Summary:
Voter turnout will decide how things turn out in Brazil’s presidential election. Polls show former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leading incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by ten percentage points. Many Brazilians vote for the candidate they detest the most. Brazilians go to the polls on Sunday in elections for governor and congress. Analysts predict a second-round runoff between the two leading candidates.
After a protracted and contentious campaign, Brazilians began voting for a new president on Sunday, with surveys showing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leading incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by more than ten percentage points.
Violence has occasionally plagued the campaign, including killing three workers’ party supporters of Lula and one Bolsonaro supporter.
According to polls, Ciro Gomes, a leftist, and Simone Tebet, a moderate, are tied for fourth place with only about 10% of the vote each.
The election will proceed to a runoff at the end of October if no candidate wins more than 50% of the valid votes (valid votes are those cast without being blanked or spoiled).
“There’s a chance Lula will triumph in the preliminary round. It’s a plausible possibility. Rafael Cortez, an analyst at consultancy Tendências, stated that Lula entered the campaign’s closing stretch with a higher support level than that of the other candidates in the first place.
“Voter turnout will decide how things turn out. Although lower-income people tend to vote less frequently, Lula typically receives more support from these voters.
Many Brazilians vote for the candidate they detest the most. Lula, who served as president from 2003 to 2010 and was widely regarded when he left office, had a rejection rate of nearly 40%.
Conservative voters view him as unsuited for the presidency due to his involvement in the Lava Jato corruption scandal. The former labor organizer spent nearly two years in prison for corruption before the Supreme Court overturned his convictions. Due to time restrictions, several criminal cases had to be abandoned or expired.
Bolsonaro is also despised and has a rejection rate of more than 50%. Many Brazilians have taken offence at his occasionally authoritarian tone and misogynistic words. His administration has also been embroiled in several disputes, most notably over how it handled the coronavirus outbreak that killed over 700,000 Brazilians.
In addition, the president has alarmed voters by declining to state whether he would accept the election results unconditionally.
The retired army captain has questioned the validity of the nation’s computerised voting machines numerous times, asserting they are susceptible to fraud without offering any supporting data. The country’s electoral court rejected claims made by the Liberal party during the week that it had discovered security flaws with the system.
Critics suspect Bolsonaro is attempting to fabricate an excuse to deny the loss. Political analysts and opposition figures are preparing for the prospect that Bolsonaro’s more extreme base may demonstrate in the streets if Lula prevails.
Political analyst Thomas Trautmann predicted a second-round runoff and expected that Bolsonaro would do whatever it took to maintain his position of power, including contesting the results and attempting a “January 6 kind of riot,” a reference to the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of the defeated former president Donald Trump last year.
Elections for governor and congress are held at the same time. Brazilians will elect candidates for all 513 seats in the lower house of Congress and one-third of the Senate, in addition to governors for the 27 states.
Political pundits anticipate advances for the left but predict that the center- and center-right parties will continue to control Congress.
It is anticipated that the Centro, a loose coalition of MPs notorious for exchanging political support for funding to promote their local districts, will fare particularly well.
“The Centro will win most of the time.” This is a result of their incredible presence across the nation, according to Mario Marconi, managing director of Teneo. However, the Centro will merely cling to the powerful.
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
