Leftist ex-President Lula won by a much smaller margin than polls predicted for incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in the first round of Brazil’s election on Sunday, hinting at a hotly contested run-off on 30 october. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva obtained 48.4% of the vote, against 43.2% for Bolsonaro, according to almost final but still partial results, while the latest poll by the benchmark institute Datafolha gave Saturday evening an advantage of 14 points to the left-wing ex-president on Saturday evening.
“The struggle continues”
“We have defeated the lies” of the polls, said the far-right president, who said he was optimistic about “playing the second half” of the presidential election. On the Lula side, a footballing metaphor: “It’s just an extension. I can tell you that we are going to win this election”, assured the ex-president (2003-2010).
“The fight continues, until the final victory,” said the 76-year-old former steelworker, who admitted he hoped to win in the first round and looked dejected after the result was announced.
“Uncertainty”
“It’s a surprise, Bolsonaro got more votes than we expected, especially in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two most important states in the country,” Paulo Calmon, a political scientist at AFP, told AFP. the University of Brasília. “In the second round, the presidential race remains open and promises to be hotly contested. Bolsonaro still has every chance of being re-elected,” he adds.
The Brazilians punished the 67-year-old outgoing president less than expected for his denial of the Covid (685,000 dead), the economic crisis in a country where more than 30 million people suffer from hunger and the crises that have punctuated his entire mandate. By October 30, the populist leader will have the opportunity to galvanize his troops in the streets and find new momentum.
“It adds to the uncertainty,” Michael Shifter of Georgetown University told AFP.
Victory of “bolsonarism”
In addition, many Bolsonarist candidates, including former government ministers, have been elected to Congress. The very controversial Ricardo Salles, who had been suspected of having taken part in a network of smuggling of wood from Amazonia when he was Minister of the Environment, for example obtained a seat as a deputy.
Claudio Castro, an ally of the head of state in Rio de Janeiro, was re-elected governor in the first round. “It was Bolsonarism that won this first round,” summarizes Bruna Santos, from the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.
“We will have a second round in an extremely polarized environment and the voters of Simone Tebet (center right, 4% of the vote) and Ciro Gomes (center left, 3%), almost 8 million people, will decide who will be next. president,” she added. In the Lulist camp, Viviane Laureano da Silva, a 36-year-old civil servant, remained confident: “The campaign will be difficult, but Lula will win in the second round,” she told AFP in Rio.
In Sao Paulo, José Antonio Benedetto, 63, was disappointed: “Bolsonaro’s score surprised us, they did better than us. I don’t know what’s happening in Brazil, almost half of our population is sick, and only Lula can treat our people, vaccinate them”.
“Democratic maturity”
Lula is contesting his sixth presidential race, 12 years after leaving power with a stratospheric popularity rate (87%). But he is struggling to shed the image of corruption that has stuck with him since the huge “Lavage express” scandal, which earned him 18 months in prison before his convictions were canceled or prescribed.
All day, Brazilians had rushed en masse to choose their president, but also the deputies, a third of the senators and the governors of the 27 states, with long queues. The ballot, to which 156 million voters had been called, took place without violence or major incident in the largest country in Latin America. Bolsonaro had repeatedly threatened not to recognize the result of the polls and unrest was feared.
“Brazilian society has shown great democratic maturity,” said the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) after the announcement of the result. “We congratulate the Brazilian people and the institutions of the country for the success of the first round of the election”, reacted on Twitter the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said he was “confident that the second round will take place in the same peaceful spirit”.
More than 500,000 members of the security forces had been mobilized to ensure the security of the ballot, which took place in the presence of dozens of foreign observers.