Editorial

Brazilian Democracy: Lula’s Growing Support and Bolsonaro's Looming Farewell

As the first round of the presidential election dispute draws to an end, the campaign of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is doing everything possible to secure an outright win. This prospect seemed remote a few weeks ago but is, according to recent polling, within reach. In order to avoid a run-off with Bolsonaro, who has trailed Lula throughout the campaign but never fallen below second place, the former president would have to secure a plurality of so-called valid votes—that is, the total votes cast for specific candidates as opposed to blank or annulled votes. To that end, Lula’s campaign is showcasing its broad range of support. This week, the former president held an event with eight former presidential candidates, including left-wing names like Guilherme Boulos and Luciana Genro of the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) and market-friendly center-right names like ex-Central Bank head Henrique Meirelles and former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, the latter, of course, serving this time as Lula’s running mate. The idea is to demonstrate to voters along the political spectrum that important leaders are setting aside their differences ahead of the first round of voting to support Lula as opposed to waiting for a run-off, as would be customary. Boulos, for example, doggedly attacked Meirelles during the 2018 campaign, casting him as the candidate of greedy investors. Standing on the same stage with Lula at the center, they made clear their position that the stakes this time are simply too high to nurse resentments and disagreements.

On Thursday, September 22, one of the most important voices in Brazilian politics weighed in. Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who governed for two terms from 1995-2003, released a statement on Twitter cryptically indicating this position on the upcoming vote. The 91-year-old former sociologist announced his withdrawal from political life, but urged people to support the candidate “committed to fighting poverty and inequality, defending equal rights for all regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation, [who] takes pride in the cultural diversity of the Brazilian nation, values education and science and is committed to preserving our environmental heritage, strengthening the institutions that ensure our freedoms and restoring Brazil’s historic role on the international stage.” The person he is describing is clearly not Bolsonaro. There has, however, been some puzzlement as to why the aging former chief executive refused to name Lula as his preferred candidate. More likely than not, this reluctance to embrace Lula wholeheartedly will lead to diminished attention to Cardoso’s plea. 

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, was abroad, attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and then traveling to New York to deliver what could well be his final address to the United Nations General Assembly. As per tradition, the Brazilian head of state spoke first. But this was not the confident, tough-talking chief executive of, say, 2019, who celebrated the 1964 coup that ushered in two decades of military rule in Brazil and gloated about the economic challenges facing Venezuela (“socialism is working in Venezuela! Everyone is poor and without freedom!”). His chastened appearance at this year’s UNGA is indicative of the drastic shift in the winds of international politics. In 2018, when Bolsonaro’s win shocked the political establishment, the illiberal reactionary wave that lifted Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States and helped launch the United Kingdom out of the European Union via Brexit suggested the Brazilian president might benefit from a profound rightward turn around the world. He did for a while. Now, however, things look quite a bit different. Bolsonaro is quickly running out of time to reverse the dynamics of a race that are not in his favor and have not been for quite some time.

Highlights

• PDT SUPPORTERS STEER TOWARDS LULA. Responding to attacks by candidate Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) directed at former president Lula of the Workers’ Party (PT), a group of politicians from the PDT – past and present – ​​signed a manifesto entitled “Laborists for democracy: the vote required." The document adopts a critical tone towards Ciro's stance and demonstrates support for Lula in the October election. In the manifesto, the group expresses regret that Ciro Gomes is “incapable” of seeing that supporting and voting for Lula is not just a “useful vote,” but a “historical need” to defeat current President Jair Bolsonaro. The manifesto also asks PDT supporters “not to hesitate” in supporting the “only candidacy” capable of defeating Bolsonarism in the first round. “This is not just a useful vote. It's a historic necessity, something that, once again, we regret. [It is unfortunate] to watch Ciro Gomes, a unique citizen who has always shown consideration for the institutional design of the country, be incapable of seeing the importance of this period in history. In light of this, we call on labor activists and dissidents to support ex-president Lula in the first round,” the text says.

• FEARS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE. According to research conducted by the Datafolha Institute, 67.5% of the Brazilian electorate say they are afraid of being physically assaulted because of their political or party choices. The data, carried out at the behest of the Brazilian Public Security Forum and the Political Action Network for Sustainability (RAPS), was released on Thursday, September 15, and surveyed 2,100 people between the 3rd and 13th of August. "We realized that the fear of political violence is widespread among the different layers of the population. There is a real concern about how much this intensification can affect people's physical integrity" says David Marques, project coordinator at the Brazilian Forum on Public Security.

• ADDRESSING POLITICAL VIOLENCE. The president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Minister Alexandre de Moraes, said on Thursday, September 15,  that the various incidents of violence, both physical and verbal, that have been reported recently are regrettable and “totally outside the standards of civility.” He also commented: “Unfortunately, we are seeing some regrettable acts of violence, whether physical violence as they happened between voters, or verbal violence where a state legislator verbally attacks a journalist.” According to the minister, “it is very important that we celebrate and remember, on the International Day of Democracy, that the Superior Electoral Court and the entire judiciary exist precisely to guarantee the democratic rule of law and to guarantee democracy.”

