Lula da Silva was the most voted candidate in Sunday’s 2nd election in Brazil, with 48.43% of the vote, but failed to win the first round, leaving a sense of frustration on the Brazilian left. Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right candidate, won 43.20% of the vote and, even if he is at a disadvantage, he can celebrate setting a record higher than expected in major polls. The first called the results “extension”. The second, preserving the sporting metaphor, spoke of “the beginning of the second half”. Overtime or second half is the 30th and the game starts now.
“During this entire campaign, we were ahead in the polls of all the institutions and I always thought we would win this election, but I want to tell you that we are going to win this election, this is just an extension for us,” said Lula, of the PT, at the hotel in São Paulo where he followed the results.
“We have a second time ahead, where everything will be the same, the same time for each side of advertising on radio and television, I understand that many voices were for the condition of the Brazilian people, who felt the increase in products, I understand It’s that there is a desire to change, but there are certain changes that could get worse,” said Bolsonaro, from the PL, on his way out of Palácio do Alvorada.
However, the votes from both were remarkable: with more than 57 million votes, Lula had the best first-round candidate’s performance in history, beating a record-breaking 28-year-old Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB); and Bolsonaro got an even better result than in the first round four years ago, 51 million votes now against 49.3 million then.
The Support Range
The re-election candidate, who took advantage of the impromptu press conference outside Alvorada to demoralize the polling stations – “we won Datafolha’s lies [instituto que previra 51% a 37% para Lula]-, spoke of alliances to expand support, citing Romeu Zema, of the liberal Novo, first-round re-elected governor of Minas Gerais and closest, but not yet official, ally to Bolsonaro.
On alliances, Lula stated that the second round is time “to increase the reach”. “What is important is that the second round is the chance to mature the proposals and the conversation with society and to build a series of alliances and a series of support, before they win”.
Observers believe Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who wrote a note in the first round not naming Lula as the recipient of his support, now unequivocally endorses his former electoral rival’s candidacy.
Simone Tebet, of the MDB, the third most voted with 4.2%, guaranteed she “has a side” in the second round. “Don’t expect negligence from me, I’m not going to cringe,” he said, saying he is giving the parties supporting his candidacy, including Cardoso’s PSDB, 48 hours to take a position. Apparently she will vote for Lula in the second round.
Ciro Gomes, of PDT, fourth with 3%, also asked for time before making a decision because he was “very concerned about Brazil’s future”. His center-left party is a traditional ally of the PT, but in 2018 Ciro openly refused to support Fernando Haddad against Bolsonaro in the latter’s second round of elections.
quiet month
Sociologist Celso Rocha de Barros wrote in an article in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that “the result of the first round showed that, although Bolsonaro has a high degree of rejection, since the last presidential election: the right, and even the radical right, are still very strong”.
And he warns: “It will not be a quiet month. Brazil has great potential to do worse in the next four years because of this runoff now: Governors elected across Brazil will auction their support to the candidate who promises more money to spend with them”.
“Lula still has a good chance of winning, but he will have to move even further downtown while retaining his poor voters. Now the elections will be decided by small transfers of votes and the importance of married alliances in state elections and in the election for president will be great,” he concludes.
In close elections, there are fears of an increase in the number of campaign violence, which has already led to deaths in the first round. A study by UniRio shows that the number of cases of political violence in Brazil has increased by 335% in the past three years. In the first half of 2022, 214 episodes were identified, up from 47 cases in the same period of 2019, the year the investigation, which began threats, attacks, murders, murders of relatives, kidnappings and kidnappings of relatives of political leaders.
Northeast vs Southeast
Reinaldo Azevedo, columnist for UOL, found that the error in the polls, which gave Bolsonaro a vote five to six points higher than expected, occurred in the Southeast region, which includes the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. . janeiro. , the three most populous in Brazil. “What made the difference? Where’s the surprise? The current president achieved a result far above expectations in the Southeast region. A side note: in the Northeast, Lula sometimes surpassed the points that were already formidable, which explains, let’s say , his good advantage, but far from what was expected”.
This advance of Bolsonaro in the southeast is well illustrated in the races for the governments of the states that make up the region: in São Paulo, the Bolsonarist candidate Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) surpassed Haddad, of the PT, who led the polls, and both now go to the second return, also on the 30th; in Minas Gerais, the aforementioned Romeu Zema (Novo) and in Rio de Janeiro Cláudio Castro (PL), a declared ally of the current president, liquidated the first-round elections.
legislative conservatism
In the legislature, Bolsonaro and the right have a lot more to celebrate than Lula and the left. “We elected the largest banks in the House of Representatives and the Senate, which was our top priority at this time,” said the current president.
In the Chamber, his party, PL, was the most successful of the 23 making up the new assembly, electing 99 deputies, 23 more than in 2018 (Bolsonaro was a candidate for the PSL at the time). The registration is only the equivalent of 19.2% of the total of 513 parliamentarians, but if we count the whole right, the number rises to 273, more than half the parliament. Lula’s PT elected 79 deputies, three more than in 2018, but the left holds just 138 seats in total.
In the Senate, Bolsonaro managed to elect 14 allies, including his former deputy Hamilton Mourão and his former ministers Damares Alves and astronaut Marcos Pontes, among other allies such as gospel singer Magno Malta and former Ponta-de-Rio. . Of Lula’s eight elected allies, highlights include Omar Aziz, chairman of the pandemic’s CPI, and Flávio Dino, former governor of Maranhão who was even considered presidential.
In contrast, in state governments, 15 states elected their governors on Sunday and 12 decided to bring the dispute to the 30th, including the aforementioned state of São Paulo but also Bahia, the country’s fourth largest electoral college.
Source: DN
