Editorial

Brazilian Electoral Strategies: Building and Burning Bridges

Continuing his diplomatic efforts to neutralize—or at least reduce—opposition from the business community, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had lunch on Tuesday, July 5 at the headquarters of the influential Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo, or FIESP). Joining him was former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, Lula’s vice-presidential nominee; Fernando Haddad, former São Paulo mayor and frontrunner in this year’s gubernatorial race; and Aloizio Mercadante, the head of the Fundação Perseu Abramo, the Workers’ Party’s main think tank. As CNN Brasil reported, this was Lula’s first visit to FIESP since 2011. The fact that the former president was welcomed there for a lunch with several powerful figures in finance and business indicates how much Brazil’s political landscape has shifted in just over a decade. While there is still clearly skepticism about Lula on the part of many members of the business community, who regard his progressive agenda as inimical to their broader interests, his efforts to assuage their worries seem to be paying off.

While Lula continues his attempts to reach beyond his base, a move best represented by his whole-hearted embrace of his conservative former rival Alckmin, Bolsonaro has sought to shore up his own support. On Tuesday, he asserted that “Christians don’t vote for the left,” doubling down on issues like abortion and expanded access to firearms. The fact that Bolsonaro is adhering to this same rhetorical line used to his great advantage in 2018 indicates a disinterest or an inability in reaching beyond those already predisposed to supporting his candidacy. Poll results indicating that Lula has chipped away at Bolsonaro’s advantage among evangelical voters is another likely explanation for his tactical choices. In 2018, almost 70% of evangelicals, an increasingly influential voting bloc, voted for Bolsonaro. A recent poll indicates that Bolsonaro is at 36% among evangelicals versus 28% for the former president. This is still a significant difference, to be sure, but much less than four years ago.

Bolsonaro has also reportedly expressed annoyance at what he sees as insufficient effort from his cabinet ministers in the race for reelection. As journalists Marianna Holanda and Matheus Teixeira wrote this week, “the campaign's aim is to use the achievements of individual ministries to improve the government's image and boost Bolsonaro's performance in polls.” This requires that the head of each ministry promote “with more intensity the work of the administration.” In addition, on July 7, the Special Committee of Congress approved the initial draft of a constitutional amendment bill dubbed the “Kamikaze Amendment.” The proposal creates a state of emergency that allows the federal government to exceed the constitutional spending ceiling limit in an election year, including increasing government stipends for the poor, offering modest funds to truck drivers to offset the rise in fuel prices, and other measures designed to shore up support for the government in the face of increased inflation and a faltering economy. In this regard, there is some indication that Bolsonaro has room to grow in the race. Bolsonaro rose two points, from 34% to 36%, and the difference between the frontrunners in a potential runoff also shrunk, according to the respected PoderData polls released on July 6.

Lula still leads every electoral scenario, but there are indications that the race will tighten. This adds to the sense of urgency among Lula’s campaign about reaching out to conservative sectors of society and the frustration of Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress that he is seemingly incapable of moderating his tone long enough to reach more voters and sustain a sharper rise in the polls. 

Highlights

• REACTIONS TO BOLSONARO’S RUNNING MATE SELECTION: Bolsonaro’s choice to run alongside General Walter Braga Netto (Liberal Party) has created a divide between the incumbent and the Centrão, the group of centrist parties that had supported agro-business advocate Tereza Cristina (Progressives) for Bolsonaro’s ticket. The bloc’s leaders have been forthright in expressing their disdain for Bolsonaro’s choice, remarking that the selection of Braga Netto will cost Bolsonaro votes from the center while also reinforcing the military profile of his campaign. 

• CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMITS: The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) has set the spending cap on presidential campaigns at R$88 million. In the event of a second round, campaigns will be allowed to spend up to R$58 million. These values ​​correspond to the ceilings set in the 2018 election, adjusted to meet the corrections based on the Consumer Price Index since the last general elections.

