Progressive voters and supporters of incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left reeling after far-right surge
Flávio Bolsonaro is in pole position to win Brazil’s presidential election, after a far-right tsunami propelled him to a shock first-round victory over the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving progressive voters reeling.
The 45-year-old rightwing candidate received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m – 47.03% to 45.16% – meaning the 80-year-old leftwinger has a mountain to climb if he is to bounce back in the second round on 25 October. Never, since the return of democracy to Brazil in 1985, has the first-round runner-up managed to turn the game around and win the second ballot.
“Miracles are possible in politics. But I don’t see that happening,” the political scientist Miguel Lago said of Lula’s chances of snapping back. “I don’t see Flávio losing this election now.”
Presidentialism is a dead-end strand of democracy. Progressives living in such systems everywhere should be pushing to reform it to parliamentarianism. No one election should have such cosmic level effects.
Vote.
Voting is mandatory in Brazil
What’s the penalty if you don’t?
And if you wanna know more about Flávio Bolsonaro, with whom he’s hanging out, watch this, it’s dubbed, but it’s worth watching.
Hopefully the people of Brazil can stand up and fight back against this sad situation. You are not alone in this BS we can and will overcome this.
Probably won’t. Right wing dumbfuckery is a world wide trend.
Starting to feel more and more like humanity doesn’t deserve a happy ending.
It just reminds us that a good % of humans are still animals.
Humanity seems to be making sure that’s the case
oh it certainly does not
Starting?
Think this is organic or mostly the result of US election interference? No way Brazilians are watching the far right clown show around the world and saying “I want in”
People don’t think that far. “It’s the economy, stupid.”
No way Brazilians are watching the far right clown show around the world and saying “I want in”
Frustratingly, it’s entirely possible. We’re seeing a similar thing in Australia with a bunch of imbecilic shills for billionaires and mining companies polling better than they ever have even though they’ve basically promised to be an Aussie version of the trump administration. We’re all fucked, and it’s just as much the fault of our friends, neighbours, and families as it is the oligarchs.
No way Brazilians are watching the far right clown show around the world and saying “I want in”
Literally as you said, far right clown show around the world as in: everyone is seeing it and saying “yes please, I want some of that too.” it’s unfuckingbelievable how this shit keeps happening… It’s absolutely going to be the decade (or more) of the far reich. :/
Has Lula measurably improved people’s lives?
This is the thing people keep missing. Democracy is usually reactionary. What gets people to come vote is to “throw the bums out”, to bring in change. It’s hard to get people to rally around the boring old status quo, especially if people think the status quo sucks.
Since nobody is answering you: no, nobody’s lives got better. Economy is in stagflation, crime is is worse than it ever was, no relevant housing projects, no relevant infrastructure investment, education reform, etc. The tax reform will take a decade to come in effect.
Oh but there were a ton of new taxes, including for small goods imported from overseas, which everybody used to buy constantly (shein, temu, etc). Made the post office (public company) lose several billions per year and only increased effective tax revenue by a few hundred million. So the government lost overall and the people lost. At the same time, a new head to the post office and several high paying jobs there were appointed from the government party.
This kind of thing keeps happening so people just want something new and there are no other lefty candidates because Lula never shared power
Thanks, that’s what I was hoping someone would chime in about. Also condilences for the existing and likely future shit show. 😔
Bolsonaro didn’t so what’s your point?
Problem is that people only remember the incumbent. You get off power, you spend the next 4 years dragging your opponent through the mud, criticising everything they do, blocking as much as you can, and come election time, people won’t be remembering how YOU fucked up 4 years ago, but rather how your opponent is fucking up right now.
Bolsonaro didn’t so people elected someone else. Lula (probably) didn’t so people (probably would) elect someone else. In other words taking Lula out of power isn’t some weird process but the same process that’s been driving things. People tend to not keep in power someone who isn’t improving their lives when their lives need improving.
yes but in this case, it’s back to Bolsonaro… it would be like USians electing Don Jr in 2028 and pretending it’s not just more child pedophilia (although now that I say it, I am certain USinans would be that stupid)
USians
JFC lol
Kinda like how they went from Trump to Biden to Trump. Or like Bush Sr -> Clinton -> Bush Jr? Whatever people are, it’s what they are and if we want (assuming fellow lefty) them to support something else, that doesn’t happen by putting someone who doens’t deliver measurable gains for them. People who do that get high approvals and get re-elected and propaganda has tough time countering that.
