Brazil President 2022

[I need an explanation]

Does Bolsonaro win?

[CumbrianLefty]

A question that can't even begin to be answered at this very early stage - save that there is obviously a real chance that he will, and that is depressing enough.

[lilTommy]

As you said, probably too far out... but one can hope this is true!:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-election-2022-biden-b1719268.html

"(Jair Bolsonaro) lamented an “advance from the left” in South America and suggested he may not run for re-election in 2022."

[Samof94]

A question that can't even begin to be answered at this very early stage - save that there is obviously a real chance that he will, and that is depressing enough.

He’s using the cash payments for political reasons.

[CumbrianLefty]

A question that can't even begin to be answered at this very early stage - save that there is obviously a real chance that he will, and that is depressing enough.

He’s using the cash payments for political reasons.

The cash payments by the US government earlier this year have perhaps been underestimated by some as a reason for Trump doing a bit better "than expected".

[Mike88]

It all depends on who's on the other side. Like what I and Red Velvet discussed in the Brazilian municipal election thread, the center is very divided right now, with the center-left has Ciro, the center-right has many people not to mention the possible independents. Everything is still open, but no one wants to predict a PT vs Bolsonaro rematch as this would very likely reelect Bolsonaro.

Also, this could become the official thread of the 2022 election.

[Red Velvet]

It all depends on who's on the other side. Like what I and Red Velvet discussed in the Brazilian municipal election thread, the center is very divided right now, with the center-left has Ciro, the center-right has many people not to mention the possible independents. Everything is still open, but no one wants to predict a PT vs Bolsonaro rematch as this would very likely reelect Bolsonaro.

Also, this could become the official thread of the 2022 election.

Well, at least that’s the common sense knowledge due to media’s anti-PT campaign and these last municipal election results. However, in every runoff poll Bolsonaro wins against every opponent with similar margins, regardless if it’s PT, Ciro or random center-right person.

That said, these are from a moment (2 months ago) when his popularity was trending to go up due to the covid cash payments to the poor. These were reduced in half lately and will soon end in 2021 and his popularity already stopped going up and could go drastically down once these payments end next year.

[buritobr]

I suggest to use the "Brazil general discussion" thread for this debate https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=310672.0

According to the rules of this forum, we should create thread for the election only in the year of the election.

So, in early 2022 we will create the "Brazil general election 2022" thread

[Red Velvet]

Latest VEJA polls

1st round, in different possible scenarios



Runoff



Approval of Bolsonaro government

[Samof94]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

[brucejoel99]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Well, Lula, if he's able to overturn the convictions that currently bar him from running.

[Samof94]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Well, Lula, if he's able to overturn the convictions that currently bar him from running.

Yeah, but the fact he’s been in prison taints him for obvious reasons.

[brucejoel99]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Well, Lula, if he's able to overturn the convictions that currently bar him from running.

Yeah, but the fact he’s been in prison taints him for obvious reasons.

Does it really, though? Last I recall, he would've been able to win from prison had the law permitted him to run.

[Red Velvet]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Well, Lula, if he's able to overturn the convictions that currently bar him from running.

Yeah, but the fact he’s been in prison taints him for obvious reasons.

Supreme Court changed a law understanding and that released Lula last year, without making him innocent and therefore still giving him no political rights. So he’s kinda “free” but can’t run.

Naturally, prison was only used to keep him out of running in 2018, since he spent only 1,5 year there (from April 2018 to November 2019). Lula isn’t the only case of “lawfare” and justice being kidnapped to be used for the political intentions of some elites, but it is the case that gained the most repercussion.

It is honestly scary how an ill-intended judge can simply destroy someone’s life or go against the constitution if they have a motivation to do so. Even scarier is that people can approve this if they consider more convenient to their political side. I don’t like Bolsonaro supporters and think they’re being hypocritical in their criticism of the judiciary (when it was against Lula or the left they celebrated the “we can do everything” stance), but I do agree with them when they bring that the justice system is corrupt to its core and isn’t to be trusted.