• VISIT FROM PORTUGAL: The President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, arrived in Brazil on July 2. Despite Brazil and Portugal’s interrelated histories and strong diplomatic ties, Bolsonaro opted to cancel a meeting with his Portuguese counterpart, telling a television news outlet and other sources in Brazil that he was “irritated” and “uncomfortable with the fact” that Rebelo de Sousa was meeting former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party, PT). Former President Lula met with the President of Portugal on July 3 in São Paulo to strengthen bilateral relations and discuss the political landscapes in Europe, Latin America, and Ukraine. In addition to Lula, the Portuguese president met with former President Michel Temer, who considered Bolsonaro’s actions a missed opportunity to begin commemorating two centuries of independence prior to another anticipated visit by Rebelo in September

• CNI DEBATE: The National Confederation of Industry (CNI) held an event with the pre-candidates for president June 29. The incumbent Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party, PL), former minister Ciro Gomes (Democratic Labor Party, PDT), and Senator Simone Tebet (Brazilian Democratic Movement, MDB) were all in attendance. During the debate, the candidates discussed the studies conducted by the institute and presented their proposals for increasing sector productivity and stimulating the sustainable growth of the Brazilian economy. Simone Tebet specifically mentioned prioritizing tax reform in her administration, in addition to the creation of a regional development fund to attract investments in the North, Northeast, and Center-west of the country.

• LULA IN 2026? Presidential Candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) announced on July 1 that he does not plan on running for reelection in the 2026 if he wins the presidential race in October of this year. The former president affirmed that “Four years from now, we will have new people running for elections.” He also told Metropole radio that he “. . . will be a president who thinks about governing this country for four years and leaving it buzzing so that the Brazilian people can definitively recover their social well-being, joy, the pleasure of living, the pleasure of being Bahian, the pleasure of being Brazilian.”

• RECENT POLL: According to the Quaest/Genial poll released on July 6, Brazilian leftist presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva maintains a strong lead at 45% against incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro polling at 31%. In an expected run-off, Lula is seen winning, with 53% of the vote versus 34% for the current president.

• REJECTION: The negative view of Bolsonaro's government stands at 47%, the same result from a previous poll in June. Genial/Quaest interviewed 2,000 voters in person between June 29 and July 2, and the poll has a margin of error of 2%.

• THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL: The Institute of Democracy and Democratization of Communication (Instituto da Democracia e da Democratização da Comunicação) launched the 2022 edition of the survey “The Face of Democracy” (A Cara da Democracia). The survey shows that 50.8% of the people interviewed are dissatisfied with the state of democracy in Brazil. At the same time, 59% said that democracy is preferable to any other form of government. Regarding the performance of the Supreme Court (STF), 67.1% of people said that it should protect freedom of expression and allow people to state what they think, while 24.2% say that the STF should protect democracy and punish people who attack it. Of those polled, 20% said they sympathize with a political party, while 79% do not. Of those who lean toward a political party, 63.8% identify with the Workers' Party (PT), 9.4% with the Liberal Party (PL), and 4.8% with the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB).

Feature Article

Bolsonaro and the destruction of the Amazon: a government priority

By Luiz Marques

In June 2022, indigenous affairs expert Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Philips were two more victimsof a Blitzkrieg conducted by President Jair Bolsonaro against the largest tropical forest on the planet. This war arouses little international reaction, although it is much more threatening to the habitability of the planet than wars currently underway in Ukraine, Yemen, among others. The aggressors' objective is fourfold: 1) the sale of wood; 2) the replacement of the forest by pastures for cattle and by soybean plantations, primarily intended for animal feed; 3) mining; and 4) trafficking in animal species. For Jair Bolsonaro, it is necessary to eliminate everything that opposes the achievement of these goals. This implies invading indigenous lands and terrorizing those who live in and defend the forest, their cultures and their ways of life with attacks of all kinds, including rape and murders.

