Tag: jair bolsonaro

Bolsonaro contests Brazil election, demands votes be anulled

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BRASILIA, Brazil — More than three weeks after losing a reelection bid, President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday blamed a software bug and demanded the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil’s nation’s electronic voting machines, though independent experts say the bug doesn’t affect the reliability of results.

Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes — and a reelection victory, Marcelo de Bessa, the lawyer who filed the 33-page request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party, told reporters.

The electoral authority has already declared victory for Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even many of the president’s allies have accepted the results. Protesters in cities across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, particularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.

Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa and an auditor hired by the party told reporters in Brasilia that their evaluation found all machines dating from before 2020 — nearly 280,000 of them, or about 59% of the total used in the Oct. 30 runoff — lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs.

Neither explained how that might have affected election results, but said they were asking the electoral authority to invalidate all votes cast on those machines.

The complaint characterized the bug as “irreparable non-compliance due to malfunction” that called into question the authenticity of the results.

Immediately afterward, the head of the electoral authority issued a ruling that implicitly raised the possibility that Bolsonaro’s own party could suffer from such a challenge.

Alexandre de Moraes said the court would not consider the complaint unless the party offers an amended report within 24 hours that would include results from the first electoral round on Oct. 2, in which the Liberal Party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other.

The bug hadn’t been known previously, yet experts said it also doesn’t affect results. Each voting machine can still be easily identified through other means, like its city and voting district, according to Wilson Ruggiero, a professor of computer engineering and digital systems at the Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo.

Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, who has participated in official security tests of Brazil’s electoral system, agreed.

“It does not undermine the reliability or credibility in any way,” Ruggiero told The Associated Press by phone. “The key point that guarantees correctness is the digital signature associated with each voting machine.”

While the machines don’t have individual identification numbers in their internal logs, those numbers do appear on printed receipts that show the sum of all votes cast for each candidate, said Aranha, adding the bug was only detected due to the efforts by the electoral authority to provide greater transparency.

Bolsonaro’s less than two-point loss to da Silva on Oct. 30 was the narrowest margin since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy. While the president hasn’t explicitly cried foul, he has refused to concede defeat or congratulate his opponent — leaving room for supporters to draw their own conclusions.

Many have been protesting relentlessly, making claims of election fraud and demanding that the armed forces intervene.

Dozens of Bolsonaro supporters gathered outside the news conference on Tuesday, decked out in the green and yellow of Brazil’s flag and chanting patriotic songs. Some verbally attacked and pushed journalists trying to enter the venue.

Bolsonaro spent more than a year claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting evidence.

Brazil began using an electronic voting system in 1996 and election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. But Brazil’s system has been closely scrutinized by domestic and international experts who have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.

The Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, said Tuesday afternoon that the election results are “unquestionable.”

Bolsonaro has been almost completely secluded in the official residence since his Oct. 30 defeat, inviting widespread speculation as to whether he is dejected or plotting to cling to power.

In an interview with newspaper O Globo, Vice President Hamilton Mourão chalked up Bolsonaro’s absence to erysipelas, a skin infection on his legs that he said prevents the president from wearing pants.

But his his son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a federal lawmaker, has been more direct.

“We always distrusted these machines. … We want a massive audit,” the younger Bolsonaro said last week at a conference in Mexico City. “There is very strong evidence to order an investigation of Brazil’s election.”

For its audit, the Liberal Party hired the Legal Vote Institute, a group that has been critical of the current system, saying it defies the law by failing to provide a digital record of every individual vote.

In a separate report presented earlier this month, the Brazilian military said there were flaws in the country’s electoral systems and proposed improvements, but didn’t substantiate claims of fraud from some of Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Analysts have suggested that the armed forces, which have been a key component of Bolsonaro’s administration, may have maintained a semblance of uncertainty over the issue to avoid displeasing the president. In a subsequent statement, the Defense Ministry stressed that while it had not found any evidence of fraud in the vote counting, it could not exclude that possibility.

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Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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November 22, 2022
Brazil will be climate leader, says ex-minister Marina Silva

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SHARM el-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and potential candidate for the job again, on Saturday brought a message to the U.N. climate summit: Brazil is back when it comes to protecting the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world and crucial to limiting global warming.

The recent election of leftist President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva represents a potentially huge shift in how Brazil manages the forest compared to current President Jair Bolsonaro. Da Silva was expected next week to attend the conference known as COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Silva said the fact that da Silva was coming to the summit, months before he assumes power Jan. 1, was an indication of the commitment of his administration to protect forests and take a leadership role on combating climate change. Da Silva was expected to meet with several heads of delegations.

“Brazil will return to the protagonist role it previously had when it comes to climate, to biodiversity,” said Silva, who spoke with reporters at the Brazilian Climate Hub.

Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018, pushed development of the Amazon, both in his actions and rhetoric. Environmental agencies were weakened and he appointed forest managers from the agribusiness sector. The sector opposes the creation of protected areas such as Indigenous territories and pushes for the legalization of land robbing. The deforested area in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high from August 2020 to July 2021, according to official figures. Satellite monitoring shows the trend this year is on track to surpass last year.

Upon winning the October elections, da Silva, president between 2003 and 2010, promised to overhaul Bolsonaro’s policies and move toward completely stopping deforestation, referred to as “Deforestation Zero.”

That will be a huge task. While much of the world celebrates policies that protect the rainforest in Brazil and other countries in South America, there are myriad forces pushing for development, including among many Amazon dwellers. And Da Silva, while much more focused on environmental protection compared to Bolsonaro, had a mixed record as president. Deforestation dropped dramatically during the decade after Da Silva took power, with Marina Silva as environment minister. But in his second term, Da Silva began catering to agribusiness interests, and in 2008 Marina Silva resigned.

In recent weeks, news reports in Brazil have focused on a possible alliance between Brazil, the Congo and Indonesia, home to the largest tropical forests in the world. Given the moniker “OPEC of the Forests,” in reference to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the way they regulate oil production, the general idea would be for these three countries to coordinate their negotiating positions and practices on forest management and biodiversity protection. The proposal was initially floated during last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, according to the reports.

When asked for details on any alliance, including whether it might be announced during the second week of the summit, Silva demurred, making clear that any such announcement wasn’t hers to make.

“We don’t want to be isolated in our protection of forests,” she said more generally, adding that Brazil wanted forest management to be coordinated among “mega forest countries” but wouldn’t try to impose its will.

Silva won a seat in Congress in October’s elections. A former childhood rubber-tapper who worked closely with murdered environmentalist Chico Mendes, she has moral authority when it comes to environmental issues and is one of a handful of people talked about as a possible minister in da Silva’s government.

While making clear she was not speaking for the president-elect, Silva shared details of what she thought would be part of the next administration. She said Brazil would not take the position that it “had to be paid” to protect its forests, a position that Bolsonaro’s administration has taken.

Brazil would not focus on the kinds of large energy projects that it did during da Silva’s first terms, like a major hydropower dam, but instead would focus on a shift to renewable energies like solar. Along the same lines, she said there would be a push to transition state oil company Petrobras from a focus on oil to a focus on renewable energies.

“We need to use those (oil) resources, which are still needed, to do a transition to other forms of energy and not perpetuate the model” of a company focus on oil, she said.

Silva said Brazil would participate in carbon offsets markets, but that they needed to have “rigorous” oversight, something that arguably isn’t the case currently. Such carbon credits allow companies and countries to offset some of their carbon emissions by paying for activities that capture carbon, like planting trees.

Silva also said she had proposed a government body to focus on climate change, which presumably would be in addition to the environmental ministry. She said the idea would be to have close regulation of climatic changes so things could be addressed in real time, such as greenhouse gas leaks, or weaknesses in climate policy. She made a comparison to the way that governments always keep a close watch on inflation.

“The idea is to avoid climate inflation,” she said.

____

Associated Press writer Diane Jeantet contributed to this story from Rio de Janeiro.

____

Peter Prengaman, the AP’s climate and environment news director, was Brazil news director between 2016 and 2019. Follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/peterprengaman

____

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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November 12, 2022
Musk’s partisan tweets call into question Twitter neutrality

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Elon Musk used his Twitter megaphone to appeal to “independent-minded voters” on Monday, urging them to vote Republican in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. In doing so, the new CEO of Twitter stepped into a political debate that tech company executives have largely tried to stay out of — so their platforms wouldn’t be seen as favoring one side over the other.

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, has expressed political views in the past, on and off the platform. But a direct endorsement of one party over another now that he owns the platform raises questions about Twitter’s ability to remain neutral under the rule of the world’s richest man.

“Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Musk tweeted.

To independent-minded voters:

Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

It’s one thing for the CEO of Wendy’s or Chick-fil-A to endorse a political party, said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University who studies social media and politics. It’s a whole other thing, though, for the owner of one of the world’s most high-profile information ecosystems to do so.

“These social media platforms are not just companies. It’s not just a business. It is also our digital public sphere. It’s our town square,” Stromer-Galley said. “And it feels like the public sphere is increasingly privatized and owned by these companies — and when the heads of these companies put their finger on the scale — it feels like it’s potentially skewing our democracy in harmful ways.”

Musk’s comments come as he seeks to remake the company and amid widespread concern that recent mass layoffs at the social media platform could leave the company unable to deal with hate speech, misinformation that could impact voter safety and security and actors who seek to cast doubt on the legitimate winners of elections. Though Musk has vowed not to let Twitter become a “free-for-all hellscape,” advertisers have left the platform and Musk himself has amplified misinformation.

