Editorial

Polls Show Lula Still Ahead

The electoral outlook remains largely unchanged, marked by stability in the polls even as key actors continue negotiating alliances at the national and state levels. A February 9 poll by Quaest/Genial, for example, showed Lula ahead with 45% of votes against 23% for Bolsonaro with Bolsonaro's former Minister of Justice and judge Sergio Moro and former governor and government minister Ciro Gomes tied for third at 7%. Lula’s enduring advantage has led opponents to criticize what they see as hubris from the Workers’ Party (PT). In fact, however, Lula has made it clear that he wants former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin as his running mate—or at the very least in the cabinet—and has continued delicate negotiations with a host of other parties in order to build a broad alliance that can appeal to the political center. This is hardly the behavior of a candidate and a party brimming with overconfidence.

The most delicate negotiations are between the PT and the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), which hopes to attract Alckmin and earn PT support for candidates in state races across the country. Such conversations represent the normal give and take of Brazil’s multiparty democracy. This week in the state of Rio de Janeiro, for example, the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) of Ciro Gomes formalized a partnership with the center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) in the races for governor and senator. Ciro hopes this state partnership can be solidified at the national level, but there is no guarantee that it will. It is not unheard of for parties to support each other in one state or city and to vehemently oppose each other elsewhere.

There is, however, a new complicating factor in this year’s campaign: parties can now form federations with each other, binding themselves together for a mandatory four-year period in which two or more parties act essentially as one. There is some debate as to the constitutionality of this arrangement, but it seems likely to survive potential challenges. This is partly because federations might allow small parties to skirt increasingly stringent performance standards intended to limit the number of active political parties. As of 2022, all parties will have to either secure at least 2% of valid votes, distributed in a third of Brazil’s 26 states, or elect 11 members to congress from at least nine states to continue having access to public funding. Federations appeal both to small parties, who can latch onto larger agglomerations with deeper support and national reach, and large ones looking to shore up their base of support and demonstrate their ability to build coalitions. That the PSB will support Lula this year is close to certain. Less clear is whether it will tether itself to the PT for the next presidential term.

As alliances take shape in the months to come, the race is sure to tighten. This week, several candidates began settling on their marqueteiros, the close advisors who will manage their image over the course of the campaign. Notably, Bolsonaro is the only major candidate who has yet to announce who his message-maker will be. This is an important indicator to pay attention to in the days and weeks ahead. It will give observers a sense of the kind of campaign the president will wage. Tasked with presenting their candidate in the best possible light, Bolsonaro’s marqueteiro will face the daunting challenge of restoring the president’s appeal to an electorate that has soured on him. 

Highlights

• CIRO AND JANONES CONFIRMED:  According to Brazilian electoral law, anyone running for president cannot technically be a formal candidate until after parties hold their conventions between July 20 and August 5. Only two candidates so far are officially registered for Brazil’s presidential elections: Ciro Gomes (PDT - center left) and André Janones (Avante - center right). Ciro Gomes's party is seeking to increase its network of alliances in the gubernatorial elections, indicating support for political forces of different ideological hues. In São Paulo, the PDT is backing Guilherme Boulos (PSOL - left). In Rio de Janeiro it seeks support from the party of Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio (PSD - center right), and in Bahia, from the party of Mayor Antonio Carlos Magalhaes Neto (União Brasil - right). André Janones, a congressman who has accumulated more than 11 million followers across social media, has also proven to be ideologically malleable, pledging to fight inequality without the “ideological limitations” of Left and Right.

• RETURN TO THE PAST: The presidents of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB – center right) and Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB – center) have negotiated the creation of a party federation. This alliance obliges the parties to work cohesively in the elections for the next four years. Both already have candidates for the 2022 presidential race: João Doria for the PSDB and Simone Tebet for the MDB. Initial discussions, however, have yet to address which of them would give up their candidacy. This union would mean a return to the origin of both parties. Both come from the MDB (and later the PMDB), an opposition party created during the military dictatorship that split in 1988. The Supreme Court had given political parties until May 31 to set up party federations.

