“You have to be extremely careful“with the polls, warns this Sunday, October 30 on franceinfo Christophe Ventura, director of research at IRIS, specialist in Brazil and author of “Geopolitics of Latin America“. Some 156 million Brazilians are called to the polls for the second round of the presidential election, opposing the left-wing ex-president Lula to the current far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
Pesquisa Atlas // Voto para Presidente
️ 2º Turno | VOTOS VÁLIDOSLula: 53.2%
Bolsonaro: 46.8%Lula mantém vantagem of 6.4p.p. sober Bolsonaro, 0.4 pontos a mais em relação à última pesquisa.
[21-25/10, 7500 respondentes, ME +/- 1pp] pic.twitter.com/zND6uyzQT0
— AtlasIntel BR (@atlaspolitico) October 27, 2022
Lula, the candidate of the Workers’ Party, came out on top in the first round of the election, with 48% of the vote, against 43% for his rival. The polls had underestimated the score of Jair Bolsonaro. The latest polls give Lula the winner with a few points ahead. If this scenario is confirmed, “the most radicalized fringes of ‘bolsonarism’ could very well take to the streets warns Christophe Ventura because we are really in a white-hot country“.
franceinfo: The latest polls give Lula the winner against Jair Bolsonaro, with a few points ahead. Is there still some uncertainty?
Christopher Ventura: Yes, I think we have to be extremely careful. The hypothesis of a score that does not correspond to the polls is a possibility that must be kept in mind. The polls were wrong in the first round on Bolsonaro’s score. The population samples that were used to conduct the second-round surveys are the same as in the first round. So yes, let’s be careful.
The presidential campaign was very tense. More personal attacks than a debate of ideas between the candidates. The Brazilians were only entitled to this during the month of the campaign between the two rounds?
They were entitled to that in the media restitution of the campaign. Social networks are quite conducive to this type of communication. But the Brazilians were also entitled to an electoral campaign on the ground. There were a lot of meetings, rallies, etc. In the militant sectors, we will say: ‘There was a real campaign.’ But it is true that it was marked by invectives, low blows. What shows especially behind all that the climate of tension and hatred which exists between these two men and what they represent. It’s very clear.
The pro-Bolsonaro question the electronic voting system. This may cause fear of disruption after the announcement of the election results on Monday morning?
Yes, and to the list that you propose is also added political violence since activists were unfortunately murdered during this campaign. A municipal councilor from the Workers’ Party of Lula was killed a few days ago. And the more we will go towards a scenario where the results would be very close between the two candidates – with Bolsonaro second – the more we will go towards a scenario of possible contestation of the results by the latter. This would open up a situation that we cannot anticipate but in which the most radicalized fringes of “Bolsonarism” could very well take to the streets, carry out punching actions that could multiply acts of political violence. It’s a possibility. We are really in a white-hot country.
What are the main lines of division in the country that determines the Lula or Bolsonaro vote?
They are of several orders. First, there is a conception of political action and government action that is not the same. On the side of Lula, we have the will to restore in some way the balance of powers, the respect of the institutions. At Bolsonaro, we have a polarization, we have an executive power which is very protagonist around its person and which goes towards an authoritarian drift. On the economic level, we have a traditional divide between, say, neoliberalism on the side of Bolsonaro and rather a social democratic action on the side of Lula. Then, we have a conception of Brazil in the world which is very different. Lula considers that Brazil must play an important role in all major international debates, that the country must weigh in on international multilateralism and engage everywhere. While Bolsonaro has a rather isolationist conception of withdrawal from Brazil, multilateralism and international affairs.