Musk on Sunday tweeted and deleted a link to an article pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi. The tweet from Musk, posted just three days after he took charge of the platform, raised concerns about the type of content that will be allowed on the social media site under his control.

It’s not a secret that when it comes to tech workers and executives, the political mix tends to favor the left, with a good amount of Silicon Valley libertarianism thrown in. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for instance has donated to candidates on both sides of the political spectrum, but in recent years he’s veered more toward Democrats. Publicly he’s stayed away from pledging allegiance to either party.

But in their platform policies and content moderation, tech companies such as Facebook (now Meta), Google and even Twitter have taken great pains to appear politically neutral, even as they are routinely criticized — largely by conservatives but also by liberals — for favoring one side over the other.

“Now, you might say, look, Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News and that’s his voice amplified,” said Charles Anthony Smith, a professor of political science and law at The University of California at Irvine. “But the difference is that gets filtered through a variety of different script writers and on-air personalities and all this other sort of stuff. So it’s not really Rupert Murdoch. It may be people that agree with him on things, but it’s filtered through other voices. This is an unadulterated direct contact. So it’s an amplification that is unrivaled.”

Global feathers rustled

Musk’s tweets could also stir up trouble in global politics outside of the U.S. elections. On Sunday, the billionaire signaled willingness to explore reversing decisions blocking some accounts of Brazilian right-wing lawmakers. The nation’s electoral court last week ordered their suspension. All are supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who on October 30 lost his reelection bid by a narrow margin to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Most had aired claims of election fraud.

Paulo Figueiredo Filho, a political analyst who often defends Bolsonaro on social media and is also the grandson of the military dictatorship’s final president, tweeted that Twitter has become a strict and spontaneous censor.

“Your moderators are currently being more dictatorial than our own courts!” Figueiredo wrote.

Musk responded: “I will look into this.”

The suspended accounts include that of Nikolas Ferreira, who garnered more votes in the October race than any other candidate for a seat in the Lower House. According to orders issued by the electoral authority, Ferreira’s account and most others were blocked for sharing a live video from an Argentinian digital influencer questioning the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting system. The video was largely shared by allies of Bolsonaro, who himself has often claimed the system is susceptible to fraud, without presenting any evidence.

“Upsetting the far right and the far left equally”

Twitter’s policies, as of Monday, prohibit “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.”

In a tweet just two days after he agreed to buy Twitter in April, Musk said that for “Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

And to attract the largest possible number of advertisers and users, Big Tech has tried to go this route, with varying degrees of success. For years, it managed to succeed. But the 2016 U.S. presidential elections changed online discourse, fueling the country’s increased political polarization.

In early 2016, a tech blog quoted an anonymous former Facebook contractor who said the site downplayed news that conservatives are interested in and artificially boosted liberal issues such as the “BlackLivesMatter” hashtag. The blog did not name the person, and no evidence was provided for their claim.

But in the explosive political climate that preceded the election of former President Donald Trump, the claim quickly took a life of its own. There was plenty of media coverage, as well as as inquiries from GOP lawmakers, then, later, congressional hearings on the matter. In the years since, as social media companies began to crack down on far-right accounts and conspiracy theories such as QAnon, some conservatives have come to see it as evidence of the platforms’ bias.

Krebs says Twitter turmoil creating “a very chaotic environment” for midterms

07:14

Musk himself is at least listening to such claims, and he’s repeatedly engaged with figures on the right and far-right who would like to see a loosening of Twitter’s misinformation and hate-speech policies.

Evidence suggests those voices are already being heard. In an October study, for instance, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that “Twitter gives greater visibility to politically conservative news than it does content with a liberal bent.”

Musk’s tweet garnered hundreds of thousands of likes and many retweets Monday on the day before the final votes are cast in thousands of races around the country. But in replies and retweets, many prominent (and not so prominent) Twitter personalities expressed criticism for the Tesla CEO — often poking fun at him. For Smith, that’s a sign Musk may not quite be a billionaire political kingmaker that some of his peers, like venture capitalist Peter Thiel, are aspiring to be.

“I wonder if we’re we’re having the emergence of a new type of billionaire, the ones who want to decide what happens and get credit for deciding what happens,” Smith said. “So this more like an oligarchy approach than the old school billionaires who would drop lots of money but then they didn’t want anybody to know their names.”

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November 8, 2022
Populists vs. the planet: How climate became the new culture war front line

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Delegates landing in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for U.N. climate talks this week are a global elite bent on tearing down national borders, stripping away individual freedoms and condemning working people to a life of poverty.

That dark view is held by a range of far-right or populist parties — among them Donald Trump’s Republicans, who are seeking to retake control in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. Some of these radicals are rampaging through elections in Europe while others, such as Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro last week, have been defeated only narrowly.

Republican and Trump acolyte Lauren Boebert derides the environmentalist agenda as “America last;” Britain’s Brexit-backing Home Secretary Suella Braverman says the country is in thrall to a “tofu-eating wokerati;” and in Spain, senior figures in the far-right Vox party dismiss the U.N.’s climate agenda as “cultural Marxism.”

Right-wingers of various strains around the world have co-opted climate change into their culture war. The fact this is happening in countries that produce a large share of global greenhouse gas emissions has alarmed some green advocates.

“Reactionary populism is now the biggest obstacle to tackling climate change,” wrote three climate leaders, including Brazil’s former Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, in a recent commentary.

In the U.S., Republicans are eyeing a return to power in one or both houses of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Many at the COP27 talks will be reliving the first week of the U.N. climate conference in Morocco six years ago when Trump’s election struck the climate movement like a hurricane.

A Republican surge would gnaw at the fragile confidence that has built around global climate efforts since President Joe Biden’s election, raising the specter of a second Trump term and perhaps the withdrawal — again — of the U.S. from the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal.

“I don’t want to think about that,” said Teixeira’s co-author Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat who led the design of the Paris Agreement and who now leads the European Climate Foundation.

Some on the American right are pushing a more conciliatory message than others. “Republicans have solutions to reduce world emissions while providing affordable, reliable, and clean energy to our allies across the globe,” said Utah Congressman John Curtis, who will lead a delegation from his party to COP27.

Tubiana and others in the environmental movement are trying to put on a brave face. They argue Republicans won’t want to tamper too much with Biden’s behemoth Inflation Reduction Act, which contains measures to promote clean energy.

“You might see railing against it, and I’m sure there’ll be lots of political talk and rhetoric, but I don’t expect that would be a focus for the Republicans,” said Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a green NGO based in Arlington, Virginia. Nevertheless, if Republicans take both houses, “we certainly won’t make any progress,” Keohane said.

Trump’s first term and the presidency of Brazil’s Bolsonaro — which ended in a narrow defeat in last month’s election — now look like the opening skirmishes in a struggle in which the planet’s stability is at stake.

In parts of Europe, the right present their policies as sympathetic to the risks of climate change while dismissing internationally sanctioned action as sinister elitism that threatens their voters’ prosperity.

“The Sweden Democrats are not climate deniers, whatever that means,” Swedish far-right leader Jimmie Åkesson told a crowd days before a September election that saw his party win big. But Sweden’s current climate plans, Åkesson said, were “100 percent symbolic” rather than meaningful. “All that leads to is that we get poorer, that our lives get worse.”

This is the gibbet on which the far right are hanging environmentalism: depicting them as the witting or unwitting cavalry of global elites.

“We consider it to be a globalist movement that intends to end all borders, intends to end our freedom, intends to end our freedom for our identities,” Javier Cortés, president of the Seville chapter of Spain’s far-right Vox party, said in an interview with POLITICO. “We are not in favor of CO2 emissions. On the contrary, we want to respect the environment. All we are saying is that the European Union has to clarify that it wants to sell us a climate religion in which we cannot emit CO2, while we make our industries disappear from Europe and we need to buy from China.”

To describe this as climate denial — a common but often inaccurate charge — would be to miss the point that this is now just another front in the culture wars.

Online disinformation about the last U.N. climate talks was largely focused on the hypocrisy and elitism of those attending, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The main spreaders weren’t websites and figures traditionally associated with climate denial, but culture war celebrities such as psychologist Jordan Peterson, Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant and Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.

Populist attacks on globalism “rely on a well-funded transnational network,” said Tubiana. “It warrants serious scrutiny.”

But while economic interests may be powering parts of the movement, there is also a sense of political opportunism at work. Huge changes to the economy will be needed to lower emissions at the speed dictated by U.N.-brokered global climate goals. There will be winners and losers — and the losers may gravitate toward populists pledging to take up their cause.

“Far-right organizations are recognizing this as a potentially lucrative topic that they can win votes or support on,” said Balsa Lubarda, head of the ideology research unit at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.

Loving the losers

The far right’s focus on the losers has been “turbo charged” by the energy crisis, said Jennie King, head of civic action and education at ISD, which populists have wrongly argued is the fault of green policy. The European Parliament’s coalition of far-right parties has grown and capitalized on the energy crisis by joining with center-right parties to vote down environmental legislation.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson — newly elected with Åkesson’s support — aims to dilute the country’s ambitions for cutting some greenhouse gas emissions, a move center-right Liberal Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari justified in familiar terms: “That is a reaction to the reality people are facing.” And in Britain, Brexit leader Nigel Farage retooled his campaign to become an anti-net zero mouthpiece.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says she wants to reclaim environmentalism for the right | Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

Strains of right-wing ecology may also mean that not all groups are actively hostile to the climate agenda, said Lubarda. Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a huge fan of the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, which center on the Shire, an idealized bucolic homeland. Meloni says she wants to reclaim environmentalism for the right, but the protection of national economic interests still comes first.