Actually I think the Bush example is a bad one because I think that aspect of the 2016 election was memory-holed.
Originally the media was pushing Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton, and Clinton herself was so fucksure that was going to be the match up she pushed her media contacts to focus on lunatics like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, trying to show people how crazy they were. She underestimated two things here.
-
People being tired of both the Bushes and the Clintons. Trump came in as an outsider and shook things up, as no one was enthusiastic for Jeb “please clap” Bush. Clinton used the fact that she was essentially funding the entire DNC apparatus to put the finger on the scale because no one was really excited for her either, although she never had an equivalent “please clap” moment.
-
How people saw politicians like Bush and Clinton as maneuvering and calculating and following the winds of popularity rather than facing difficult problems head on. As much as Clinton was right to peg Trump as a lunatic, she underestimated (I did and still do too, I don’t get it) Trump’s charisma. Her self assuredness that it would be her vs. Bush was a total misread of an era where people were sick of current politicians in general and any kind of outsider became appealing (the explosion of interest in Bernie Sanders is snother example in the same period).
Anyway I think the push for Bush . Clinton alienated a lot of voters from both. I remember it was a common complaint I heard at the time from both people on the left and right.
I think she also missed the fact that a lot of people wanted a lunatic. They were dissatisfied with “the system” and someone like Trump promised to blow the system up.
Which he has, frankly. Not the ideal way to go about it but it was effective. They’re also starting to learn how good the old system was for them, too late alas.
-
This is not Jair Bolsonaro.
no, this is his son/puppet
I dont know. But I know a far right candidate won’t. Factually not in their ideology.
Almost certainly. But that doesn’t mean people would keep in power the candidate that hasn’t done (assuming) enough for them. So wherever we want to prevent far right getting in power, we better do what needs doing for people and fast.
Ah I get it, the pendulum swinging. Thats it. Seems like we shouldn’t do that as a species but oh well 💀
Well… not by much. I guess he did what he could, but his administration was hamstrung by a wildly right leaning legislature. By the way, even if some kind of miracle nets him his 4th term, he would have to deal with an even more extreme-right-leaning Congress.
A lot of voters didn’t bother voting in the first round, because they knew that it would come down to a second. Brazil has like 20 or so parties, and one has to get over 50% of the votes to win. Just gotta wait for the second round, no point in getting worked up about this one, everyone knew it was going to come down to these two.
At the same time, the vast majority of the 8% who voted for someone other than these two in the first round voted for candidates more right-wing than Bolsonaro. Is there really no good way to remedy a January 6?
This is opposite to what I’m seeing.
Here’s the important chart:
From this, the 1.87% difference can be overcome by any of the 3rd-4th-5th place parties. Since I’m unfamiliar with Brazilian politics, Wikipedia says Avante is center-left-leaning (voted for Lula previously), Missao is hard-right-wing, and SDP is confusing but appears to now be center-left-wing. So if we are now pushing their voters to polarized ends, the right- and left-wing runners-up cancel each other out, and the remaining party’s votes could swing the election.
The problem will be if the weaker-left two parties divide their votes between Lula and Flavio, and the hard-right Missao goes to Flavio 100-ish%, then Flavio still wins. Or some other problem a real Brazilian will point out since I’m just piecing this together from Wikipedia.
I’ve analyzed all of the candidates appearing in first-round results: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/28475259 My takeaway is 4.71% right-wing against just 0.16% Lula-ish. If you search, you’ll also see most news outlets making the same predictions I am.
There is no candidate more to the right of Bolsonaro. He is the frothing-in-the-mouth, extreme-far-right candidate.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/28475259
Politics is crazier than one’d think.
Yeah, I know it well, since I was born in Brazil and lived here my entire life. Things never looked so bleak, not even when the (current jailed) Bolsofather won his presidency 8 years ago
The majority of those 8% intend to vote for Lula on the second round, where both Flavio and Lula are tied on the polls and neither is “poised to win”.
