Brazil thread 2023-

[Red Velvet]

ATLAS poll also shows how people evaluate every aspect of Lula’s government and how much in sync is with the population expectations.

Also interesting to compare with the overall government Evaluation!

OVERALL Evaluation
Good/Great 43,5%
Regular 16%
Bad/Awful 40%

The most POSITIVELY evaluated aspects of Lula’s government by Brazilians are:
- Human Rights and Racial Equality
- Foreign Policy
- Environmental Policy

The most NEGATIVELY evaluated aspects of Lula’s government by Brazilians are:
- Public Safety
- Ease for Business and Tax Burden
- Industrial Policy

You can note that topics mostly associated with the Left tend to be the best evalued (Racial agenda; Ambiental Agenda; etc). While Foreign Policy also receives good approval even though the Venezuela diplomacy position is highly unpopular as I’ve posted before - as people recognize that Brazil is back to being a major player in global geopolitics.

While the topics that are least approved are usually more well-associated with the Right (The “Law and Order” stuff for Public Safety; Promotion of less Tax Burden agendas; etc).

From most popular to least popular:

- Human Rights and Racial Equality
- Foreign Policy
- Environmental Policy
- Agricultural Policy
- Investments and Public Infrastructure
- Digital and Technological Innovation
- Diminishing Poverty and Social Policy
- Education Policy
- Health Policy
- Fiscal Responsibility and Spending Control
- Tourism; Culture and Events
- Housing and Urbanization of Favelas
- Transports; Roads and Airports
- Industrial Policy
- Ease for Business and Tax Burden
- Public Safety

[Red Velvet]

ATLAS also asked Brazilians whether they had a Positive or Negative opinion about these different systems of government:

1. Liberal Democracy: net of +38
Positive Opinion - 58%
Negative Opinion - 20%

2. Communism: net of -52
Positive Opinion - 16%
Negative Opinion - 68%

3. Military Dictatorship: net of -67
Positive Opinion - 11%
Negative Opinion - 78%

4. Fascism: net of -84
Positive Opinion - 1%
Negative Opinion - 85%

Which shows that Democracy is highly favored by Brazilians over other options of systems. However, a significant combined fringe of nearly 27% - I mean, assuming the Military Dictatorship supporters are different from the Communism ones - favor a different system, with Communism (supported by some in the left) and Military Dictatorship (supported by some in the right) both having larger than 10% support each.

The support for Fascism however, is basically non-existent, at least in an open manner. Only 1% of Brazilians would declare themselves as openly fascist.

[buritobr]

Here we can see the map of the % of the representatives of each state who voted "yes" for the tax reform. The states in which the majority voted "no" are strongly pro-Bolsonaro states: Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Santa Catarina.
The biggest good surprise is Paraná, which is a pro-Bolsonaro state, but it was the most pro tax reform state outside the states in the Northeast.

[buritobr]

Concerning the left-right divide, this tax reform is neutral. Left-wing and right-wing economists endorsed it. Since I was an undergraduate student of Economics 20 years ago, I heard that it was better to unify those many federal and state taxes on consumption into a single value added tax, and create rules to share the revenue among the federal government and the 27 state governments. It was very hard to approve this reform in the last 20 years because the states had different proposals to share the revenue, according to their interests. Finally an agreement could be reached yesterday.
I think the biggest motivation for the hard-line pro-Bolsonaro representatives to be against this reform is avoiding a strong economic recovery before the next election on 2026.

[Red Velvet]

FUTURA poll - which was a more Bolsonaro friendly institution throughout 2022 election polling - has made what I think is the first poll for the 2026 election and the results were quite surprising for me at least.

This is the 2022 result that FUTURA’s final poll predicted in 26th October, only 4 days prior of the election: Bolsonaro 50,3% vs Lula 49,7%

They were not quite far-off even if they favored Bolsonaro. The final difference only happened to be a 1,2% swing in favor of Lula.

This is what they are saying now for 2026, after 7 months of Lula government:

Lula 56,3% vs Bolsonaro 43,7% (Brazil 2022 rematch!)
Lula 57,2% vs Tarcísio de Freitas 42,8%
Lula 60,4% vs Romeu Zema 39,6%
-
Haddad 51,9% vs Bolsonaro 48,1% (Brazil 2018 rematch!)
Haddad 51,2% vs Tarcísio de Freitas 48,8% (São Paulo 2022 rematch!)
Haddad 56,1% vs Romeu Zema 43,9%

A PT victory in all six scenarios, even with Haddad (our current Minister of Economy who also was the PT candidate for presidency in 2018 who lost to Bolsonaro).