“There is no more convinced ecologist than a conservative, but what distinguishes us from a certain ideological environmentalism is that we want to defend nature with man inside,” she said in her inaugural speech to parliament last month.

While Meloni has announced that she will attend COP27, she has also renamed the Ministry for the Ecological Transition the Ministry for Environment and Energy Security. The governing program of her Brothers of Italy party includes a section on climate change, but it strongly emphasizes the need to protect industry.

It’s this broad sense of demotion and delay that alarms those who are watching these ideas grow in stature among populists on the right. They say that while it may not sound like climate denial, the result is effectively the same.

“You can say that you are climate friends,” said Belgian Socialist MEP Marie Arena. “But in the act, you are not at all. You are business friends first.”

Jacopo Barragazzi, Charlie Duxbury and Zack Colman contributed to this report.

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November 6, 2022
With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, many feared a narrow result would be contested and spell the death knell for Latin America’s largest democracy.

So far, however, the worst fears have been averted, despite a nail-biting victory for former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, and ongoing protests by some of Bolsonaro’s supporters across the country.

The conservative leader’s allies quickly recognized da Silva’s victory, the military stayed in the barracks and vigilant world leaders swooped in to offer support for da Silva and nip in the bud even the thought of anything resembling the Jan. 6 insurrection that overtook the U.S. Capitol.

“All of Bolsonaro’s escape valves were shut off,” said Brian Winter, a longtime Brazil expert and vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “He was prevailed upon from all sides not to contest the results and burn down the house on his way out.”

Although Bolsonaro has refused to congratulate da Silva, Brazil’s institutions generally seem to have held up.

Bolsonaro gave a video statement Wednesday calling for an end to the protests by his supporters. “I know you’re upset. I’m just as sad and upset as you are. But we have to keep our heads straight,” he said. “Closing roads in Brazil jeopardizes people’s right to come and go.”

That leaves a more vexing challenge: how the 77-year-old da Silva, universally known as Lula, unites a deeply divided country, rights a wobbly economy and delivers on the outsize expectations spurred by his return to power.

One thing is clear, if anyone can do it, it’s the charismatic da Silva — whose political skills are admired even by his detractors.

“That’s what we need, someone not only who can address inequality but also inspire our emotions and ideas,” said Marcelo Neri, director of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s social policy center and a former Strategic Affairs Minister for da Silva’s handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

In many ways, the conservative movement Bolsonaro helped ignite — if not the politician himself — has emerged stronger from the vote, Winter said. His allies were elected as governors in several key states and his Liberal Party has become the largest in Congress, curtailing da Silva’s ability to advance his own agenda after a decadelong malaise that has left millions of Brazilians hungrier than when da Silva last held office in 2010.

What’s more, Brazil’s demographics seem to favor Bolsonaro’s aggressive brand of identity politics — including an anti-LGBTQ agenda and hostility to environmentalists — that have earned him the moniker the “Trump of the Tropics.”

The country’s own statistics institute forecasts that the number of Brazilians identifying as evangelical Christians — who preelection polls show overwhelmingly favored Bolsonaro and skew right — will overtake Roman Catholics within a decade.

Thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters thronged a regional army headquarters in Rio on Wednesday, demanding that the military step in and keep him in power. Others showed up at military installations in Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina and the capital of Brasilia. Meanwhile, truckers maintained about 150 roadblocks across the country to protest Bolsonaro’s loss, despite the Supreme Court’s orders to law enforcement to dismantle them.

At one of the road blockades held by truck drivers in the interior of Sao Paulo state, a car drove into the crowd and injured several, including children and members of the police.

Since the return of democracy in the 1980s, all Brazilian leaders have been guided to varying degrees by a common belief in strong state-led enterprises, high taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution policies.

Bolsonaro initially attempted to run a more austere, business-friendly government, that is, until the social devastation wreaked by COVID-19 and his own sinking electoral prospects ultimately led him to loosen spending controls and emulate the policies he once attacked.

How da Silva will govern is less clear. He squeaked out a narrow victory of barely 2 million votes after building a broad coalition united by little more than a desire to defeat Bolsonaro. And with promises to maintain a generous welfare program in place through 2023, he will have limited fiscal space to spend on other priorities.

His running mate from another party, former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckim, was a nod to centrist, fiscally conservative policies that made da Silva the darling of Wall Street during his early years in power. This week, da Silva tapped Alckim to lead his transition team.

Also standing alongside him on the victory stage Sunday night, however, were several stalwarts of the left who have been implicated in numerous corruption scandals that have plagued his Workers’ Party and paved the way for Bolsonaro’s rise.

Although da Silva’s supporters have downplayed the concerns about corruption — the Supreme Court annulled the convictions that kept him imprisoned for nearly two years — for many Brazilians he is a symbol of the culture of graft that has long permeated politics. As a result, he’s likely to be held to a higher ethical standard in a country where almost every government has been accused of vote buying in Congress.

“This wasn’t just a fever dream by his opponents,” Winter said of the corruption allegations that have long dogged da Silva’s party.

Da Silva’s victory coincides with a string of recent victories by the left in South America, including in Chile and Colombia, whose leaders revere the former union boss. During his first stint in power, da Silva led a so-called pink wave that promoted regional integration, rivaled U.S. dominance and put the rights of overlooked minorities and Indigenous groups at the center of the political agenda.

Under Bolsonaro, Brazil largely retreated from that leadership role, even if the sheer size of its economy alone means a return to leadership is never far off.

Scott Hamilton, a former U.S. diplomat, said that da Silva will have to make a tough choice on whether to use Brazil’s considerable leverage to pursue an ambitious foreign policy to tackle entrenched problems or simply use his star power on the world stage to shore up support at home.

“Basking in not being Bolsonaro will get him lots of positive attention in itself,” said Hamilton, whose last post, until April, was as consul general in Rio. “The more ambitious path would involve trying to help resolve some of the toughest political issues where democratic governments in the region are in trouble or extinguished.”

___

Goodman reported from Miami.

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November 3, 2022
Bolsonaro Privately Admits Brazil’s Election ‘Over’—But Still Hasn’t Conceded

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told the country’s Supreme Court in a private meeting on Wednesday the election is “over,” multiple outlets reported—the closest the right-wing president has come to admitting defeat, amid speculation that Bolsonaro, who repeatedly cast doubt on election integrity, could fight its results.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reportedly told the country’s Supreme Court the election is over, … [+] although he has not publicly conceded.

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Key Facts

Luiz Edson Fachin, a justice on Brazil’s Supreme Court, said in a video broadcast with local outlets that Bolsonaro privately told him the election is over, “so let’s look ahead.”

Bolsonaro’s comments come two days after the one-term president was narrowly defeated by left-wing challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 50.9% to 49.1% in a high-profile presidential election, following months of baseless claims from Bolsonaro and his right-wing Liberal Party that the election would likely be mired in fraud and that election officials could easily tamper with voting machines.

Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters have taken to nationwide protests following the results of the elections on Sunday, with a group of truckers blocking Brazil’s highways at 271 points and some of his most vocal supporters calling on the military to keep him in office.

Most of his political allies, however, have pushed him to recognize his defeat, while his administration reportedly signaled it will proceed with the transition of power to Lula, with Vice President Hamilton Mourão admitting in an interview with Brazilian outlet O Globo, “we lost the game.”

In a speech on Tuesday, Bolsonaro said he has “always played within the four lines of the constitution”—although he stopped short of publicly conceding, and called the highway protests a response to “indignation and a sense of injustice.”

Key Background

Bolsonaro, nicknamed the “Trump of the Tropics,” has spewed baseless conspiracies that the elections would be tampered with for months leading up to Sunday’s election. In September, members of his party shared a document supporting the unsubstantiated claim that government employees have the “absolute power” to change the results of an election “without leaving a trace.” The country’s electoral authority denied the allegations as “false and untrue,” with no “support in reality.” Bolsonaro’s son echoed those fears last week, saying his father was the victim of the “greatest election fraud ever seen.”

Tangent

Bolsonaro, a key ally of former President Donald Trump, pulled a play out of Trump’s playbook to spread doubt around election fraud before voting took place. Bolsonaro, however, has not claimed the election was stolen from him, as Trump did after the 2020 election—a claim that led to the January 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill, with rioters aiming to disrupt the congressional approval process of the election results. Before the election on Sunday, Trump said “don’t let the Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs destroy Brazil like they have so many other countries.”

News Peg

Lula, in a victory speech on Sunday, called the result a “victory of a democratic movement,” while world leaders congratulated him, with President Joe Biden calling the elections “free, fair and credible.” Lula, 77, previously served as Brazil’s president from 2003-2010, but had his 2018 hopes of running again stymied after he was jailed on corruption charges—which were overturned by the Supreme Court last year, after he served 19 months in jail. He has run on a platform of reducing deforestation in the Amazon that was accelerated by Bolsonaro, and of lifting the country’s economic spending cap, in a move aimed at promoting economic growth.