Also, international press is incompetent.
Also also, WTF does “more right-wing” than alt-right means?
The majority of those 8% intend to vote for Lula on the second round
Source?
both Flavio and Lula are tied on the polls
the round-one polls had Lula leading Flávio by 3 points. the result was instead Flávio leading Lula by 2 points. That’s a big miss.
WTF does “more right-wing” than alt-right
I’m not good at Brazillian politics either, but I’m going to research the entire makeup of the 8%:
- Cury’s (2.86%) is the only one I’m not sure of. On one hand his party’s ideology is moderate “Labourism”, on the other hand:
Thaise Lima, a 41-year-old lawyer on her way to vote in Sao Paulo, said her main goal was to get Lula’s Workers’ Party out of office. “I don’t think Flavio is the best candidate, but I might decide to vote for him in the next few minutes,” she said, adding that she wished psychiatrist and author Augusto Cury were a more viable candidate.
- Renan Santos (2.24%), Missão: National liberalism, technocapitalism, bukelism, “The Feindstrafrecht says that certain people, as enemies of the society (or the state), do not deserve the protections of the civil or penal law.” At least they support sustainability and infrastructure. Santos alleged a “wave” of neurotypical individuals falsely claiming to be autistic to obtain benefits and neurotypivestigated an actress.
- Ronaldo Caiado (2.18%): For some reason “Social Democra-” means economic neoliberalism in Brazil apparently. Party ideology mostly known for pragmatism: “We are neither a right-wing party nor a left-wing nor a centrist party.” (?) Caiado is a right-winger known for criticizing Lula and leading opposition to land reform, seems to have similar campaign on crime as Flávio Bolsonaro.
- Romeu Zema (0.27%) in 2023 implied South and Southwest Brazil separatism to the great horror of everyone and Bolsonaro. In 2020, he said “We need to have tools that curb what we might call a natural instinct of human beings” to promote a support program for domestic violence survivors. In May argued for child labor (under 16).
- Samara Martins (0.10%) is left socialist.
- Hertz Dias (0.04%), Fourth International.
- Clariano Barão (0.03%), Christian Democracy party, paternalistic conservatism. Like the German CDU so I’ll concede this isn’t more right-wing.
- Edmilson Costa (0.02%), communist.
- Wilson Grassi (0.01%), single issue anti-abortion “Woman’s Party” known for failing to meet state quota of women candidates in 2017.
- Rui Costa Pimenta (0.01%), of dissident Trotskyists party that praised Taliban and al-Qaeda for triumph “over American imperialism”, opposes “gender ideology”.
Excluding Cury and Barão, I count 4.71% right-wing against just 0.16% Lula-ish, or against 0.19% if we include Barão in the latter count, or against 3.05% even if we include Cury in the latter (which I quite doubt we can). If we add these numbers to the first-round results of Flávlo vs. Lula, Flávlo’d have a 6-point, 6-point, or 4-point lead.
Source?
Any recent poll. You can search them here:
https://www.planopolitico.com.br/agregador/presidente/
Also, every single polling institute said the prediction for Flavio was underestimated. On basically every poll.
every single polling institute said the prediction for Flavio was underestimated
I can’t find that in the polls you linked. They seem to accord with what I said: They showed a 3-point Lula lead until 28 September, and the final averages have a 1.6-point Lula lead, while Flávio Bolsonaro in fact won by 2 points.
I think it’s reasonable to assume the round 2 polls also underestimate Flávio to a similar degree, as American (the continents’) polls have done with alt-right candidates time and time again. I do not trust you saying this means the 8% will majorly vote for Lula when the evidence above points otherwise, and the media doesn’t either.
That french invention, that gravity assisted rail-mount blade system, is quite effective even as a deterrent
So you execute Jair, and Flávio does this, plus some other Bolsonarist executes Lula.
I was replying to the last question, i.e. “is there no way to remedy a Jan 6?”.
Traitors who want to upend democracy deserve no less.
Supporters of the traitors then should either shut the fuck up or risk losing their heads as well.
I am aware of what you were saying. I responded to it.
They should have hanged his dad.
That’s what Lula’s voters think about this guy
Knows the machines