Tarcísio de Freitas - São Paulo Governor elected in 2022, was Bolsonaro’s Minister of Infrastructure during his government. Main bet of the right for 2026 because he’s very liked among hard conservatives segments because of the policies he supports but also perceived as more “moderate” because of his language not being as offensive as the one Bolsonaro had.

Romeu Zema - Minas Gerais Governor, only person with relevance nowadays within Partido NOVO. The party brand was initially about being a Libertarian party but became more and more submissive to Bolsonarism alongside past four years. The non-Bolsonarists were basically kicked out or shamed to leave (ex-president of the party who ran for presidency in 2018, Joao Amoedo, is in that group) and nowadays the party is just Bolsonarist - Romeu Zema included.

[Red Velvet]

The Monark situation is pretty insane and is probably my main disagreement with the Brazilian Left. Regarding this insane drooling of Alexandre de Moraes.

From my understanding, among some people online at least, after the Lula imprisonment abd the entire last 8 years of hell, there’s a lot of a broad “vengeance” sentiment against the right in a broader sense.

Which I get it because the right got away with tons of unfair absurds that don’t hold up as anything other than political persecution, from Dilma’s impeachment being campaigned just after her reelection was announced, Lula’s imprisonment, while the right-wingers could do totally everything including crimes that no one cared.

And the same opportunist people who stayed quiet back then are the ones complaining about “freedom of expression”, which only exposes their hypocrisy. I get it. These abuses of the right are the foundation of the normalization of political persecution that we are currently seeing. But that “vengeance” sentiment shouldn’t be validation to confirm what these people set up and created.

Lula was made stronger because his process was unfair and he was persecuted, for example. There are obviously some aspects of law that are subjective and up for debate but usually you can see someone is being persecuted when they’re given a very disproportional reaction and punishment to the stuff they are being accused of.

And Monark simply isn’t being accused of ANY crime to be given that kind of reaction, especially when many many politicians have done much worse (actual crimes) and aren’t hold accountable at all.

What I see most mentioned as a reason to celebrate the seizure of his money and blocking his social media:

- Saying that freedom of expression should be irrestrict and when someone asks “Even Nazis?”, he responds “Yes, everyone”. Which is dumb as hell, but you have to do a lot of gymnastics from that to conclude from this that he’s a Nazi sympathizer because of this.

- Adding fuel to some Argentinian created conspiracy about the electronic machines being frauded. I mean, like he was the only person in a sea of Bolsonarists doing that (including the own (ex) president who was spreading that stuff! Questioning the integrity of electronic votings, though mostly often used in a mean spirited way to stimulate chaos, also is not a crime. People have the right to question their votings systems because sometimes, it just so happens that they should be questioned although in this scenario Bolsonaro supporters had ill intentions.

It really feels like Alexandre de Moraes is going so extreme on him more in order to test the waters and send a message to discourage people from doing something similar.

Which is stupid imo. I never cared about Monark or agreed with most of the stuff he uses to say at all and here I am having to defend him. I guess with the average observer who eventually pays attention to the case (and doesn’t fall into left vs right automatic tribalisms), they will probably feel the same.

Which ugh, only helps to strength the right. To obviously different proportions, like Lula’s jailing gave strength to the left.

[buritobr]

PT confirmed that this party won't have a candidate to run for mayor of the city of São Paulo in 2024. PT will endorse PSOL candidate Guilherme Boulos (as if SPD endorsing a Linke candidate). Probably, PT will have the running mate of the ticket. Boulos already ran in 2020 and had 40.6% in the runoff. He was defeated by the center-right candidate Bruno Covas, who passed away in 2021. The mayor now is Ricardo Nunes and he will run for reelection. Probably he will be endorsed by both the center-right and Bolsonaro. But an open Bolsonaro's in São Paulo do more harm than good. A usually anti-PT city gave 53.5% to Lula in 2022. The city of São Paulo hates Bolsonaro even more.

Lula's party won't have candidate in the 2 Brazilian major cities, because in Rio de Janeiro PT will endorse the centrist incumbent mayor Eduardo Paes, who will run for reelection in 2024. This endorsement is a reward of Paes's endorsement for Lula in 2022 and for his party PSD being member of Lula'a supporting base in the Congress. But we can expect that some PT members will campaign for the PSOL candidate.

[PSOL]

PSOL hasn’t been an independent organization that tries to be its own party for a long time now. As of this moment, it is basically a quasi-satellite party and I expect it to continue on this path for the indeterminate future. The only real opposition to PT is coming from the centrist parties of PSB and PDT who they compete for votes with.