Further Reading

Brazil Election: Left-Wing Lula Narrowly Beats Bolsonaro To Return To Presidency (Forbes)

Bolsonaro Won’t Contest Election Defeat To Lula, Minister Says, Amid Growing Tensions (Forbes)

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Brian Bushard, Forbes Staff

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November 2, 2022
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not concede election in 1st public speech since results released 2 days ago

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not concede election in 1st public speech since results released 2 days ago

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November 1, 2022
Lula victory spurs hope for Amazon, fight against climate crisis

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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s presidential election victory in Brazil has spurred renewed hope for the future of the world’s largest rainforest, as the left-wing leader pledged to combat the climate crisis and reverse some of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro’s policies.

Shortly after being declared the winner on Sunday evening, Da Silva, better known as Lula, said “Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis,” especially by protecting the Amazon rainforest.

“In our government, we were able to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80 percent. Now, let’s fight for zero deforestation,” Lula, who previously served as president from 2003 to 2010, wrote on Twitter.

Brazil’s president-elect had campaigned on a promise to protect the Amazon, which is critical to the global fight against climate change and has seen years of increased destruction under Bolsonaro’s administration.

The far-right former army captain had pushed for more mining and other development projects in the Amazon, saying they would stimulate the economy.

But rights groups had accused Bolsonaro of gutting Brazil’s environmental and Indigenous protection agencies, leading to an uptick in deforestation and violence across the sprawling Amazon region.

Greenpeace Brazil on Monday called on Lula to follow through on his campaign promises and rebuild the government agencies tasked with protecting the environment, among other measures it deemed “urgent”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also urged Lula to put human rights at the centre of his incoming government’s policies, including by strengthening “law enforcement to fight the destruction of the Amazon, and threats and attacks against forest defenders”.

Indigenous leaders had for years raised alarm over the threats their communities face in the South American nation, particularly in areas with little government oversight that farmers, miners, poachers and others are seeking to control and exploit.

Brazil is home to more than 800,000 Indigenous people from over 300 distinct groups, according to data from the last census in 2010 cited by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) rights group.

The Indigenous Missionary Council recorded 305 cases of “possessory invasions, illegal exploitation of resources and damage to property” on Indigenous territories last year, affecting 226 Indigenous lands in 22 Brazilian states. That was up from 109 such incidents in 2018, the year before Bolsonaro took office – a 180 percent increase.

Andrea Carvalho, a senior research assistant at HRW in Brazil, told Al Jazeera earlier this year that the escalation of attacks on Indigenous people and their lands “is driven by disastrous policies related to the protection of the environment and Indigenous rights”.

Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate website, said in a report last month that a Lula election victory could see deforestation drop by 89 percent in the Brazilian Amazon over the next decade – avoiding the destruction of approximately 75,960 square kilometres (29,328 square miles) of rainforest by 2030.

Lula could face tough political opposition in areas where Amazon deforestation is happening, however, while he also must deal with the difficulty of policing vast areas.

Bolsonaro had been backed by major business interests, including loggers, miners and other groups exploiting Brazil’s natural resources, throughout his administration as well as in this year’s elections.

“Agribusiness has been clearly adopting an anti-Lula stance,” Roberto Ramos, a social sciences professor at Roraima Federal University, told the Reuters news agency.

On Monday, truckers and other protesters blocked highways in several Brazilian states in an apparent protest over Bolsonaro’s election defeat.

Burning tyres, as well as vehicles such as trucks, cars and vans were blocking several points in the central-western agricultural state of Mato Grosso, which largely supports Bolsonaro, reported the company that manages the highway in the state.

Road blockages were also seen in at least five other states, including Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, according to local media.

Oliver Stuenkel, a professor of international relations, told Al Jazeera that Lula – who won by a razor-thin margin of 50.9 percent support to Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent on Sunday – will need to work hard on reconciliation given how polarised Brazil has become.

“Basically 50 percent of Brazilians are very afraid his return to power. This is a very polarised country, it’s a frustrated country,” said Stuenkel, from the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Sao Paulo. “I think it’s a volatile moment now, and Lula will have to choose his words very carefully.”

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October 31, 2022
Brazil’s Bolsonaro offers no concession as leftist Lula declared presidential election winner

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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former president and president-elect, center, addresses supporters after winning the runoff presidential election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 30, 2022.

Tuane Fernandes/Bloomberg/Getty

Sao Paulo — Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for “peace and unity” after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election Sunday, capping a remarkable political comeback by defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who has yet to accept defeat.

The victory marks a stunning turnaround for the charismatic but tarnished leftist heavyweight, who left office in 2010 as the most popular president in Brazilian history, fell into disgrace when he was imprisoned for 18 months on controversial, since-quashed corruption charges, and now returns for an unprecedented third term at age 77.

All eyes will now be on how Bolsonaro and his supporters react to the result after months of alleging — without evidence — that Brazil’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and that the courts, media and other institutions had conspired against his far-right movement.

“This country needs peace and unity,” Lula said to loud cheers in a victory speech in Sao Paulo.

“The challenge is immense,” he said of the job ahead, citing a hunger crisis, the economy, bitter political division, and deforestation in the Amazon.

He later addressed a tightly packed crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who flooded the city center clad in Workers’ Party red, vowing: “democracy is back.”

Bolsonaro, 67, was silent in the hours after the result was declared.

Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro of Liberal Party (PL) casts his vote at Vila Militar district on October 30, 2022 in Brasilia, Brazil.

BRUNA PRADO / Getty Images

“Anywhere in the world, the losing president would already have called to admit defeat. He hasn’t called yet, I don’t know if he will call and concede,” Lula told the massive crowd.

Some Bolsonaro supporters, gathered in the capital Brasilia, refused to accept the results.

“The Brazilian people aren’t going to swallow a faked election and hand our nation over to a thief,” said 50-year-old teacher Ruth da Silva Barbosa.

Electoral officials declared the election for Lula, who had 50.9 percent of the vote to 49.1 percent for Bolsonaro with more than 99.9 percent of polling stations reporting, in the closest race since Brazil returned to democracy after its 1964-1985 dictatorship.

Bolsonaro, the vitriolic hardline conservative dubbed the “Tropical Trump,” becomes the first incumbent president not to win re-election in the post-dictatorship era.

With no word from Bolsonaro, some of his key allies appeared in public to accept the results. They included the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Arthur Lira, who said it was time to “extend a hand to our adversaries, debate, build bridges.”

I send my congratulations to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections. I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead.

— President Biden (@POTUS) October 31, 2022

Congratulations for Lula poured in from U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as the French, British and other European leaders, and from the Russian and Chinese governments. Leaders from across Latin America also offered their congratulations.

Lula supporters around the country erupted into celebration Sunday evening.

“We’ve had four years of a genocidal, hateful government,” said Lula voter Maria Clara, a 26-year-old student, at a victory party in downtown Rio.

“Today democracy won, and the possibility of dreaming of a better country again.”

In Brasilia, the tearful crowd of Bolsonaro supporters — outfitted in green and yellow, the colors of Brazil’s flag which the ex-army captain has adopted as his own — fell to their knees to pray.

Bolsonaro surged to victory four years ago on a wave of outrage with politics as usual, but came under fire for his disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic — which left more than 680,000 dead in Brazil — as well as a weak economy, his polarizing style and attacks on democratic institutions.

Brazil struggles to combat coronavirus infections

02:36

Regardless of how the incumbent reacts, Lula will face huge challenges when he is inaugurated on January 1.

Bolsonaro’s far-right allies scored big victories in legislative and governors’ races in the first-round election on October 2, and will be the largest force in Congress.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro’s former infrastructure minister Tarcisio de Freitas clinched the governorship of Sao Paulo, the most populous and the wealthiest state in the country.

In his victory speech, Lula touched on gender and racial equality and the urgent need to deal with a hunger crisis affecting 33.1 million Brazilians.

“Today we tell the world that Brazil is back,” he said, adding that the country is “ready to reclaim its place in the fight against the climate crisis, especially the Amazon.”

He vowed to “fight for zero deforestation.”

Lula inherits a deeply divided country, with a hugely difficult global economic situation that looks nothing like the commodities “super-cycle” that allowed him to lead Latin America’s biggest economy through a watershed boom in the 2000s.

Lula’s win is “one of the biggest comebacks in modern political history,” tweeted Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.

But the president-elect will face a hostile Congress and have “a weak government,” Winter told AFP.

None of that mattered for the time being to elated Lula supporters.

“Brazil is starting to stand upright again after four years of darkness. We were going through so many problems, so much fear,” Larissa Meneses, a 34-year-old software developer, told AFP at a joyful victory party in Sao Paulo.

“Now with Lula’s victory, I really believe things will start getting better. This is a day to laugh a lot.”

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October 31, 2022
Left-Wing Leader Lula Narrowly Beats Bolsonaro In Brazil’s Presidential Election

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Topline

Leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential elections by a slim margin of less than two points on Sunday, a result which is yet to be accepted by the far-right leader who has previously made unproven allegations of electoral fraud.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva embraces his wife Rosangela, after defeating … [+] incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a presidential run-off to become the country’s next president, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Key Facts

With all votes counted, da Silva—widely known as Lula—secured 50.9% of the votes compared to Bolsonaro’s 49.1%, winning by a margin of around 2 million votes.