Also, it’s absurd the privileges and supersalaries these people who make a career in law make compared to the average Brazilian citizen, I don’t think other class has so much better than anyone else. Top military officials and politicians come close though, these three are the most undeservedly privileged sectors, they can do absolutely nothing and be absurdly rich. Just this past week, a group of promoters was arguing that they deserved to be the first ones vaccinated even if they aren’t in a health priority group, which shows how disgusting, selfish and elitist these people tend to be.

Problem is that Bolsominions don’t really criticize the judiciary for going off limits, they hate only when it goes against one policy or strategy they defend. It’s laughable that they act like constitution defenders and experts of the law after everything they did and said to subvert it since 2014 and Dilma’s reelection. They’re against judiciary and talk about dissolving it with the military because they’re wannabe fascists.

Basically, you can’t be fully in anyone’s side these days because everyone is wrong, abusing power or is just plain evil. Even in a hypothetical post-Bolsonaro scenario, prospects are bleak with this continuous erosion of trust in the system by all sides.

I mean, it sends a signal alert when I can easily understand the appeal of authoritarian positions against the judiciary, even if I stay firmly against it. People like the authoritarian rhetoric nowadays because the Brazilian elites have behaved like untouchable Gods above everyone else for way too long. The anti-system sentiment will prevail even after authoritarian hopefuls like Bolsonaro.

[Red Velvet]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Regarding that, there will never be one due to Brazilian electoral system being extremely different from the US one.

That said, I don’t want someone like Biden at all lol. It would be a “union” figure for the mainstream media mostly but the problems that I mentioned and others would keep feeding the negative feelings that produced Bolsonaro and feed his return in the future, or of someone even worse.

You can’t just ignore the anti-system sentiment and create strategies to go around it. You need actual transformative reform that make it more equitable so that people don’t see politicians or judges like a class that can do everything they want. Someone like Biden would simply keep the status quo of privileges and try no big effort to make meaningful and necessary change.

I don’t agree with either radicalisms, of being completely pro-system and defending the big injustices that it promotes in the present, or being completely anti-system and destroying everything just because some aspects don’t work. There is an important middle ground that people usually miss. The bases of the democratic system should be kept, just like other positive aspects, but a lot of what currently exists should be destroyed for good.

[Samof94]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Regarding that, there will never be one due to Brazilian electoral system being extremely different from the US one.

That said, I don’t want someone like Biden at all lol. It would be a “union” figure for the mainstream media mostly but the problems that I mentioned and others would keep feeding the negative feelings that produced Bolsonaro and feed his return in the future, or of someone even worse.

You can’t just ignore the anti-system sentiment and create strategies to go around it. You need actual transformative reform that make it more equitable so that people don’t see politicians or judges like a class that can do everything they want. Someone like Biden would simply keep the status quo of privileges and try no big effort to make meaningful and necessary change.

I don’t agree with either radicalisms, of being completely pro-system and defending the big injustices that it promotes in the present, or being completely anti-system and destroying everything just because some aspects don’t work. There is an important middle ground that people usually miss. The bases of the democratic system should be kept, just like other positive aspects, but a lot of what currently exists should be destroyed for good.

Obviously, their system for President reminds me a bit more of France(which is semi Presidential unlike America or Brazil) than the United States. Also, doesn’t your country have many people who remember the horrors of the military regime???

[Red Velvet]

He seems to win all of them. There is no Brazilian Biden.

Regarding that, there will never be one due to Brazilian electoral system being extremely different from the US one.

That said, I don’t want someone like Biden at all lol. It would be a “union” figure for the mainstream media mostly but the problems that I mentioned and others would keep feeding the negative feelings that produced Bolsonaro and feed his return in the future, or of someone even worse.

