By Heriberto Paredes. Footer.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. – Two days before the election, on September 30, 2022, the DataFolha poll published, in the main media, a survey in which it gave 50 percent of voting intention to the candidate of the Workers' Party (PT), Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and 36 percent to the current president and candidate for reelection, Jair Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party (PL).
The final results after the election are different from the forecasts: 48.43 percent for Lula and 43.20 percent for Bolsonaro. Beyond the fact that the results mean a second round, scheduled for October 30 of this year, what the figures indicate is that the margin between one project and the other is very small and that whoever wins the presidency will have to govern with a strengthened opposition.
The second round also speaks to the network of alliances that Bolsonarism has been building to strengthen itself, as well as the effectiveness of the political machinery of vote buying and intimidation on election day.
The coming weeks will be filled with tension that must not be overlooked, especially now that it is clear that beyond the presidency, governability will be in the strategies of the middle levels, from governors to federal and state deputies. And here, too, Bolsonarism still has a lot to say, having won all the governorships and many seats in Congress.
In the days leading up to the election, there was no other topic of conversation, there was no corner where there was no speculation about the results of this election, perhaps the most crowded since the end of the dictatorship and the constitution of what is known as the New Republic, a period of social life in which elections take place and people choose their leaders.
However, that has also been one of the complications: the possibility of choosing a character like Bolsonaro, considered in many circles to be a fascist.
The streets of Rio were bustling yesterday as state and federal deputies, councilors and governors who would also be elected on Sunday, October 2, closed their campaigns. People were walking around waving flags of various colors with the photographs of their candidates, people were standing at subway entrances handing out flyers, cars were honking while the heads of people were sticking out of the windows shouting slogans or making the symbols of their favorite presidential candidates. A gun drawn with fingers for Bolsonaro and an "L" for Lula.
"Everything indicates that this is not a conventional dispute, as its results can have consequences beyond those we are used to expecting from an electoral process. An eventual victory for Bolsonaro could open the door to a coup, but a defeat could also have the same result. Nothing is guaranteed," the Brazilian collective Desmedida de lo Posible cautiously declared in a text released days before the election.
The forecast is not surprising, any excessive optimism or pessimism will ignore what always happens in politics: there are no absolute results, and even less so in a country so diverse, polarized and prone to militancy. And even less so in the face of a second round.
What Bolsonaro's policy has left behind
"A radical, fundamentalist, misogynist, sexist, violent, reactionary project emerged, but a very strong movement also emerged, led by the struggle of women, black and indigenous women above all, and this process is irreversible," said Mônica Francisco, an Afro-descendant woman candidate for re-election as a state deputy in Rio de Janeiro for the Partido Socialismo Libertad (PSOL) who, despite everything, did not manage to win.
For the public servant, her experience in the social movement, the work she had alongside Marielle Franco until her murder in 2018, all of this led to the strengthening of a movement of Afro-descendant women who now, after the Bolsonaro government, are fighting against what they consider to be a fascist government and policy.
For Francisco, there is an upward curve where the main people are Afro-descendants, indigenous people and LGBTQA+, "this presence is increasing, it has not yet reached its maximum level because the legislative houses, the government executives, the presidency and prefectures still do not reflect a force, for example, of a policy that reinforces the presence of more women, more black men and women, more indigenous people."
Looking at the results of this election, it is not a stretch to say that Bolsonarism is not as weakened as previously thought and the small gap between the results of Lula and Bolsonaro, as well as the number of deputies, governors and councillors that the ruling party obtained, raises alarm bells.
For her part, Leticia Flôrencio, PT candidate for state deputy in Baixada Fluminense de São João de Meriti, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, said: “Bolsonarism brought very serious problems, of a social and moral nature. The cost of living is very high, the price of things is absurd, local politics is full of right-wing, clientelist politicians, linked to Bolsonaro, by ideological coincidence or economic interest. The idea is sold that everything is the fault of Congress, which prevents progress on many issues, when the truth comes from local politicians who put an end to social policies.”
"Many people are afraid, afraid of showing their political preference, but in this electoral process many people showed their support for Lula and that means a great advance."
Outside the center, other things happen
The journey takes more than an hour from downtown Rio de Janeiro to the end of the subway, at the Pavuna station, in the northeast of the city. Mãe Lucía, leader of the Yepondá Women's Group, was waiting for me there with her grandson, a quiet and smiling boy of less than 20 years old. We still had to travel almost 20 minutes to reach Biaxada Fluminense, an area of the municipality of São João de Meriti, the outskirts of Rio because most of its population works in the metropolis and spends more than four hours on public transport.