[buritobr]

Silvinei Vasques, chief of the highway patrol federal police during Bolsonaro's administration, was arrested due to his "special operation" on October 30th 2022, the day of the runoff. In this day, the highway patrol federal police blocked many buses in the highways in order to check the safety of the vehicles. More than half of the blocked buses were vehicles in the Northeast, a region which has only 1/4 of the Brazilian population. It was obvious that the real intent was to make harder for Lula's voters to reach the electoral precints. Northeast is Lula's biggest stronghold. Many people in the Northeast live in rural areas and need transportation to reach the polls. Vasques always denied the relation between his "operation" and the election, but investigation in the cell phones of the highway patrol federal police found that the "operation" was related to the election. Vasques may face trial due to an electoral crime.

It was a really stupid attack on democracy: 2185 buses were stopped in the Northeast. Considering each one had 50 passengers, 109,250 voters could have been harmed. This is 0.1% of the total voters in Brazil. The probability of this "operation" to change the result was very low. Anyway, this is a crime and he must answer.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well the actual result was pretty close, so you never know.

Good that he is being held to account anyway.

[buritobr]

4.59M Brazilians live abroad. Since Brazil has 203M inhabitants, 2.3% of the population live abroad. This is lower than the world average: 3% of the human beings don't like in the country of birth. However, this is a much higher number than the number of foreigners who live in Brazil: 600,000.

Quantity of Brazilians in each country

USA 1,900,000
Portugal 360,000
Paraguay 254,000
UK 220,000
Japan 207,000
Spain 165,000
Germany 160,000
Italy 157,000
Canada 133,100
French Guyana 91,500
Argentina 90,300
France (not counting French Guyana) 90,000
Ireland 80,000
Netherlands 76,500
Switzerland 64,000
Uruguay 59,000
Bolivia 56,500
Australia 46,600
Mexico 45,000
Belgium 40,000
...
Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1

Source: https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2023/08/10/veja-onde-moram-e-quantos-sao-por-pais-os-brasileiros-no-exterior-de-acordo-com-estimativa-do-itamaraty.ghtml

Voting for president is mandatory even for Brazilians who live abroad. If they come back to Brazil and decide to apply for studying at a public university or working in the public service, they need to update their duties to the Electoral Justice.
However, despite 4.59M live abroad, only ~300K voted for president in 2022. Many of them don't care anymore. And some others don't want to waste time and money traveling to a city in which there is a Brazilian ambassy or consulate.

[buritobr]

In this week, the data of the 2022 Census concerning the indigenous population were released. Indigenous population who live both inside and outside indigenous reservations were counted. There are 1.7M indigenous people in Brazil. Most of them live in the area of the Amazon forest. A large majority of the indigenous who live outside the area of the Amazon forest live outside indigenous reservations. Some indigenous population is urban.

We could also see the municipalities in which there are the highest % of indigenous population in Brazil


The % of vote for Lula in these municipalities in the 2022 runoff was the following
Uiramutã-RR 68.2
Santa Isabel do Rio Negro-AM 73.9
São Gabriel da Cachoeira-AM 80.6
Amaturá-AM 76.6
Normandia-RR 41.8
Marcação-PB 84.6
Baía da Traição-PB 83.0
Canaubeira da Penha-PE 92.3
São Paulo de Olivença-AM 84.2
São João das Missões-MG 75.7

Normandia, located in the state of Roraima, is the only top 10 indigenous municipality in which Bolsonaro won. Uiramutã is the only municipality in Roraima in which Lula won. Roraima is the state with the highest share of indigenous population. It is also the state in which Bolsonaro had his best performance. Almost all non-indigenous who live in Roraima is pro-Bolsonaro.

[buritobr]

Today, NY representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez visited PT and PSOL representatives in Brasília. She visited a favela in Brasília in which the homeless movement has the "solidarity kitchen program", to provide food for people who live there. The trip was led by PSOL representative Guilherme Boulos, former leader of the homeless movement, who will run for mayor of São Paulo in 2024

[buritobr]

Quaest Poll, August 2023

Lula's administration
60% approve
35% disapprove









Lula and Lopez Obrador are the only left-wing leaders in the world nowadays who have positive net approval rate

[Red Velvet]

Economic optimism obviously has an effect but I don’t think it’s only that tbh.

I feel like we have been fighting each other sooooo much since the 2014 election (which marked the 1st time social media was heavily used to comment on elections) that we were all stressed about having to keep fighting for more 8 years.