You can’t just ignore the anti-system sentiment and create strategies to go around it. You need actual transformative reform that make it more equitable so that people don’t see politicians or judges like a class that can do everything they want. Someone like Biden would simply keep the status quo of privileges and try no big effort to make meaningful and necessary change.

I don’t agree with either radicalisms, of being completely pro-system and defending the big injustices that it promotes in the present, or being completely anti-system and destroying everything just because some aspects don’t work. There is an important middle ground that people usually miss. The bases of the democratic system should be kept, just like other positive aspects, but a lot of what currently exists should be destroyed for good.

Obviously, their system for President reminds me a bit more of France(which is semi Presidential unlike America or Brazil) than the United States. Also, doesn’t your country have many people who remember the horrors of the military regime???

Mostly left people are firmly against the military dictatorship because the repression of that time affected more them: censorship in artistic sectors, imprisonments and torture of political opponents of the regime and freedom activists, secretive “disappearances”, etc.

But for the average apolitical citizen that doesn’t care about most of that stuff, they weren’t affected by it and they’re the majority. Also, dictatorship wasn’t as bloody here as it was in Chile under Pinochet for example, which was a whole different and more traumatic level. Which helps people not have the memory or give the necessary importance to the evils of those times.

Many also don’t take Bolsonaro seriously, just as a politically incorrect barbecue uncle who speaks his mind in a aggressive but well-meaning way. They don’t believe he would do everything he said and shared his rhetoric anger with the system (even if he himself is part of that system for 30 years), which made it easy for them to support him. At least during the elections it was like that, nowadays they became a complete cult of personality since it’s evident Bolsonaro isn’t the system-crasher they wanted.

[Samof94]

I do recall he has a lot of support from evangelicals as well. They are growing in Brazil.

[CumbrianLefty]

I do recall he has a lot of support from evangelicals as well. They are growing in Brazil.

Just terrible people generally, aren't they?

[Samof94]

As a political organization, not individuals, that is. Also, who should teach religion on schools??? It’s not like falling off a flat earth is a thing.
Back on topic, a lot of the trends Brazil has look like the things in the 1970’s that attracted people to it in the first place and made Reagan President.

[Coldstream]

I don’t wish to derail the thread with too general a question, but why does Lula consistently poll so much higher than other PT candidates like Haddad? What is about him that ~10% of the country like that they don’t like about the rest of his party?

[Red Velvet]

I don’t wish to derail the thread with too general a question, but why does Lula consistently poll so much higher than other PT candidates like Haddad? What is about him that ~10% of the country like that they don’t like about the rest of his party?

Lula is uniquely charismatic and was the best president since redemocratization in the 80s. Did stuff to regular people that no other recent presidents did. Brazilians mostly vote for people and personalities, not for parties, although there are natural ideological associations.

PT is a party shaped around memories of Lula government at this point. They have been since Lula left power in 2011. They don’t have a clear message for the future and after the white coup that took Dilma out and imprisioned Lula, they placed their bets on a message of focusing on Lula and his freedom. Which is a valid agenda but it isn’t what the large majority of people want to hear, they want solution to their own problems.

When “Lula” is your main agenda for the country, naturally people would rather get the real deal instead of a party replacement, since the party identity became more shaped on the leader than on a set of projects. It’s a different scenario from the 90s when there was excitement for the PT promises in middle of more neoliberal governments from Collor and from PSDB’s Fernando Henrique. Nowadays the left is still trying to discover what to do, with PT left wondering whether to renovate or insist on a Lula-centered message and the all the non-PT left pushing newer options that they consider to be the better alternatives for the left to succeed post-Bolsonaro.

I myself wouldn’t vote for PT these days because they lack their old exciting and energetic leadership that gives people hope. Ciro Gomes is better in this regard, with charisma and a set of proposals, even if he still uses too much of an overly-academic language. That said, if PT managed to be allowed to run Lula, many would consider voting for him. If he ran in 2018, I would have voted for him, not for Haddad or other PT candidate even with him inside jail. Nowadays, I think renovation is more important so Lula is my #2 option behind Ciro.

