The Battle Between Brazil’s Familiar Faces

Voters in South America’s largest country face a stark choice in Sunday’s presidential election: A Dispatch Explainer.

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Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro gesture during a presidential debate. (Photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

Brazilians will have a stark choice Sunday when they vote for president: a progressive, once-imprisoned former president who represents the political establishment or the incumbent Donald Trump-like populist already sowing seeds of election denialism.

This will be the second and final round of voting in the election. Ahead of the first round on October 2, polls showed former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known simply as Lula—with a commanding lead. But like Trump in 2020, the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his down-ballot allies outperformed the polls’ expectations: He received 43 percent of the vote while Lula got 48 percent. Sunday’s runoff was triggered because neither candidate received 50 percent of the vote.

The race has some considerable policy stakes—Bolsonaro is somewhat more isolationist in foreign policy, for instance, and Lula wants to do more to protect Brazil’s natural environment—but it has greater implications for the future of Brazil’s democracy. 

“The two candidates represent powerful movements, but they’re not really reconcilable.” said Norman Gall, a longtime journalist in Latin America and the executive director of the Fernand Braudel Institute for World Economics in São Paulo.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Mary

    Thank you. This is a helpful explainer.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Swedhead

    I know that all the election officials claim that the voting system is fraud proof. What Price fails to mention, and what I have not read in any American media, is that the election commission could have taken away the issue completely if one of the Supreme Courts had not struck down a measure passed by the legislature: having the voting machines print a copy of the filled in ballot so that there could be a paper trail. I'm not sure if it was the Supreme Court, or the Supreme Electoral Court that struck the measure down saying that it would be possible to figure out who voted for whom, and the Brazilian constitution protects the secret ballot. The things I read on that possibility were so convoluted that it would be easier to figure out how to rig the voting machines to tabulate the votes incorrectly than to find out whom everyone voted for.

    It may be conspiracy thinking, but then their reason for not allowing the machines to print out your ballot sounds fishy, as do many different rulings that have gone against President Bolsonaro. And, if their voting system is so good, how come it isn't used in any US states? When it was introduced I said that it would never fly in the US because it didn't leave a paper trail. You have to trust the voting machine to record all the votes accurately the first time because there is no way to have a recount.

    And, boy, I don't get the sense that he is more isolationist than Lula. Bolsonaro loves the US and has made nice to the US in ways that Lula never did. Lula fueled anti-American sentiment. I'm an American living in Brazil, and I know.

    I'm not saying that Bolsonaro would be my guy, if I could vote, but I could never, ever vote for Lula. And, no, the choice is not binary. You could abstain.

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    OJFL

    Another problem for Lula will be that he will not control the majority of Congress as he did in his early presidencies. The issue is this election will be the least of two evils. Bolsonaro is not the best politician, but Lula presided over the biggest case of proven corruption in the history of Latin America, if not the world. It is depressing that people keep choosing these leaders in a country of 220 million people. It is unfathomable that in such a rich country these are the only two alternatives and that populism wins the day yet again.

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  4. Brocka121

    Ben Shapiro had a great interview with Bolsonaro on his podcast this last Sunday; if anyone is interested.

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    Javier Seravalli

    The biggest threat from Bolsonaro is that he will open the Amazon for further mining and other industries, in the name of development. That is a much more serious global problem than AGW. The biggest threat from Lula is corruption and socialism, leading the country to potentially align with China and Russia. Pick your poison.

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      OJFL

      He will not be able to do that because the vast majority of the Amazon is native territory. If that happens it is because native Brazilians have allowed it to happen. But you seem correct Lula is the worst of two bad options.

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        Javier Seravalli

        What makes you think that the natives have any power in the decision, or that they vote? The Bolsonaro re-election guarantees development of the Amazon will happen. Also I didn't say that Lula was the worse choice.

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          OJFL

          They vote. Voting is mandatory in Brazil for all citizens. And the natives have the media on their side as well as the power of the courts. I had the impression from your comment you thought Lula was the worse choice. I may have assumed too much. I apologize.

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    2. Tom Doniphon

      How is that a 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 problem, though?

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      1. Avatar photo
        Javier Seravalli

        https://www.britannica.com/story/what-happens-to-earth-if-the-amazon-rainforest-is-completely-burned

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    David M

    Thanks Price. This was a good explainer for me.

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    Chris L

    Lula vs Bolsonaro is uncomfortably analogous to Biden vs Trump.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Paul Reichardt

      It’s the global south. Electorates in those countries generally have ideological centers that are several notches to the left of that of the United States. In that sense, Lula is an establishment figure like Biden, minus the age issue.

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      1. Trumeau

        Lula is just 2 years younger than Biden. Old age just hit Biden faster than Lula.

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      Pat Riot

      More like Trump vs Trump.

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    3. Trumeau

      Seems more like Sanders vs Trump. Brazilian voters don’t seem to have good choices.

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      1. David R

        Who did the 9% who voted for someone else in the first round vote for? Maybe they had good choices with bad PR or that no one voted for because "they can't win".

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          Wade Paulsen

          There were 10 candidates running in the first round. Some of them weren't serious; for example, there was a candidate running from the Communist Party even though the Communist Party was in a coalition ("Brazil of Hope") with Lula's Workers Party. However, the best of the opposing candidates were Simone Tebet, who led a center-left coalition as head of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, and Ciro Gomez, who led the left-wing Democratic Labour Party (Lula's former party). But both were under 10% in the polling (Tebet's peak was just over 10%), and their shares of the actual vote dropped to under 5% when voters consolidated behind the two leaders.

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          1. Avatar photo
            OJFL

            Lula never belonged to Gomes' party, He founded the Labor Party and was always associated with it. There was another candidate from a party simply called "New" that did not get many votes but ran in an explicitly classical liberal platform. The party controls one of the old centers of power in the country, the third richest state and second most populous. But they cannot make inroads in national elections so far, doing worse this time around than last election.

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      2. Thconnors

        if that is the choice, then it is an easy one: Bolsonaro

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