Crucial victory for the left, of course, that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the Brazilian presidential election, but victory won on the wire with a tiny majority of 50.9% of the vote. A short, too short victory that the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, will necessarily instrumentalize, he who has not stopped threatening for months not to return power in the event of defeat. The sulk in which he has locked himself up since the announcement of the results, Sunday evening, only spreads insecurity and fuels the resentment of his sympathizers against Lula, which is far from suggesting a healthy transition of powers. The most worried evoke the possibility of a coup, which is unthinkable for us. But as Donald Trump did, between his electoral defeat on November 3, 2020 and the entry into office of Joe Biden, the following January 20, Jair Bolsonaro will not hesitate to use his ample capacity for nuisance by the 1er next January, when the elected Lula will officially become president for the third time.
Behind Lula’s snatch victory, Bolsonaro (49.1% of the vote) was almost re-elected, despite everything. Despite its negationist management of a pandemic crisis which has claimed more than 680,000 lives. Despite the fact that almost half of the 215 million Brazilians today live in poverty.Despite the acceleration of the destruction of the Amazon, the lungs of the planet, which he encouraged in the name of the interests ofagribusiness and against a backdrop of contempt for indigenous peoples. Despite all the suspicions of embezzlement against him.
Difficult to explain, but not inexplicable. Bolsonaro is the bearer of a primary anti-communist discourse (read opposition to the most basic of social justice) which still permeates large sections of Latin American societies and business circles. He is the hero of those nostalgic for the military dictatorship and the ultraconservative spokesperson for the intolerance of evangelicals — a key electorate, as in the United States. A manipulative champion of social networks, he succeeded in embodying this anti-system and anti-globalization populism that too many politicians in the world take advantage of, normalizing the worst prejudices… while entertaining their audience. And if therefore Bolsonaro is version 2.0 of the long history of the Brazilian far right, he is also the monstrous outcome of a democratic transition plagued by corruption and the incompetence of the political class. It will take some political intelligence for Lula, who is also dragging his pots, to save the waters of this transition that he had been able to articulate successfully during the golden years of his first two presidential terms (2003-2011). Will it get there? His opponents still abhor him even though, after he spent 580 days in prison for corruption following a police investigation (Lava Jato) which ultimately turned out to be a political vendetta, the charges against him were quashed in March 2021.
Bolsonaro has in more than one respect a capacity for nuisance. We immediately saw this on Sunday when the powerful Federal Highway Police, pampered in recent years by the government, blocked traffic lanes in the Nordeste, Lula’s stronghold, effectively preventing voters from going to vote.
Moreover, Bolsonaro continues to be well armed politically, even after losing: in the legislative elections of October 2, his Liberal Party became the first formation in Congress, obtaining almost twice as many seats as the motley coalition gathered around Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT). Then, the Bolsonarists won the governorship in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Brasília and São Paulo, the richest and most populous in the country.
What democratic progress will President Lula be capable of in this torn Brazil? He promises to end the deforestation of the Amazon, while Congress is populated by parliamentarians whose campaigns are financed by agribusiness. He has promised to relaunch a whole series of social measures, such as the Bolsa Família anti-poverty program that his government famously set up in the 2000s, but with what money will he finance them?
The pots broken by Bolsonarist regression will not be easy to mend.
In this enterprise of reconstruction, the PT will also have an interest in making efforts at renewal. At 77, Lula is the tutelary figure of the party, but we cannot say that this is the future. Eighth largest economy in the world, this Brazil leaning again to the left would also benefit from developing regional solidarity in terms of social development, in a context where a new “pink wave” is sweeping over Latin America – in Mexico, Colombia, Chile , in Argentina… The challenges are common and immense, the room for maneuver is narrow everywhere.