Honestly? Same place, I think. Bolsonaro would still have won in 2018 lol
The collapse of PSDB was inevitable after they were also involved in the corruption stuff that was a media sensation in the 2010s. Economy was at its worse during the years she would’ve governed and it’s unlikely that he would’ve done much different stuff than Temer did. But PT would still be weakened because of car-wash.
Being in PSDB and in government would be enough to give him at least 20% and make it a close three-horse race between Aécio, Bolsonaro and the PT candidate. But Bolsonaro would still benefit from being the change candidate. He would still win it but with reduced 1st round margins.
2nd scenario - Aécio is GREAT president that makes the economy do better than it did. Gets easy re-election in 2018 and Bolsonaro stays as fringe far-right candidate that never got elected. Which means the PT vs PSDB dynamics are preserved for the 2022 election.
3rd scenario - Aécio is AWFUL president and because Dilma was never re-elected, the giant conservative resentment for losing in 2014, so no one cares much on institutions about jailing Lula. The bad government with awful economic situation creates the opposite effect and Lula gets elected in 2018 out of nostalgia. Lula gets an AWFUL impossible to save period in history with the pandemic though - leading to a scenario close to what happened with Argentina where they had a left government (Dilma/CFK) but then elected the center-right (Aécio/Macri) and later center-left again (Lula/Alberto) only to be insatisfied - leading to the eventual postponed rise of the far-right anyway (Bolsonaro 2022/Milei 2023).
How do you think a Neves vs Haddad runoff would have gone in 2018?