In his victory speech delivered in Sao Paulo, Lula called the result a “victory of a democratic movement,” as he vowed to govern for all Brazilians “not just for those who voted for me.”

Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about election fraud and voting machine manipulation had not officially conceded defeat at the time of publishing.

According to Reuters, Bolsonaro is not expected to make any public remarks about results until Monday morning.

President Joe Biden joined several other world leaders to congratulate Lula for his victory following “free, fair, and credible elections” adding that he looked forward to building cooperation between the U.S. and Brazil.

Surprising Fact

Bolsonaro is the first president to not win reelection since the reinstatement of democracy in Brazil in 1985.

Key Background

Lula’s win caps off a spectacular comeback for the 77-year-old leftist leader who was unable to run against Bolsonaro in 2018 after being jailed on corruption charges. After spending 19 months in jail Lula’s conviction was overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court. Lula previously served as Brazil’s President from 2003 to 2010 during which he oversaw a massive economic boom and helped build Brazil’s social welfare system. Like his previous stint in the 2000s, Lula’s victory coincided with a series of other left-wing victories across Latin America dubbed as the “pink tide.” In the past few years, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Peru have also elected left-wing leaders to the nation’s top office.

News Peg

In the lead up to one of the most divisive elections in the region, Bolsonaro pulled a page from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s playbook by preemptively questioning the integrity of the elections during his campaign. Without any evidence, the far-right leader has repeatedly claimed that the country’s electronic voting machines could be easily manipulated to alter the results. Last week, Bolsonaro’s son said his father was the victim of “the greatest electoral fraud ever seen” fanning further fears that he may question the outcome if he loses. Despite raising concerns about a blockade by Brazil’s Federal Highway Police which may have impeded Lula’s voters earlier on Sunday, international election observers were satisfied by the integrity of the elections.

Further Reading

Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil’s president (Associated Press)

Brazil Ejects Bolsonaro and Brings Back Former Leftist Leader Lula (New York Times)

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Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

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October 30, 2022
Lula da Silva will return to Brazil’s presidency in stunning comeback | CNN

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Sao Paulo
CNN
—

Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva has been elected the next president of Brazil, in a stunning comeback following a tight run-off race on Sunday. His victory heralds a political about-face for Latin America’s largest country, after four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.

The 76-year-old politician’s win represents the return of the left into power in Brazil, and concludes a triumphant personal comeback for Lula da Silva, after a series of corruption allegations lead to his imprisonment for 580 days. The sentences were later annulled by the Supreme Court, clearing his path to run for reelection.

“They tried to bury me alive and I’m here,” he said in a jubilant speech to supporters and journalists on Sunday evening, describing the win as his political “resurrection.”

“Starting on January 1, 2023, I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, not just the ones who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation,” Lula da Silva also said.

He will take the reins of a country plagued by gross inequality that is still struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Approximately 9.6 million people fell under the poverty line between 2019 and 2021, and literacy and school attendance rates have fallen. He will also be faced with a deeply fractured nation and urgent environmental issues, including rampant deforestation in the Amazon.

This will be his third term, after previously governing Brazil for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010.

The former leader’s victory on Sunday was the latest in a political wave across Latin America, with wins by left-leaning politicians in Argentina, Colombia and Chile. But Lula da Silva – a former union leader with a blue-collar background – has sought to reassure moderates throughout his campaign.

He has built a broad alliance including several politicians from the center and center-right, including historical opponents from the PSDB, Brazil’s Social Democrat Party. Among these politicians is his vice-president, former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, who has been cited by the Lula camp as a guarantee of moderation in his administration.

On the campaign trail, Lula da Silva has been reluctant to show his cards when it came to outlining an economic strategy – a tendency that earned sharp criticism from his competitors. “Who is the other candidate’s economy minister? There isn’t one, he doesn’t say. What will be his political and economic route? More state? Less state? We don’t know…,” said Bolsonaro during a live transmission on YouTube on October 22.

Lula da Silva has said that he would push Congress to approve a tax reform which would exempt low-earners from paying income tax. And his campaign received a boost from centrist former presidential candidate Simone Tebet, who came third in the first round earlier this month and gave Lula da Silva her support in the run-off. Known for her ties with Brazil’s agricultural industry, Tebet said in an October 7 press conference that Lula da Silva and his economic team had “received and incorporated all the suggestions from our program to his government’s program.”

He has also received the support of several renowned economists highly regarded by investors, including Arminio Fraga, a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank.

Lula da Silva received more than 60 million votes, the most in Brazilian history, breaking his own record from 2006.

But despite the huge turnout from his supporters, his victory was by a narrow margin – Lula da Silva won 50.90% of the vote and Bolsonaro received 49.10%, according to Brazil’s electoral authority.

His biggest challenge now may be unifying a politically fractured country.

Hours after the results were announced, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat or make any public statement. Meanwhile, videos on social media showed his supporters had blocked highways in two states to protest against Lula da Silva’s victory.

“We will only leave once the army takes over the country,” one unidentified Bolsonaro supporter said in a video taken in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Lula da Silva will need to pursue dialogue and rebuild relationships, said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a university in São Paulo. “The president can be an important instrument for this as long as he is not only concerned in addressing his base of voters,” he said.

With more than 58 million votes cast for his rival Bolsonaro – who had been endorsed by former US President Donald Trump – Lula da Silva will have to form “pragmatic alliances” with parts of the center and the right that bought into his predecessor’s politics, adds Thiago Amparo, professor of law and human rights at FGV business school in São Paulo.

At the same time, he will have to deliver to match supporters’ expectations, Amparo added. “Many voters went to the ballot expecting that, not just to get rid of Bolsonaro, but with memories of better economic times during Lula’s previous governments.”

Many will be watching for potential change to the 2017 Labor Reform Act, which subjected more workers’ rights and benefits to negotiation with employers, and made union contributions optional. Lula da Silva had said previously that he would revoke the act but recently changed the verb to “review” following criticisms from the private sector.

He may find that enacting his agenda is an uphill battle, Amparo warns, especially with a hostile Congress. Seats that were from the traditional right are now occupied by the far right, who are not open to negotiation and not easy to deal with, underlines Amparo.

In the latest elections, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party increased its representatives in the lower house from 76 to 99, while in the Senate it doubled from seven members to 14. Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party has also increased its number of deputies from 56 to 68 and senators from seven to eight – but overall, conservative-leaning politicians will dominate the next legislature.

That friction will require some compromises, points out Camila Rocha, a political scientist at the Cebrap think tank. “[Bolsonaro’s] Liberal Party will have the highest number of representatives and important allies and will make real opposition to the government, [Lula da Silva’s] Worker’s Party will have to sow a coalition with [traditional rightwing party] União Brasil in order to govern, which means the negotiation of ministries and key positions,” Rocha told to CNN.

Environmentalists meanwhile will be watching Lula da Silva’s administration closely, as it assumes governance not only over the Brazilian nation but over the planet’s largest forest reserves.

With destruction of the vast Amazon rainforest reaching record levels under Bolsonaro’s presidency, Lula da Silva has repeatedly said during his campaign that he would seek to curb deforestation. He has argued that protecting the forest could produce some profit, citing the beauty and pharmaceutical industries as potential beneficiaries of biodiversity.

In an interview with foreign press in August, Lula da Silva called for “a new world governance” to address climate change and stressed that Brazil should take a central role in that governance, given its natural resources.

According to the head of Lula da Silva’s government plan, Aloizio Mercadante, another tactic will be to create a group including Brazil, Indonesia and Congo ahead of the UN-led November 2022 Conference of Parties. The group would aim to pressure richer countries to finance the protection of forests as well as outlining strategies for the global carbon market.

Several experts told CNN they believed his stance on environment and the climate issue could represent a fresh start in Brazil’s international relations.

For Amparo, environmental protection could indeed be springboard for Brazil’s global leadership, a major shift after Bolsonaro warned the world away from intervening in the destruction of the Amazon. “Lula would try to reposition, almost like a rebranding, Brazil in the international arena as a power to be taken into account,” he said.

“We can expect a government that goes back to talking to the world, especially with a new stance in the environmental area,” said Melo, the Insper researcher.

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October 30, 2022
Brazil election: What to know about the high-stakes race

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BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil is days from a presidential election featuring two political titans and bitter rivals that could usher in another four years of far-right politics or return a leftist to the nation’s top job.

On one side is incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who built a base of hardcore support as a culture warrior with a conservative ideology. He has deployed government funds in what is widely seen as an effort to drum up last-minute votes. His adversary, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has sought to kindle nostalgia for his years presiding over an economic boom and social inclusion.

Here’s what you need to know about the Brazilian presidential runoff, which is on Oct. 30.

HOW OFTEN ARE ELECTIONS IN BRAZIL?

Brazil holds general elections once every four years, choosing state and federal representatives as well as the president, governors and some senators. Mayors, city councilors and remaining senators are also chosen every four years, but on different years.

HOW MANY TIMES CAN A PERSON BE ELECTED PRESIDENT IN BRAZIL?

There is no limit to the number of times one can be elected president in Brazil, but the person can only serve two consecutive terms. That is why da Silva, who was president from 2003 to 2010, can run this year.

WASN’T THERE ALREADY A BRAZILIAN ELECTION?

