In less than three months, presidential elections are coming up in Brazil. On October 2, around 148 million Brazilians who are eligible to vote will decide who should govern the divided country in the future. Everything points to a duel between the incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing challenger and ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – Lula for short.
But even before the official election campaign gets into the hot phase, President Bolsonaro seems to be pursuing a strategy that sounds familiar. Just like Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 US elections, he is also falling far behind his competitor in the polls. The right-wing populist of the Partido Liberal (PL) incites his supporters with false claims and targeted “us against you” attacks – and increasingly accepts violence. Like the former US President, he also uses every opportunity to warn against electoral fraud and cast doubt on the system.
These attacks are nothing new for the Brazilian President. For years he has questioned the security and reliability of the voting system. What caused a stir, however, was the audience Bolsonaro was addressing earlier in the week. On Monday, he summoned dozens of foreign diplomats to the presidential palace in the capital, Brasília, to explain to them his concerns about fraud using manipulated voting machines. “We cannot hold elections in the midst of distrust,” Bolsonaro trotted out in his speech – without citing any evidence of abnormalities.
Many of the diplomats present were shocked. In particular, the President’s proposal to involve the military more in order to ensure safe elections set off alarm bells, as two diplomats reported anonymously to the “New York Times”. Bolsonaro said in his presentation that he was constantly accused of wanting to instigate a “coup”. But he only raises questions “because we have time to solve the problem with the participation of the armed forces”. Both diplomats expressed concern that Bolsonaro could thus lay the foundation for doubting and contesting the outcome of the election in the event of a possible defeat.
Just last week, his defense minister, Paulo Sergio Nogueira, proposed holding a “parallel election” with paper ballots. The elections in Brazil have been held with voting machines since 1996, a system that is considered safe and reliable – but which is obviously a thorn in the side of the president. “We want to correct deficiencies, we want transparency, real democracy,” he said.
Clear words came from his competitor. “It’s a pity Brazil doesn’t have a president who invites 50 ambassadors to speak about things that interest the country,” Lula wrote on Twitter. “Employment, development or the fight against hunger, for example. Instead, he tells lies about our democracy.”
Similar to the USA, there is a tense political climate in Brazil. As a result of the corona pandemic, the country is suffering from a severe economic crisis and sharply rising inflation, which is being influenced by the war in Ukraine. As a result, the situation has drastically worsened for large parts of the population. Many people have lost confidence in politics, are frustrated by rampant corruption and long for a fresh start.
Ex-President Lula promises exactly that with his workers’ party Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). The 76-year-old – who in the meantime was in prison himself on charges of corruption – is now running for the sixth time. His goals are to reform the labor market, expand social assistance and bring environmental protection – especially in the Amazon region – back into focus. So he gets along well with people. According to a survey by the Datafolha institute published at the end of June, 47 percent of Brazilians would vote for Lula, while Bolsonaro would vote for 28 percent.
Nevertheless, the incumbent president can still rally large parts of the population behind him. Bolsonaro’s defense of “traditional values” and his focus on economic issues, especially the privatization of state-owned companies, appeal to rich, white men in particular. The fact that he doesn’t care about environmental protection is shown by his government’s bitter record, under which more forest has been cleared in the Amazon than ever before and the threat to indigenous people and environmentalists has increased massively.
Instead, he himself is heating up the polarized mood in the country with aggressive attacks on the left. And it has the support of Donald Trump and his allies, too, in the form of appearances at US Republican conferences and plenty of airtime from Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson.
The closer the election approaches, the greater the concern that violence will increase. Since Bolsonaro took office, threats, attacks and killings by politicians have increased significantly, according to a study by Unirio University in Rio de Janeiro. Accordingly, there were 214 cases of political violence in Brazil in the first half of 2022, in the first half of 2019 there were 47. “This violence is worrying, also because it is spurred on by the hate discourse, especially by President Bolsonaro,” study author Felipe Borba sums up Conversation with the German Press Agency.
Almost two weeks ago in Foz do Iguaçu, it became clear where hate speech and a polarized climate can lead in the worst case. At a birthday party for the treasurer of the Labor Party, a suspected Bolsonaro supporter opened fire on the left-wing politician, who fired back before he succumbed to his injuries. Although the police could not identify any political motive, for political scientist Borba the prospects are “anything but good”. “I expect the pre-election political violence to increase from now on,” he predicts.
Whether the polarized climate will play into Bolsonaro’s cards in October remains to be seen. In the end, it was of no use to its American role model. But one thing is clear, anyone who follows in Trump’s footsteps will hardly accept defeat in the election. “We could experience an even more serious incident than the storming of the Capitol on January 6,” warned recently Brazil’s Elections Officer Edson Fachin, and not without reason.
Sources: NY Times, Guardian, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Datafolha Study, with DPA and AFP material