• THE QUEEN’S FUNERAL. President Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party attended the farewell ceremonies for Queen Elizabeth II, which took place this Monday, September 19. The president's entourage also included the first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, pastor Silas Malafaia, former Government Communications Secretary Fabio Wajngarten, in addition to his sons Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro. On arrival at the embassy, the incumbent gave a quick impromptu speech to  a group of about 100 supporters waving Brazilian flags. Bolsonaro expressed "deep respect" to the British royal family and the people of the United Kingdom. In his speech to his supporters, the president highlighted that it is time to decide the future of the nation. "We know who the other side is and what they want to implement in Brazil. Our flag will always be those colors we have here today: green and yellow," he said, adding, "there's no way we can't win in the first round." British newspapers, including The Guardian, Daily Mail, and Independent, have accused Bolsonaro of politicizing the event.

• DATAFOLHA POLL. In the most recent poll released by the Datafolha Institute on Thursday, September 22, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party was shown with 47% of intended votes in the first-round run-off, a 2% increase from the previous poll. The incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party, remained stable with 33% of intended votes. Trailing behind are Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party with 7%, Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement with 5%, and Soriya Thronicke of Brazil Union with 1%. In the case of a second-round vote, the polls show Lula winning with 54% and Bolsonaro with 38%.

Feature Article

Speaking the A word in the Brazilian Presidential Elections

By Mariana Prandini Assis

Almost every day since the beginning of the presidential campaign, my cousin, a chronic Bolsonarista, sends a message on the family’s WhatsApp group where he explains why he will vote Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency once again. Among the reasons are being against the legalization of drugs, gender ideology, and abortion. Sometimes opposing the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) or being in favor of the privatization of public companies also show up in that list. But no matter what, abortion is always there.

While I strongly disagree with the reasons why abortion features in my cousin’s voting priorities, we agree on one thing: abortion should be a matter for discussion in presidential elections, particularly in Brazil, where we have some of the most restrictive laws in the world. In our legal history, abortion features as a crime since the first penal code issued after independence in 1830. In this first version of abortion criminalization, the person who performed the procedure was punished but not the pregnant one. The 1890 penal code extended punishment to the pregnant person, and the 1940 code, which remains in effect to this day, maintained the general criminalization of abortion except in two situations: in case of rape or danger to the pregnant person’s life. And yet, one in every five women, at the age of  40, has already disobeyed this law and rightly so, because it is a deeply unjust one. 

Abortion criminalization is unjust for several reasons. It denies people autonomy and dignity by taking from us the ability of making choices about our reproductive lives. It breeds fear and stigma, thus creating barriers to access relevant information about our health, body, and life plans. And it disproportionately affects people from marginalized communities, who often cannot afford clandestine but safe abortion and are the only ones who suffer criminal persecution. 

Despite being a matter of justice, abortion has not been treated as such in Brazilian presidential electoral cycles. Since the first democratic elections after the dictatorship in 1989, abortion has been, on the one hand, used as a tool for creating scandals and attacking candidates who have dared to speak about it as a health issue, as happened with former President Dilma Rousseff in 2010 and 2014. On both occasions, Dilma’s candidacy was tainted with the stigma of abortion and to overcome its electoral impact, she had to promise that no change would be made in our abortion law. On the other hand, abortion has been ignored as a political issue, branded as a religious or moral matter, thus liberating candidates to have their personal opinion without committing themselves to it as a matter of public policy and indeed, justice.

In the current electoral cycle, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has done something innovative: he has branded abortion as a religious and moral issue not to eschew from public debate but rather to justify his “no abortion rights” policy. Indeed, it is because the idea of abortion rights opposes a specific conservative religious worldview upheld by his supporters that Bolsonaro pledges to make Brazil an abortion-free land. During her three years in office, Damares Alves, Bolsonaro’s former Minister of Family, Women and Human Rights, had already set in motion such policy by actively working to dismantle the institutional support that exists for victims of rape to access abortion services.

Former president and now candidate Lula has, however, signaled that we could lead the debate around abortion towards a different path. In April this year, answering a question about abortion in a debate, Lula framed the issue along the lines that Brazilian feminist movements have done now for decades. By exposing that only poor and racialized women die due to unsafe abortion, Lula committed to treating the issue as a matter of public health and social justice. 

We hope that at the end of this electoral cycle, Lula can make good on his promise and perhaps even go beyond it. It is about time that we treat the liberalization of abortion not as a siloed moral issue, but rather as part of a comprehensive program of dignified reproductive care. We must shift to a new framework that disrupts the systems of economic, racial, political and religious marginalization that punishes people who have an abortion. It is a framework that fosters structures of care, within and outside the state, placing people with diverse needs and desires regarding their reproductive lives at their center. This is the only way to speak about the A word with justice. 

Mariana Prandini Assis is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Goiás, and a co-founder of the Margarida Alves Collective for People’s Legal Aid. Her research areas include feminist political and legal theory, human rights, social movements, public policy, and informality in economies, institutions, and practices. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, Al Jazeera and Project Syndicate.

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