Brazil held its first round of voting on Oct. 2, electing lawmakers at state and federal levels. Gubernatorial candidates garnering more than 50% of valid votes, which exclude blank and spoiled ballots, were also confirmed.

None of the 11 presidential candidates got an outright majority, setting up a runoff between da Silva, who had 48% of votes, and Bolsonaro with 43%. Polls had significantly understated the support for the president and his allies, prompting backlash.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE OCT. 30 ELECTION?

It’s a runoff for the presidency and for governorships in states where no candidate won a first-round majority. Most polls 2 1/2 weeks after the first round show da Silva retaining a slight lead over Bolsonaro.

WHAT ARE BOLSONARO’S POLICIES?

During the campaign, Bolsonaro has often repeated his guiding principles: “God, Family, Country.” He portrays Brazil as spiritually ill and presents himself as a Christian soldier standing guard against cultural Marxism. He has loosened restrictions on the purchase of guns and ammunition and weakened oversight of environmental crime in the Amazon rainforest, which critics say caused the biome’s worst deforestation in 15 years and a surge of man-made fires.

He stresses his opposition to legalized abortion and drugs, while warning that da Silva’s return would produce the sort of leftist authoritarianism seen elsewhere in Latin America, persecution of churches, sexual education in public schools and the proliferation of so-called gender ideology.

Recently, Bolsonaro has given government funds to poorer Brazilians, who traditionally have been inclined to vote for da Silva’s Worker’s Party. The Brazil Aid welfare program created during the COVID-19 pandemic was generous relative to other nations and a lifeline for many Brazilians. Recently, it was beefed up and extended through yearend, and Bolsonaro has said it will continue into 2023.

Other measures include a subsidy for cooking gas, assistance for truck and taxi drivers and refinancing of debts.

WHAT ABOUT DA SILVA?

Da Silva, known universally as Lula, has focused on his prior terms, during which commodities exports surged and tens of millions of Brazilians joined the middle class. He has promised the poor — battered by economic distress for the better part of a decade — that they will again be able to afford three square meals a day and even weekend barbecues.

But he has been vague on how he would ensure return of those halcyon days. Like Bolsonaro, he promises to extend Brazil Aid welfare into 2023, without explaining how it will be financed. He has said the state will once again assume a prominent role in economic development.

Faced with Bolsonaro’s attempts to lump him in with leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, da Silva has declined to denounce their autocratic practices, instead saying other nations’ sovereignties must be respected, while also highlighting the fact he implemented no such policies during his presidency. In April, he said women should have the right to an abortion and then backtracked amid outcry, saying he is personally opposed.

A corruption conviction in 2018 barred him from that year’s presidential race and allowed Bolsonaro to cruise to victory. But the Supreme Court in 2021 annulled his convictions, ruling that the presiding judge had been biased and colluded with prosecutors. That enabled his run this year.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE VOTE IN BRAZIL?

Many political analysts have expressed concern that Bolsonaro has laid the groundwork to reject election results if he loses and will attempt to cling to power — much like former U.S. President Donald Trump, whom he admires. Such alarm largely stems from the president’s insistence that Brazil’s electronic voting machines are prone to fraud, though he has never presented evidence for his claims.

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October 24, 2022
Brazil pol and Bolsonaro ally refuses arrest, injures police

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COMENDADOR LEVY GASPARIAN, Brazil (AP) — A Brazilian politician attacked federal police officers seeking to arrest him in his home on Sunday, prompting an hours-long siege that caused alarm and a scramble for a response at the highest level of government.

Roberto Jefferson, a former lawmaker and an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro, fired a rifle at police and threw grenades, wounding two officers in the rural municipality Comendador Levy Gasparian, in Rio de Janeiro state. He said in a video message sent to supporters on WhatsApp that he refused to surrender, though by early evening he was in custody.

The events were stunning even for Brazilians who have grown increasingly accustomed to far-right politicians and activists thumbing their noses at Supreme Court justices, and comes just days before Brazilians go to the polls to vote for president.

The Supreme Court has sought to rein in the spread of disinformation and anti-democratic rhetoric ahead of the Oct. 30 vote, often inviting the ire of Bolsonaro’s base that decries such actions as censorship. As part of those efforts, Jefferson was jailed preventatively for making threats against the court’s justices.

Jefferson in January received permission to serve his preventative arrest under house arrest, provided he complies with certain conditions. Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in a decision published Sunday that Jefferson has repeatedly violated those terms — most recently by using social media to compare one female justice to a prostitute — and ordered he be returned to prison.

“I didn’t shoot anyone to hit them. No one. I shot their car and near them. There were four of them, they ran, I said, ’Get out, because I’m going get you,’” Jefferson said in the video. “I’m setting my example, I’m leaving my seed planted: resist oppression, resist tyranny. God bless Brazil.”

Later, Brazil’s federal police said in another statement that Jefferson was also arrested for attempted murder.

Bolsonaro was quick to criticize his ally in a live broadcast on social media. He denounced Jefferson’s statements against Supreme Court justices, including the threats and insults that led to his initial arrest, and Sunday’s attack. He also sought to distance himself from the former lawmaker.

“There’s not a single picture of him and me,” Brazil’s president said. His opponents promptly posted several pictures of the two together on social media.

Bolsonaro also said he dispatched Justice Minister Anderson Torres to the scene, without providing details on what his role would be.

Bolsonaro’s base had mixed reactions, with some on social media hailing Jefferson as a hero for standing up to the top court. Dozens flocked to his house to show support as he remained holed up inside. They chanted, with one group holding a banner that read: “FREEDOM FOR ROBERTO JEFFERSON”.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is campaigning to return to his former job, told reporters in Sao Paulo that Jefferson “does not have adequate behavior. It is not normal behavior.”

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court convicted lawmaker Daniel Silveira for inciting physical attacks on the court’s justices as well as other authorities. Bolsonaro quickly issued a pardon for Silveira, who appeared beside the president after he cast his vote in the election’s first round on Oct. 2.

The runoff vote between Bolsonaro and da Silva is set for Oct. 30

“Brazil is terrified watching events that, this Sunday, reach the peak of the absurd,” Arthur Lira, the president of Congress’ Lower House and a Bolsonaro ally, wrote on Twitter. “We will not tolerate setbacks or attacks against our democracy.”

____

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

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October 24, 2022
Brazil pol and Bolsonaro ally refuses arrest, injures police

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COMENDADOR LEVY GASPARIAN, Brazil — A Brazilian politician attacked federal police officers seeking to arrest him in his home on Sunday, prompting an hours-long siege that caused alarm and a scramble for a response at the highest level of government.

Roberto Jefferson, a former lawmaker and an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro, fired a rifle at police and threw grenades, wounding two officers in the rural municipality Comendador Levy Gasparian, in Rio de Janeiro state. He said in a video message sent to supporters on WhatsApp that he refused to surrender, though by early evening he was in custody.

The events were stunning even for Brazilians who have grown increasingly accustomed to far-right politicians and activists thumbing their noses at Supreme Court justices, and comes just days before Brazilians go to the polls to vote for president.

The Supreme Court has sought to rein in the spread of disinformation and anti-democratic rhetoric ahead of the Oct. 30 vote, often inviting the ire of Bolsonaro’s base that decries such actions as censorship. As part of those efforts, Jefferson was jailed preventatively for making threats against the court’s justices.

Jefferson in January received permission to serve his preventative arrest under house arrest, provided he complies with certain conditions. Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in a decision published Sunday that Jefferson has repeatedly violated those terms — most recently by using social media to compare one female justice to a prostitute — and ordered he be returned to prison.

“I didn’t shoot anyone to hit them. No one. I shot their car and near them. There were four of them, they ran, I said, ’Get out, because I’m going get you,’” Jefferson said in the video. “I’m setting my example, I’m leaving my seed planted: resist oppression, resist tyranny. God bless Brazil.”

Later, Brazil’s federal police said in another statement that Jefferson was also arrested for attempted murder.

Bolsonaro was quick to criticize his ally in a live broadcast on social media. He denounced Jefferson’s statements against Supreme Court justices, including the threats and insults that led to his initial arrest, and Sunday’s attack. He also sought to distance himself from the former lawmaker.

“There’s not a single picture of him and me,” Brazil’s president said. His opponents promptly posted several pictures of the two together on social media.

Bolsonaro also said he dispatched Justice Minister Anderson Torres to the scene, without providing details on what his role would be.

Bolsonaro’s base had mixed reactions, with some on social media hailing Jefferson as a hero for standing up to the top court. Dozens flocked to his house to show support as he remained holed up inside. They chanted, with one group holding a banner that read: “FREEDOM FOR ROBERTO JEFFERSON”.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is campaigning to return to his former job, told reporters in Sao Paulo that Jefferson “does not have adequate behavior. It is not normal behavior.”

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court convicted lawmaker Daniel Silveira for inciting physical attacks on the court’s justices as well as other authorities. Bolsonaro quickly issued a pardon for Silveira, who appeared beside the president after he cast his vote in the election’s first round on Oct. 2.

The runoff vote between Bolsonaro and da Silva is set for Oct. 30

“Brazil is terrified watching events that, this Sunday, reach the peak of the absurd,” Arthur Lira, the president of Congress’ Lower House and a Bolsonaro ally, wrote on Twitter. “We will not tolerate setbacks or attacks against our democracy.”

