pride for half of Brazil, a quick count can be expected.
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