Also, Bolsonaro’s populism kinda neutralizes the PT economic populism. Only two people in recent era managed to reach and excite people in “deep Brazil”: Lula and Bolsonaro. Both know the art of speaking the language of real Brazilians and represent what the population really is.

But Lula’s popularity explains why the party is scared of renovation since they are what they are because of Lula. Most PT supporters only hear what Lula says, not to other PT party leaderships. There’s a reason why someone like Dilma, who lacked political skills, got elected TWICE: She was the candidate of Lula and she was heavily sold as his sucessor by PT ads and jingles. Haddad nationally was mostly an unknown weeks before the 2018 election and his campaign in tv heavily featured the message: “Haddad is Lula, Lula is Haddad” in order to transfer all the Lula electorate vote to him.

I blame a lot of PT’s 2018 strategy for Bolsonaro. They pretended Lula was going to be able to run until last minute until they couldn’t and then pushed a new face that was mostly meh in terms of charisma as if the Lula vote would transfer automatically. A lot of it did but it was dangerous when the other popular option was literally a son of the dictatorship.

The 2018 polls reflect some of the Lula vote transfer to Haddad, who was mostly a nobody with 4% when his campaign started. How things developed in 2018 until the 1st round:

[Former President tack50]

Why did Marina Silva collapse so spectacularly in 2018?

And similarly, why were the non-Bolsonaro right wing candidates unable to get any notable amount of popular support?

[Red Velvet]

Why did Marina Silva collapse so spectacularly in 2018?

And similarly, why were the non-Bolsonaro right wing candidates unable to get any notable amount of popular support?

Marina usually starts strong but loses support as the campaign passes because her base is mostly fluid. In 2010 and 2014 it was basically people who didn’t want neither PT or PSDB and as campaign passes, polarization is stimulated. And Marina’s more calm and polite personality isn’t fit to a combative scenario where you need to know how to attack and also defend yourself.

And 2018 was too polarized between left and right. Marina is someone who doesn’t fit fully in any lane, mostly perceived in the center. She’s too environmental and pro-peace to be embraced by the right and segments of the left were always somewhat suspicious of her because of her evangelical associations.

I’m sure being a black woman also gives her a ceiling and makes her more vulnerable to sexism. Male politicians who adopt a more aggressive persona are perceived as “strong people who will really fight for my rights”.

Regarding the non-Bolsonaro right in 2018, that would be PSDB and they had less than 5% when all was said and done. PSDB was affected by the anti-establishment feeling of the population due to “Car-Wash”, which affected the major parties the most (PT, PSDB, MDB). People in the right were strongly anti-PT but they also wanted massive systemic change, so they supported Bolsonaro who promised to burn everything.

The non-Bolsonaro right was practically non-existent in 2018. Practically all of them got behind Bolsonaro, very few exceptions.

They only become major nowadays because a significant amount of people who voted Bolsonaro in 2018 is pissed as hell with their president and became opposition. Especially those who were car-wash enthusiasts. He’s not the anti-corruption name they wanted to believe and uses the government to favor his family, is sectarian and constantly fights with people in his government, is terrible administrator who is botching plans for Covid vaccination on purpose only to politically prejudice adversaries... And lots of other stuff that would take long time mentioning.

So they will become more relevant in 2020 if the present is any indication. Question is whether it will be enough to make runoff or if they are not able to take back a significant part of the support that went to Bolsonaro in 2018.

Also, those people who voted Bolsonaro but turned against him in the last two years are mostly upper class, high-education in big cities, people who pay more attention to politics and news. But Bolsonaro is compensating these losses by gaining ground with lower classes from more remote areas distant from the biggest cities, a lot due to the Covid relief cash payments and also pro-incumbent bias.