————

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

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October 23, 2022
Brazil’s Bolsonaro, Lula face off in first debate of run-off

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The free-wheeling debate rules allowed the candidates to roam the stage as they traded jabs and personal insults.

Far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded jabs and insults as they squared off in their first head-to-head debate in the second and final round of Brazil’s presidential election.

Lula attacked Bolsonaro as a “little dictator” and the “king of fake news,” while Bolsonaro accused Lula of lying, corruption and a “disgraceful” record in a two-hour televised debate on Sunday night.

Voters go to the polls on October 30 to choose the man who will become Brazil’s next president with 76-year-old Lula, the charismatic but tarnished former president, holding the lead over Bolsonaro.

Lula criticised Bolsonaro over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, attacking his resistance to vaccines and embrace of unproven medications such as hydroxychloroquine.

“Your negligence led to 680,000 people dying, when more than half could have been saved,” the ex-metalworker told the president.

Bolsonaro later took the offensive and targeted Lula for corruption scandals during the 14 years that his Workers Party governed Brazil. Dozens of business leaders and politicians, including Lula, were arrested in a sweeping crackdown on corruption, and Lula spent time in jail on a bribery conviction that was later overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court.

“Your past is disgraceful … You did nothing for Brazil but stuff public money in your pockets and those of your friends,” the 67-year-old former army captain told Lula.

Customers at a Brasilia bar watch the debate on a big screen. Lula is ahead in the hard-fought race [Adriano Machado/Reuters]

‘Nail-biting’

Lula won 48 percent of the votes in the first round of the election, with Bolsonaro securing 43 percent, far more than opinion polls had suggested.

His unexpectedly strong performance set the stage for a hard-fought run-off with both candidates ramping up their rhetoric and unleashing bruising personal attacks in TV commercials.

“This is a nail-biting election,” said Al Jazeera’s Brazil correspondent Monica Yanakiew. “Both candidates are fighting for every single vote although Lula is still the favourite.”

The free-wheeling debate rules allowed the candidates to roam the stage and approach the cameras, which both did frequently although they rarely looked at each other, with the notable exception of one tense silence that Bolsonaro finally interrupted by putting his hand on Lula’s shoulder with a smile.

As has been the case for much of the campaign, far more time was spent on personal attacks than substantive discussion.

“Policy proposals have lost their central role, and accusations have taken their place,” political scientist Christopher Mendonca told the AFP news agency.

Bolsonaro’s campaign was counting on Sunday’s debate to help close the gap with Lula, who still has a lead of roughly 5 percentage points, based on surveys by pollster Datafolha.

Neither candidate detailed in the debate how they would raise the money to extend a more generous welfare programme, which both have promised to do without breaking federal budget rules.

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October 16, 2022
Brazil’s da Silva, Bolsonaro clash in 1st one-on-one debate

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SAO PAULO — Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro clashed in their first one-on-one debate Sunday, two weeks before the presidential election’s runoff.

Debates in the election’s first round featured several other candidates, none of whom garnered more than 5% of the Oct. 2 vote. During the debates, they were largely distractions from the two obvious frontrunners.

On Sunday, the two repeatedly called each other liars during an encounter lasting about 1 ½ hours. The term was used more than a dozen times by each of the candidates in the TV Band debate that, otherwise, was less aggressive than many analysts had expected.

“You are a liar. You lie every day,” da Silva said during one exchange. Bolsonaro frequently said: “You can’t come here to tell people these lies.”

Earlier this month, da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, won the election’s first round with 48% of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 43%. Polls indicate the leftist former president, who governed between 2003-2010, remains the frontrunner, though his lead has shrunk considerably.

Each candidate focused on the issues that, according to polls, represent their adversary’s weak points: for Bolsonaro, the COVID-19 pandemic that killed 680,000 Brazilians, and for da Silva, corruption scandals involving his Workers’ Party.

Da Silva and Bolsonaro are expected to take part in one more debate, days before the vote, on TV Globo, Brazil’s most popular network.

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October 16, 2022
Brazil prepares for another month of political battle as run-off looms | CNN

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São Paulo, Brazil
CNN
—

Brazilians woke up to four more weeks of campaigning after a presidential vote on Sunday destined frontrunners Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro to a second round run-off later this month.

Results released Monday by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) showed left-wing candidate and former president da Silva finished with a slight lead over right-wing incumbent Bolsonaro – 48.4% versus 43.2% – not enough to cross the threshold to victory. Either candidate would have needed to surpass 50% to be elected in the first round of voting.

The two will face each other again on October 30, in what is widely seen as the most consequential ballot in the country for decades.

Still, Bolsonaro was celebrating. Brazil’s president, a divisive figure often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” defied expectations from pollsters and analysts, who had suggested for months that his candidacy was losing steam. Polls had predicted he could lose in the first round, ending his presidency after a single term in office.

Bolsonaro’s result Sunday was eight points higher than the latest poll by Datafolha, a respected research group, while da Silva’s was two to three points lower than predicted.

In a jubilant Twitter thread on Monday, Bolsonaro claimed that “against everything and everyone” he was able to get a “more expressive vote” than in the 2018 election.

His conservative Liberal Party also saw a sweep of successful lower races, gaining representatives in Brazil’s House and Senate, as well as governors in several states.

“There were almost 2 million more votes! We also elected the highest number of representatives in the House and Senate, which was our highest priority at the first moment,” the president tweeted, dubbing it: “the greatest victory of patriots in the history of Brazil.”

More than 123 million Brazilians waited in long lines to vote in the world’s fourth largest democracy, while another 32 million abstained. According to TSE President Alexandre de Moraes, the extensive queues were caused by new biometric security checks and higher than expected voter turnout.

Trodden political flyers advertising different candidates still littered sidewalks around voting sites on Monday, as people tried to make sense of the results and contemplated the prospect of another month of anxiety about the country’s future.

Sunday’s “democracy party” — a term in Brazil for elections — followed a bruising campaign season marked with violence and bitter language.

In the months leading up to Sunday’s vote, Bolsonaro had frequently criticized the Brazilian electoral system and accuracy of the country’s electronic ballots system, drawing condemnation for eroding trust in the electoral process. There were several reports of violence breaking out between da Silva and Bolsonaro supporters during the campaign months, with some turning deadly.

On Monday, da Silva supporters chattered on social media about how a potential victory would weigh against the country’s new conservative legislators. For some, excitement has soured into argument about what their candidate must do to maintain his lead over the next four weeks.

During a speech on Monday in Sao Paulo, da Silva previewed a new strategy for the last stretch of his campaign. “Advice to our campaign command: from tomorrow there will be less talk between us and more talks with the voter. We don’t need to talk to people we already know, who have already voted for us or that we know will vote for us. We need to talk to those who don’t seem to like us, who don’t vote for us, who don’t like our parties,” he said.

Bolsonaro on Monday meanwhile urged supporters to “stay focused” on a prospective victory, saying that “profound change” had already taken root.

“Keep the focus! One of the main and most difficult goals was achieved yesterday,” he said.

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October 3, 2022
Brazil’s presidential election heats up, heads to runoff

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Brazil’s presidential election heats up, heads to runoff – CBS News

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The second round of Brazil’s presidential election campaign is in full swing after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro blocked ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from outright victory in the first round of voting. Bandeirantes International editor Beatriz Corrêa joins “CBS News Mornings” with more.

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October 3, 2022
Bolsonaro, Lula start fight for support before Brazil runoff

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, two diametrically opposed candidates for Brazil’s presidency, have started a four-week race to pursue votes ahead of a winner-take-all runoff.

After garnering more than 90% of the vote in Sunday’s first round, leaving their competitors far behind, incumbent President Bolsonaro and ex-President da Silva are already eyeing options that can push them over the top, whether political alliances or endorsements from candidates now eliminated.

Political analysts say Bolsonaro will seek to capitalize on an unexpectedly strong showing by the right wing as a whole to shore up support from politicians seeking advantageous alliances while da Silva — who won the first-round vote — reaches out to moderates.

The election will determine whether a leftist returns to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or whether Bolsonaro can advance his far-right agenda for another term.

Many polls had indicated leftist da Silva had a significant lead, with some suggesting he could even clinch a first-round victory. Most showed margins that neared or exceeded double digits. But Bolsonaro came within just five points of da Silva, forcing an Oct. 30 runoff.

While da Silva’s tally of 48.4% of the vote was within most polls’ margins of error, Bolsonaro’s 43.2% far exceeded most of them. The president’s allies running for Congress and governorships also outperformed polls.

“The far-right has shown great resilience in the presidential and in the state races,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

Speaking after the results, da Silva said he was excited to have a few more weeks of campaigning and the opportunity to go face-to-face with Bolsonaro and “make comparisons between the Brazil he built with the Brazil we built during our administrations.”

“I always thought that we were going to win these elections. And I tell you that we are going to win this election. This, for us, is just an extension,” da Silva said.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro seemed to appeal to poorer voters, who make up a significant chunk of da Silva’s base. He highlighted high inflation that has boosted the cost of food and has hurt the approval ratings of leaders worldwide.

“I understand there is a desire from the population for change, but some changes can be for the worse” he said. Bolsonaro added that he wanted to keep Brazil from adopting leftist economic policies that would put it on a troubled economic path similar to those of Argentina and Venezuela.

It still isn’t clear why polls missed the mark on support for Bolsonaro and right-wing candidates.

