Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro walks after casting his ballot at a polling station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2, 2022. ANDRE COELHO (AP)
Half of Brazil that thought Jair Bolsonaro’s era at the helm of Brazil was a temporary nightmare got a good slap in the face this Sunday. The first ballot culminated in a remarkable show of force from the other half of the country, embodied by the far-right president. This will be measured in the final duel on 30th with leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 76. The 67-year-old president, who is seeking a second term, arrives in a much more powerful position than the poll had predicted. Political scientist Camila Rocha explains that the hard core of Bolsonarianism has been strengthened, refined and shows a more homogeneous discourse. “It cannot be ruled out that he will be re-elected,” warns the researcher about the Bolsonarist phenomenon.
The president emerges from these elections with enormous power in Congress – his Liberal Party won the largest faction – and territorial power: nine of the Bolsonaro-backed gubernatorial candidates achieved a victory, compared to five of Lula’s relatives. Now the President is confident that monthly aid to the poor and signs of economic improvement will give him the impetus to defeat Lula.
The government again and knowingly confused the president with the candidate and announced this Monday that the payment of aid to Brazil would be transferred before the scheduled date. It will reach the 20 million poor who will receive it five days before the renewed call for the next President. “Now we have what it takes to rid Brazil of authoritarianism, blackmail and injustice,” the president tweeted Monday.
Meanwhile, this Monday, the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange received election results with a 4.6% gain and a fall in the dollar.
– Keep Ham or Focus! One of the most important and difficult goals was once achieved. We fear what it takes to rid Brazil of the authoritarianism, blackmail and injustice that enrages us so much. A profound change in the country has come! There is nothing to worry about.
— Jair M Bolsonaro 2️⃣2️⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) October 3, 2022
The hard core of the Bolsonarists are made up of people – with a clear majority male – who pride themselves on being right-wing, patriotic and conservative. Something that is evident in each of the massive concentrations they summon. A reflection of the strength he has maintained despite the many turbulences of the mandate, a fact that has been reiterated time and time again: the president has maintained the support of at least a third of voters even in the worst moments of the pandemic, with peaks of 4,000 dead per day.
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As in 2018, the polls have again underestimated his performance in electronic polls, in line with half of Brazilians who refuse to believe that an openly reactionary, misogynistic president who knowingly delays vaccine purchases is threatening the support of retains such a large proportion of its compatriots in the fourth largest democracy in the world.
The groups promoting Bolsonarismo are whites, those over 40, those earning twice the minimum wage (i.e. around $390 or euros), evangelicals, those associated with agribusiness, members of the security forces and those living in the richest Brazil, the southern half of the country, explains specialist Rocha. The north is Lula territory.
Businessman Newton Publio is one of these proud Bolsonaristas. The owner of a 6,500-member rifle club in Salto de Pirapora, in inland São Paulo state, said Monday the number of candidates sponsored and elected by Bolsonaro showed the movement he led had “great strength”. And in an exchange of messages, he added an optimistic look ahead: These congressmen, senators and governors “will greatly assist (Bolsonaro) in managing his next term”. No one doubts that the remaining four weeks until the second round of Lula Bolsonaro will be extremely tense.
The victory achieved this Sunday by General Eduardo Pazuello, the third Brazilian health minister during the pandemic, helps to understand the phenomenon. This military man, whom Bolsonaro selected for the position after the two previous incumbents, doctors, refused to promote drugs that lacked scientific support for Covid, became the most-elected federal lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro with more than 205,000 votes. It was Yes Sir’s minister, the one who publicly admitted that his role was to carry out the boss’s orders without question. It mattered little to these Carioca voters that during the tenure of Pazuello, an expert in army logistics, patients admitted to hospitals in Manaus, Amazon, died from lack of oxygen. He will have a seat in Congress starting next year.
Stepping out alongside him is former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who said in a council of ministers amid a pandemic that it was time to “go to the Boiada as the press focuses on the coronavirus (oxen) to make laws more flexible in order to To favor ranchers who want to reclaim more land from the Amazon for grazing purposes.
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