The gray color predominates in the suits and in the heads. Despite the fact that diversity and youth rule Brazil’s demographics, the vast majority of its parliamentarians are older white males who have spent years chaining one mandate to another. Spectators of the Lula-Bolsonaro duel, many of them are sure that under the Oscar Niemeyer-designed domes in Brasilia, they will continue for another four years, whatever happens. If, as the polls are predicting, Lula becomes Brazil’s next president, he will be dealing with a national congress that may be as conservative as the current one.
The Bolsonarist wave that swept 2018 produced the most conservative National Congress in history. Bolsonaro came to power without a strong party behind him, but he hoped to govern with the support of the “BBB” benches, an acronym for “Ox, Bala and Bible.” This is how the parliamentarians grouped in thematic assemblies, each defending the interests of the all-powerful agricultural and livestock sectors, security agents and the religious, especially evangelicals, are commonly called in Brazil: an ultra-conservative combination that always existed (and that stopped the attempts more progressive policies during the PT’s years in power), but that was reinforced and was the most solid pillar on which Bolsonaro leaned during those years.
Midway through his tenure, criticized for his disastrous management of the pandemic, with popularity in free fall, and with “impeachment” motions piling up on the table, Bolsonaro understood he couldn’t just govern hand-in-hand with his most loyal and forged base an alliance with the ‘centrão’. This is the name of a group of parties that, with no defined ideology, supports the current government in exchange for money and quotas of power, what in less refined settings would be called blackmail. Since the fall of Dilma Rousseff in 2016, her power has grown over the years. The weaker the president, the more hostage to the blackmail of the “centrão”. The president of the chamber, Arthur Lira, was a key figure in this alliance, keeping in a drawer all the impeachment proposals tabled by the opposition against Bolsonaro and guaranteeing the president some political calm.
This authentic power in the shadows, which Bolsonaro hailed as “old politics” before throwing himself in his arms to avoid shipwreck, has every chance of surviving four more years, despite vigorous initiatives to fill the National Congress with blacks . Women or indigenous people, who come mainly from parties to the left of the PT, such as the PSOL.
A battle between thousands of candidates
Brazil works with open lists and each campaign is a bitter struggle between thousands of candidates. This year there will be 10,629. There are 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The rookies will have a very difficult time as 448 will try to stay in their place. This large majority, in which conservative MPs dominate, says everything in favor of renewing the mandate, as Edson Sardinha, head of the media company Congresso em Foco, which specializes in political information, explains on the phone.
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“There are an absurd number of MP candidates, but those who really have options are very few. Campaign resources focus on candidates running for re-election. The renewal will be very small because whoever has the money for the campaign is the one who is already known,” he stresses. The parties are allocating their funds to their most competitive faces, and this year there are more resources than ever, a mountain of money: 4.9 billion reais ($939 million) in public money, almost three times the amount from the last election. Changes in electoral laws also favor congressmen already in Brasilia, as well as the “parallel budget,” a type of legalized vote-buying introduced during the Bolsonaro administration that also ends up inflating veteran lawmakers with resources.
Sardinha reminds that most political analysts assume that a centre-right Chamber of Deputies will emerge from the October 2nd elections. A possible victory for Lula does not necessarily mean that the shift to the left also goes to the coveted places in Brasilia. Millions of Brazilians will elect Lula as president but choose as deputy the lifelong politician fighting from the capital to pave his state highway or build a hospital. He will not necessarily be a progressive politician. Overall, it’s a pretty random vote.
Throughout the election campaign, Lula has stressed the importance of electing left-wing parliamentarians to ensure he can govern calmly and not over-rely on the dreaded centrão. Whether the Brazilians will heed his advice remains to be seen. A few days ago, a Datafolha poll showed that 70% of voters had not yet chosen their candidate for the House of Representatives. A similar percentage of voters admit they can’t remember which MP they voted for in the election four years ago.