Some analysts suggest voters had been embarrassed to tell pollsters they backed Bolsonaro and instead listed another candidate, said Arilton Freres, director of Curitiba-based Instituto Opinião. “But that in itself doesn’t explain everything,” he added, saying outdated census data also may have had an impact on the design of the polls.

Bolsonaro and allies have repeatedly cast doubt on the polls, and pointed instead great turnouts at his street rallies. “Many people were carried away by the lies propagated by the research institutes,” Bolsonaro wrote Monday on his Twitter profile.

The right’s positive night extended to races for congressional seats and governorships, especially candidates with Bolsonaro’s blessing.

Bolsonaro said his party’s showing could bring fresh endorsements ahead of the runoff as other parties strike alliances in exchange for support. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party will surpass da Silva’s Workers’ Party to become the biggest in the Senate and the Lower House, with a total of 112 seats, or 23 more than its main rival — though still are short of what is needed to pass legislation by itself.

The right’s stronger-than-expected showing in Brazil’s populous southeast especially could benefit Bolsonaro, analysts say. His former infrastructure minister topped the race to govern Sao Paulo and will go to a runoff. The governor of Rio de Janeiro, an ally, won reelection outright, and the governor of the second most populous state, Minas Gerais, indicated he will endorse Bolsonaro in a video message Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, da Silva’s campaign is likely to focus on winning over the centrist vote, especially in Brazil’s most populous state, Sao Paulo, where da Silva’s politically moderate running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, is a former governor, independent political analyst Thomas Traumann said.

Bolsonaro has expressed no interest in bringing defeated presidential candidates to his side, while da Silva has said he already reached out to competitors, who garnered about 8% of the vote combined. Analysts say there was a last-minute migration of votes from some of those candidates to Bolsonaro.

Simone Tebet and Ciro Gomes, the third- and fourth-place finishers, together earned 8.5 million votes. The difference between Bolsonaro and da Silva in the first round amounted to 6.1 million votes, and more than 30 million people abstained.

Before the election, Tebet hinted she might urge her backers to vote for da Silva and in televised debates, she vehemently criticized Bolsonaro’s four years in office. After results came out on Sunday, she gave her coalition of political parties 48 hours to clarify who it will back, saying after that deadline she will make her own position public.

Center-left Gomes was a minister in da Silva’s government before breaking with him, and in 2018 became openly hostile. That would make a possible endorsement more awkward, despite their ideological common ground, said Marco Antônio Teixeira, a public administration professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Sao Paulo.

“I want to make something clear: Lula is the favorite, period. As the momentum is Bolsonaro’s, people forget that,” Traumann said.

Even if da Silva does come out on top, his administration will face tough opposition in Congress, according to Rey.

“Part of the big centrist bloc will be Bolsonarista, although we don’t yet to what extent,” she said. “And Lula will have to deal with this.”

___

Bridi reported from Brasilia. AP writers Mauricio Savarese, Daniel Politi and David Biller reported from Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro.

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October 3, 2022
Brazil Presidential Election Headed To Runoff After Surprisingly Strong Vote For Far-Right Bolsonaro

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Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appear headed for a second-round runoff contest to settle Brazil’s presidential election, after neither candidate scored an outright victory in Sunday’s vote.

Datafolha, Brazil’s largest pollster, projected that the race would advance to a second round late Sunday night. Multiple Brazilian news outlets, including the Folha de S.Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo newspapers, also projected that neither candidate would clear the majority threshold.

Da Silva, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, had won nearly 48% of votes with about 96% of the count finished. Bolsonaro lagged close behind with roughly 44%, a tally that outperformed final preelection polls by nearly 8 points.

Da Silva will still enter the runoff as a slight favorite to defeat Bolsonaro, but the closer-than-expected first round vote will generate concerns about the accuracy of Brazil’s major polling, which had suggested that Bolsonaro was far weaker and that da Silva’s lead would expand in a one-on-one scenario.

It will also likely fuel Bolsonaro’s skepticism of polling that suggested da Silva could win the race outright Sunday with a clear majority of votes. Bolsonaro and his supporters cast doubt on those surveys throughout the race’s final weeks, and will likely see the president’s significant over-performance as a validation of their skepticism.

Bolsonaro allies won gubernatorial, congressional and Senate races Sunday night, another sign of potentially underestimated strength of his right-wing movement. And what looked like it could be a runaway win for da Silva even in the event of a runoff now appears to be a competitive race.

The head-to-head contest four years in the making will have massive implications for Brazil’s democracy, the fourth-largest in the world. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain who has long expressed affinity for the dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, ran for president in 2018 on a blatantly anti-democratic platform, has governed as the authoritarian-minded leader he promised to be, and has spent the last two years waging baseless attacks on the country’s electoral system.

As an ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, he has made it clear that he does not intend to accept the results of an election defeat, sparking fears that he will attempt to provoke something akin to a Brazilian version of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol if he loses.

Da Silva, his supporters and many Brazilian political experts saw a win in Sunday’s first round as a key way to blunt any electoral challenge Bolsonaro may mount, and cut off his path to a second term in which he could further threaten the country’s democracy. Instead, the campaign will head to a runoff race that will conclude on Oct. 30, a period many observers fear Bolsonaro will use to further spread conspiracies and deepen his attempts to undermine the election.

“The second round will give Bolsonaro an extra month to cause as much turmoil as he can,” said Guilherme Casarões, a Brazilian political expert at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.

A stronger-than-expected Bolsonaro, however, could also potentially win the runoff race, a result that would grant him a second term that he could use to consolidate many of his efforts to erode basic rights and Brazil’s democratic institutions.

“The odds look substantially bleaker for Brazilian democracy right now than they did 24 hours ago,” Filipe Campante, a Brazilian professor at Johns Hopkins University, tweeted as the results pointed toward a runoff. “Bolsonaro will have a real shot at winning the runoff, and in that case we are in deep trouble.”

Da Silva entered Sunday optimistic that he could pull off a convincing victory this weekend, especially after the release of two new polls that suggested he could garner more than 50% of votes on the eve of the election. He also pledged, however, to celebrate the result even if he fell short, in the hopes of keeping his supporters energized for the runoff race.

“We’re going to party, because we deserve it,” he said Saturday. “To be reborn from the ashes is a reason to celebrate.”

The leftist is attempting to complete a stunning political turnaround 12 years after he left office as “the most popular politician in the world,” as then-U.S. President Barack Obama branded him. From 2003 to 2010, da Silva oversaw explosive growth of Brazil’s economy that lifted millions out of poverty and made Brazil a powerful player on the global stage.

But he was imprisoned on a corruption conviction in 2018, as part of a wider probe that ensnared hundreds of Brazilian politicians and business leaders. That, along with the collapse of Brazil’s economy under his successor seemingly ended da Silva’s political career and tarnished his legacy.

A year later, The Intercept Brazil revealed substantial judicial impropriety in the case against him. His conviction was annulled, paving the way for a matchup with Bolsonaro that he’d wanted to wage in 2018 but couldn’t because the corruption case led to his banishment from the race.

Bolsonaro, who won an improbable victory in a 2018 election defined by discontent with a political establishment that da Silva had once epitomized and the Workers’ Party he’d founded, has spent his four years in office eroding Brazil’s democratic institutions and targeting the rights of its most marginalized populations. He has curbed protections for Indigenous Brazilians, sought to roll back rights for LGBTQ people, overseen record levels of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest and unleashed Brazil’s violent police forces to kill even more indiscriminately.

He has routinely attacked journalists and political critics, and has brought Brazil’s military, which had largely abstained from civilian politics since the end of its dictatorship in 1985, roaring back into politics, appointing even more officers to government positions than served in the military government.

Support for Bolsonaro’s scandal-plagued and fitful government cratered during the coronavirus pandemic, which he cast as a conspiracy to bring down his presidency. He opposed lockdowns and sought to undermine faith in vaccines, even as the virus killed more than 680,000 Brazilians, the world’s second-highest official death toll.

Women voters, in particular, turned against Bolsonaro according to preelection polling, thanks largely to his machismo-fueled politics and a lack of focus on the economy even as food, energy and other basic costs rose sharply this summer.

A litany of Brazilian business elites, judges and lawyers ― many of whom had supported Bolsonaro four years ago ― this summer released a letter in defense of the country’s democracy that did not name Bolsonaro specifically but clearly implied that his election conspiracies had put it at risk. Senior officials and lawmakers in both the United States and Europe have also expressed major concerns about the election, warning Bolsonaro to stop threatening it and raising the possibility of sanctions if he tries to remain in power undemocratically.

Bolsonaro performed far better than expected in states like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s two most populous, and also bested preelection projections in other parts of the country’s south and southeast regions. A strong showing from da Silva in the Brazilian northeast, his traditional stronghold, was enough to give him the lead but not the majority he needed to win a majority of votes.

In the days before Sunday’s vote, Bolsonaro continued to ramp up his attacks on Brazil’s election system: He questioned the legitimacy of polls showing him behind da Silva while his party made false claims about election officials’ ability to manipulate votes.

Bolsonaro may still intensify his attacks, but the first-round results also suggest he still has a chance to win a second term legitimately ― something not even Bolsonaro seemed to believe before Sunday’s vote. That all but ensures that Brazil’s democracy is in for a tense month, and the sort of test it hasn’t faced since the end of its dictatorship nearly four decades ago.

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October 2, 2022