• TROUBLE FOR MORO: The Federal Public Ministry and the Federal Court of Accounts requested access to the assets of Sergio Moro, the former Minister of Justice of the Bolsonaro government and former federal judge. They argued that they need to verify the legality of Moro's contract with the United States consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. The firm is responsible for the judicial administration of contractors investigated by Operation Car Wash, in which Moro acted as a judge. The investigation will assess whether or not Moro had a conflict of interest. Moro has accused the Public Ministry of abusing its power. The opposition points out that Sergio Moro is now experiencing the heavy-handed methods previously employed by Operation Car Wash.

• LULA AND THE MARKET: Two of Brazil’s most renowned hedge fund managers predict markets embracing Lula da Silva if he wins this year’s presidential election, which they see as practically a given. Speaking at an event hosted by Credit Suisse Group AG, Luis Stuhlberger, the chief executive officer and chief investment officer at Verde Asset Management SA, said that the moderately left-wing former president is unlikely to adopt radical policies or make sweeping changes if elected president. At the same event, Rogerio Xavier, co-founder at hedge fund manager SPX Capital, said: “Foreign investors see a chance that Brazil improves under Lula.”

• PARTY MERGER: The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) has approved the merger between Democrats (right) and the Social Liberal Party (far-right) into União Brasil (right).

Feature Article

Public Safety and Brazil's Dilemma Heading into the 2018 Elections by Fabio Sá e Silva

In 2018, when Jair Bolsonaro was elected Brazil’s president, urban violence was rightfully at the center of the country’s political agenda. Statistics of homicides and violent crimes, such as robberies and rapes, had been on the rise continuously, unaffected––contrary to what many had expected––by the success of key social and economic policies adopted during the presidential administrations of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Dilma Rousseff that, among other results, had ended hyperinflation, universalized basic education, created jobs, and drastically reduced poverty and hunger.

The intractability of crime proved a boon to Bolsonaro’s candidacy. His life-long approach to public safety had been to offer simplistic solutions to a complex problem. Relaxing gun control legislation to enable “self-defense” by “good citizens” and removing obstacles for the police to “crack down” on crime––among which was the protection of basic rights of the criminally accused––had always been at the tip of his tongue. As the specter of crime made the electorate fearful and distressed, his demagoguery could finally sit well and generate political dividends.

Data clearly points to a subset motivated by his stances on crime and violence, especially––but not exclusively––among men.  In studies conducted between 2016 and 2018, Kalil (2018) mapped nine ideal types of Bolsonaro voters, four of which were clustered around the repudiation of crime or violence. In his analyses of “Brazil’s right-wing turn”, Nicolau notices that the preferences in the 2018 elections were highly asymmetric along gender lines, with Bolsonaro amassing 64% of votes among males. His explanation is that Bolsonaro’s “favorite themes (the relaxation of gun control, the use of tough policies against organized crime, and the critique to human rights policies) have greater resonance among males” (2020, p. 54; see also Kalil 2021).

Four years later, crime and violence may not have the same political salience they did in 2018.This is not because Bolsonaro solved the problem but because the damage he caused to Brazil’s economic and social fabric is so deep that many Brazilians now fear dying not from a stray bullet but from hunger or from COVID-19.

But crime has hardly become irrelevant to Brazilian life. Like in most other areas of policy under Bolsonaro, the problems in public safety persisted and deepened. Crime statistics saw improvement in 2018 and 2019, some of which, nonetheless, may be just statistical illusion.  Experts notice that deaths for undetermined violent causes (MCVI in the Portuguese acronym), not officially recorded as homicides, have increased significantly (Cerqueira et al 2021 and Graph 1), as have deaths in the context of police actions (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública 2021 and Graph 2). 