On protected indigenous territories invaded by agribusiness and mining, deforestation increased 153% in 2020 compared to the previous year, with more than 98% of it being illegal. Under Bolsonaro, farmers resumed a practice used during the Vietnam war of dropping Agent Orange and other herbicides (glyphosate, 2,4-D) on forests and their inhabitants to accelerate deforestation. According to Naiara Bittencourt, the lawyer for Terra de Direitos, an NGO focused on human rights and environmental struggles, “the expectation is that the use of pesticides for deforestation will intensify in the next period, because it is easier, more accessible, and more consolidated,” given the current lack of governance. For its part, gold mining reduces the forest to a sinister landscape and intoxicates people, fauna, rivers, and soils with lethal and increasing amounts of mercury. As journalist Flávio Ilha warns, “an estimated volume of 100 tons of the neurotoxic metal was used in 2019 and 2020 to illegally extract gold from the region, according to estimates based on an official survey. This gold was exported by Brazil to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.” Fires in the Amazon rainforest have also increased since 2019, prompting reactions, including at an international level. In 2020, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Amazon registered 103,161 fires, the highest number since 2017 under then-president Michel Temer.

The ongoing destruction of the Amazon has multiple planetary impacts, including the acceleration of climate change. The Amazon forest and its soils store between 150 to 200 gigatons (Gt) of carbon, equivalent to about 550 to 734 Gt of CO2, (1 GtC = 3.67 GtCO2), that is, about 16 to 22 years of CO2 global emissions from energy generation by burning fossil fuels at the 2019 levels. Having been consistently suppressed, attacked and degraded, the forest is no longer a carbon sink. It is already emitting more CO2 than it is absorbing, also because of higher tree mortality.

Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) originate primarily in the 7 states of the Amazon region, which is home to less than 13% of the Brazilian population and produces only 5.5% of the country's GDP. Due to deforestation and forest fires, eight of the ten municipalities that most emitted GHG in Brazil in 2019 are in the Amazon region. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the largest metropolises in the country, occupy only the 5th and 8th position in this list, despite housing many millions of people.

Bolsonaro’s war against the Amazon Forest does not only have economic objectives. It is also the result of a militaristic, anti-democratic, racist, obscurantist, individualistic, predatory ideology, typical of the worldview of rural patriarchy, deeply rooted in the most conservative social sectors.

Bolsonaro represents the resumption of the agenda of the military dictators of the years 1964 to 1985. Aware that he will not be re-elected in October 2022, he is already trying to question the legitimacy of the elections. The international community needs to wake up to the imminent danger of the destabilization of Brazilian democracy and the global climate system. As INPE’s Antonio Donato Nobre states, “the equatorial region in general, and the Amazon in particular, is enormously important for the world's climate.” This is also the case when it comes to the global biodiversity on which we all existentially depend. By directly commanding this war on the biosphere and the global climate, Bolsonaro has become one of the most dangerous men in the world. 

Luiz Marques is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and Senior Professor at the Ilum School of Science in the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) in Campinas, Brazil. He is the author of Capitalism and Environmental Collapse (Springer, 2020)

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References

CORDEIRO, Amanda L. et al., “Fine-root dynamics vary with soil depth and precipitation in a low-nutrient tropical forest in the Central Amazonia”. Plant-Environment Interactions, 16/I/2020.

CORNWALL, Warren, “Illegal gold mines flood Amazon forests with toxic mercury”. Science, 28/I/2022.

FREITAS, Helen, “Fazendeiros jogam agrotóxico sobre Amazônia para acelerar desmatamento”. Reporter Brasil, 16/XI/2021.

GATTI, Luciana et al., “Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change”. Nature, 15/VII/2021.

ILHA, Flávio, “Explosão do garimpo ilegal na Amazônia despeja 100 toneladas de mercúrio na região”. El País, 20/VII/2021.

LOBATO, Alícia, “Mercúrio do garimpo contamina peixes dentro e fora da Amazônia”. Amazônia Real, 10/XII/2021.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.