The right got their anger with Aécio’s defeat (4th consecutive defeat to PT) and put it out of their system with Dilma’s impeachment, Lula’s imprisonment and Bolsonaro’s election in 2018. Then that traumatized the left who got energized for 2022 based on resentment and also all of Bolsonaro’s  ups.

So there was low key this vibe that 2022 election was the “Endgame” to finally settle the matter once and for all. And even if there’s the crazy authoritarian share of Bolsonaro’s voters who engaged on election denialism, I really think a majority respects and appreciate on some level how close the election was.

That combined with most (sane) people just being tired of discussing and fighting about politics all the time, creates a good background for the political stability we’re seeing today. Brazil has its times throughout history of going really evil and crazy whenever some societal change or instability happens but overall, we’re a much more culturally homogeneous of a society than somewhere like say, the US, where the social fabric is way more sensitive and polarized.

Like, Brazil is a place where most people just try to adapt to whatever the majority wants because we don’t have the energy or the will to fight each other for way too long. And this has both its upsides and downsides. Military Dictatorship? They’re already in power, so we’ll mostly just go along with it for some decades. Return to Democracy? Let’s give amnesty to everyone so that there isn’t any conflict. Big protests on the streets asking for impeachment? Sure, if that’s what lots of people are the loudest about, they must have their reasons, let’s also jail Lula in the meantime. Lula wins 2022? Great, it was very competitive, let’s hope for the best. In the meantime, let’s silence the Bolsonarists into submission/conformism.

Average Brazilian is a follower, not a leader, they tend to go along with stuff regardless of how passionate they can get. If something is inevitable or presented as the dominant power, in general the rule is for people to accept things as they are. Has a lot to deal with the own laid-back Brazilian personality.

We’re definitely NOT like the US despite the endless comparisons between Trump/Bolsonaro, people in there really seem to hate each other, or at least are way more tribalist and stubborn that they HAVE to get their way over their competition. Here we have a way more conciliatory aspect to our social personality and as I said, it can have its upsides (the better social and cultural cohesion we’re seeing) and downsides (lack of questioning and power for dissent during times where this is necessary).

Exceptions are times when you have leaders that have a polarizing energy by themselves, like Bolsonaro as president, he stimulated division himself through his speeches and actions. Once you put a more conciliatory figure in power that tries to talk to everyone instead of just to their political niche, return to normalcy is to be expected.

25% of Bolsonaro voters having a positive opinion of Lula’s government isn’t that surprising to me at all because if this. If the economy stays stable, I think the trend is for Lula to grow even more with them as election fights get in the past and as Bolsonarism is culturally “erradicated” by the general consensus.

[Red Velvet]

Today was probably the worst day in Bolsonaro’s entire miserable life (at least so far).

Can’t even explain it because it’s SO much stuff coming out simultaneously. Someone needs to take his passport before he runs away from the country.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Today was probably the worst day in Bolsonaro’s entire life (at least so far).

Can’t even explain it because it’s SO much stuff coming out simultaneously.

Criminal charges? Health problems? Another assassination attempt? All of the above?

[MaxQue]

Today was probably the worst day in Bolsonaro’s entire life (at least so far).

Can’t even explain it because it’s SO much stuff coming out simultaneously.

Criminal charges? Health problems? Another assassination attempt? All of the above?

Hackers claim Bolsonaro tried to pay them to hack voting machines so he could win the election.

[Red Velvet]

Today was probably the worst day in Bolsonaro’s entire life (at least so far).

Can’t even explain it because it’s SO much stuff coming out simultaneously.

Criminal charges? Health problems? Another assassination attempt? All of the above?

The “house has fallen” for him (Brazilian expression) in two key cases that can send him to jail.

- Mauro Cid’s lawyer said he will confess that he sold the Saudi jewelry (property of the Brazilian State) in the US under the orders of Bolsonaro, later giving the ex-president the money.

- Walter Delgatti Neto (the “hacker” that released Moro conversations to Glenn Greenwald proving Lula’s imprisonment was a fraud and who later was “contracted” by Bolsonarist politicians) exposed everything in a congress hearing today. Among some of the many things he claimed:

A) Bolsonaro asked him to take credit for a wiring the president had on Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes, supposedly made with the help of a foreign country actors. Since the hacker was associated with ~the left~ for his previous work culminating on the release of Lula, the idea was to compromise Moraes credibility among the public with the release of the Moraes stuff while washing his own hands for it, associating the wiring to the left.