Graph 1. Deaths recorded as homicides x MCVI since 2014. Author’s elaboration based on Cerqueira et al 2021

Yet numbers alone do not convey the true damage Bolsonaro has done to public safety. This cuts more deeply, eroding the sector’s already fragile institutional fabric. Curiously enough, this did not happen through formal policy change. Bolsonaro’s main legislative venture in public safety––an anticrime package––was largely rejected by Congress, and he was unable to pass any other major piece of legislation. But combining abusive Executive Orders and direct, populist appeals, he managed to accomplish three things:

• Dehumanize “criminals” and legitimize police brutality in a country that massively incarcerates young, black/brown, and poor people;

• Increase access to firearms among Brazilians at an unprecedented rate, and;

• Radicalize and co-opt a significant number of Brazilian police officers to his political base.

It does not take much imagination to envision the potentially explosive results from this combination if Bolsonaro is given a second term in the 2022 elections––or even if he loses the vote count. But maybe a recollection of the January 6th events in the United States could give readers a hint.

Although Bolsonaro may currently not look very competitive, his approach to public safety may still appear on the ballot box, albeit in different ways. The most visible variable is Sergio Moro, the former judge who, in his own words, “commanded” the Lava Jato (Car Wash) anticorruption operation. Moro joined Bolsonaro’s cabinet as Minister of justice, but left 18 months later. He now poses as the president’s antipode, but he fundamentally shares Bolsonaro’s public safety agenda. Moro co-signed many of Bolsonaro’s Executive Orders that relaxed gun control and was the mastermind behind Bolsonaro’s “anticrime package,” which, among other issues, intended to give police officers legal backing if they killed criminal suspects “under fear, surprise, or violent emotion.” This would mean introducing a “qualified immunity” stipulation at the federal level in a country that has been sanctioned several times by the Inter-American Human Rights System of the Organization of American States (OAS) in cases concerning police brutality.

But while Bolsonaro and Moro clearly represent the institutional degradation of Brazil’s public safety, there is less certainty of where other candidates stand and what they would pursue in this area. Brazilian experts have long argued for the need of institutional reforms to reconfigure police organizations and improve governance, preferably applying lessons learned from other sectors like health and education. This was at the heart of Lula’s government plan in 2002, but was left behind, exchanged for less costly––politically speaking––and less effective solutions. 

Ironically, this agenda was only furthered during the brief and legally dubious administration of Michel Temer, who rose to power after Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016. Soon thereafter the Brazilian Congress passed Federal Statute No. 13,675/2018, creating a Public Safety System (SUSP). This law has been in force ever since, although it was systematically ignored by Moro and Bolsonaro. But its passage should be merely the beginning of a reform process that still requires changes, including to the Brazilian Constitution, whose article 144 on public safety did no more than reproduce the status quo inherited from the civil–military dictatorship.

Would Lula and other opposition candidates be willing to take the lead and finally reshape what is likely the most archaic portion of the Brazilian state? While only time will tell, the response is not without consequences. As the Bolsonaro tragedy has shown quite compellingly, the very future of Brazilian democracy may depend on it.

References

Cequeira, Daniel, et. al. Atlas de Segurança Pública. São Paulo: FBSP, 2021.

Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. São Paulo: FBSP, 2011.

Kalil, Isabela. "Dreaming with Guns: Performing Masculinity and Imagining Consumption in Bolsonaro's Brazil." In Precarious Democracy: Ethnographies of Hope, Despair, and Resistance in Brazil, edited by Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Alvaro Jarrín, Lucia Cantero, 50-61. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Kalil, Isabela. "Emerging Far Right in Brazil: Who Are Jair Bolsonar's Voters and What They Believe." Dossier Urban Controversies, no. 3. São Paulo: São Paulo School of Sociology and Politics Foundation, 2018.

Nicolau, Jairo. O Brasil dobrou à direita: Uma radiografia da eleição de Bolsonaro em 2018. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2020.

Fabio de Sa e Silva | Assistant Professor of International Studies & Wick Cary Professor of Brazilian Studies, University of Oklahoma | WBO Research Fellow