The cobblestone streets of the city that once housed the Portuguese crown in the last quarter of the 19th century are long gone, and the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema are also far away. What stands out now is the invasive presence of cement: bridges, avenues, houses. Everything is grey, or almost so, and what breaks up the greyness are the colours of the political propaganda thrown on the streets and the food and fruit stands. The samba is long gone, instead you can hear the local funk and motorbikes pass by without stopping at the crossroads.
This is a place with a large presence of Bolsonarism, as can be seen in the yellow t-shirts worn by people in the streets or in the thousands of stickers with the president's face and his number on the ballot. It can be seen in the loud parties outside the voting centers, in the intimidating atmosphere despite the music and the smell of barbecue. Everyone is drinking beer or cachaÇa and they don't seem happy in front of the camera.
This area of the periphery is, along with the majority of the state of Rio de Janeiro, the place where Bolsonarism swept away and greatly weakened the PT, which, although it remains afloat, clearly does not have much room for action.
"We were the community leaders who took care of the population during the pandemic, we made masks and gave information and we received nothing from the municipality. Many of the people you saw on the street do not say that they are with Lula, they are afraid for fear of reprisals," said Iâ when explaining the context in which the elections took place here.
«We are living through a campaign of fear. I have never experienced the murder of another person because I had a different political opinion. Our country is the country of carnival, of religions, of June parties, with many ethnic groups. My Brazil is many Brazils, but my grandson is afraid because he could be killed, but we continue with the campaign.»
The Yapondá Women's Group collaborated strongly with the campaign of the candidate for state deputy, Leticia Florêncio, and it was through this participation that they were able to witness the difficult political context. In addition to the conditions of poverty, lack of services, and lack of transportation in the periphery, political violence constituted a breaking point for polarizing the population.
A participant in various social movements fighting for housing and improving living conditions in the suburbs, as well as in student theatre and popular art groups, originally from Baixada Fluminense, Florêncio became involved in politics based on a basic principle: “only the struggle changes life”. Now, after being active since she was very young, she has gradually become a substitute candidate until now running for state deputy with the PT.
«I am from a peripheral territory, a territory that lacks investment because we still live in a State that treats those who live in central places in one way and those in the periphery in another way. A spatial racism is created where those who have more money have more investments in health, education, culture and on the contrary, this is where more investment should be made in these matters»
After the election, the results did not favour her candidacy and she did not win a seat, meaning that once again Bolsonarism will occupy a position that could have been occupied by a woman concerned about the problems of her territory. "We have an unequal dispute, because money makes a lot of difference in the electoral campaign."
The second round
Following the election results and a very narrow victory for Lula, what is emerging is the need to pay more attention to two processes: on the one hand, the political game that is taking place at the local level, where it is the small parties that are gaining strength with victories in state and federal deputies, like the PSOL.
On the other hand, the strengthening of a Bolsonarist military right, which is despised but not necessarily understood, and this leads to a minimisation of its power and its capacity for recomposition. It is not insignificant that it is in the peripheral areas of the big cities where the number of voters has grown, or, as shown by the official counts, in regions such as the Amazon, a place where it has swept through despite the crisis of destruction experienced by its inhabitants and the jungle thanks to the businesses and economic interests linked to Bolsonaro.
The results are being digested by the population and there is a lot of analysis. It is not the celebration of a "knockout" victory but rather the feeling of uncertainty between one round and the next, where the decision is made either to win a moderate centrist political project like the one Lula represents, or to choose a second term for the president who favors the military and ultra-right sectors while destroying natural resources.
After the vote, those elected to state and federal deputies did celebrate. In Rio de Janeiro, there was a festive atmosphere among people who are militant and close to PSOL, a party that, with a more radical leftist identity, has managed to grow and reach more positions within the Brazilian government.
Tarcísio Motta and Renta Souza, now elected federal and state congressmen, celebrated in a venue in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Lapa, one of the most emblematic for nightlife in this city. In front of hundreds of people, they reaffirmed their commitment to the political struggle and to building a more just and dignified society. Unlike what happens in other places, here in Brazil, a good part of the politicians are not far removed from public life and attend the same places as the rest of the population, so it is possible to discuss with them directly. Perhaps this way of exercising office is the simplest way to guarantee governability, whoever wins a second round that was not wanted.
Heriberto Paredes Coronel (Tlaxcala, 1983), Mexican independent photographer and journalist, dedicated to documenting organizational processes in indigenous and peasant communities, searching for missing persons and environmental issues in Mexico. He currently explores formats such as documentaries and podcasts without abandoning photography and text, where he explores new narrative routes. He has collaborated with national and international media, has directed short documentaries and is currently in the development phase of a feature documentary as well as writing a book that brings together more than a decade of work on the Michoacan coast. He lives in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Twitter @BSaurus Instagram @el_beto_paredes.
This note was made with the support of the organization Global Exchange in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.
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