B) Bolsonaro also asked him to stage a false hacking of electronic voting machines in order to attack their credibility and have legitimacy to stage a coup. Delgatti was asked to create a code and use on one machine so that when someone pressed Bolsonaro’s number, the machine would show Lula’s face instead. This all would be demonstrated in a political rally to mobilize their followers for them to validate and back the coup attempt.

C) He was also involved in orienting the Defense ministry (of Bolsonaro’s government) in the making of a report about electronic machines safety. The hacker went to Defense ministry 5 times to follow Bolsonaro’s orders and says every content of the report - of which military members were involved in making - was oriented by him.

D) Delgatti received R$ 40k from Carla Zambelli to enter the systems of Brazilian Judiciary power. Zambelli (Bolsonaro’s right hand congresswoman) is also who made the bridge between the hacker and president Bolsonaro.

I think there’s way more stuff tbh but it’s so much that I’m not sure I processed everything. I think this is the ~main~ stuff though.

[buritobr]

A 1964 classic military coup d'etat wouldn't be very feasible in today's world. The country would face an international isolation.
But it is becoming clear that some officers in the army and in the state miliary polices wanted to promote a Bolivia 2019 style coup. The first stage is a "social unrest" created by false claims of rigged election. Then, the army and the polices would accept to enforce the law only if the president resigns. 51M voted for Bolsonaro. If "only" 1% of these voters have taken part in this "social unrest", 510K would have participated. This number is enough to cause a big damage. But it didn't happen. Much fewer people participated. Many of the people who participated in these "social unrests" (protests in front of military headquarters in November and December 2022, the attack on the Congress, Planalto and Supreme Court on January 8th 2023) were relatives of military.

[Red Velvet]

https://twitter.com/LulaOficial/status/1695203607925150105

After his participation in the BRICS summit earlier this week, Lula stopped in Angola for an official visit of State.

One of the things done was the inauguration of the Angola-Brazil commerce chamber (CCAB) to improve economic integration opportunities between Brazil and Angola.

Good to see Brazil back to being a positive influence force in Africa. During Temer and Bolsonaro years, one of the things I was very ashamed about as a Brazilian was all the evangelical Brazilian (and USA, as well) ripping off from Africans through their church being something ENDORSED AND ENCOURAGED by the actual government. Loved when Angolans kicked Universal Church Brazilian leaderships out of their country.

[Red Velvet]

JP Morgan upped Brazil 2023 GDP growth projection from 2,4% to 3,0%

Goldman Sachs from 2,65% to 3,25%

The “estimates” when the year began were actually 0,9% or so.

Brazil is back baby. The years of right-wing extremists are over (at least for the foreseeable years to come, they always eventually come back every 29 years once people lose their memories).

[buritobr]

Datafolha in the city of São Paulo-SP, today

Mayor 2024
Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) left: 32%
Ricardo Nunes(MDB) incumbent mayor, center-right: 24%
Tabata Amaral (PSB) center-left: 11%
Kim Kataguri (UB) far-right: 8%
Vinicius Poit (NOVO) far-right: 2%

Evaluation of mayor Ricardo Nunes's administration
Positive: 23%
Intermediate: 49%
Negative: 24%

Evaluation of governor Tarcísio Freitas's administration
Positive: 30%
Intermediate: 38%
Negative: 27%

Evaluation of president Lula's administration
Positive: 45%
Intermediate: 29%
Negative: 25%

These numbers are not so good for Boulos. Usually, left-wing candidates perform well in polls conducted many months before the election. He is an already famous candidate, because he was in the runoff in 2020. The incumbent mayor is not very known. He was the running mate of mayor Bruno Covas, who passed away in 2021. He has potential to growth. He will have the support of Bolsonaro and center-right politicians. Besides, the sum of 10% for the potential far-right candidates will go to Nunes in the runoff or even in the first round, if they decline to run.

Even though, São Paulo-SP is not an anti-PT stronghold anymore. Lula's approval rate is higher in the city than it is in the rest of the country. It's moving toward becoming like Berlin, Vienna, London: a major city which votes on the left of the country.

[Red Velvet]

PSOL still has to get its big break and prove that they can govern. If they get it and do a good government, then their future chances to elect people for the executive will skyrocket.

I’m just not sure they will ever get that 1st chance though. Boulos in São Paulo with the backing of PT is likely their best chance since the city has elected PT mayors before, but PSOL still has a “weakness” to overcome with voters, who might be friendlier to PT options than they are with them.

[PSOL]

Is the mayor in Belem well liked?