Good morning. Brazil votes for president today. Jack Nicas, the bureau chief there, explains what’s at stake. |
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Two very prominent names |
Brazilians are voting for president today in an election between two political heavyweights: Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president. To help you understand the election, I spoke to Jack Nicas, The Times’s Brazil bureau chief, who lives in Rio de Janeiro. |
Claire Moses: Hi Jack. This is quite an election. |
Jack Nicas: It is. We reporters often say any given election is a big deal — but everyone here seems to agree that this one really is Brazil’s biggest vote in decades. Bolsonaro and Lula are perhaps the most prominent names in the modern history of Brazilian politics, and they come with a lot of baggage. They’re either loved or hated. People aren’t usually in-between on either. |
Bolsonaro is a right-wing populist who has divided the country. He has fervent supporters on the right, and the left just abhors him and wants him out. Lula led Brazil during a time of tremendous growth, but then he served time in prison on corruption charges, which were later thrown out. He’s been leading in the polls. |
Is it mostly political junkies who are obsessed with the election — or ordinary people, too? |
It’s everyone. People are wearing their political colors visibly. If you see people wearing yellow and green, the colors of the Brazilian flag, you can probably bet that they’re Bolsonaro supporters. On the other side, people are wearing red, the color of the left-wing Workers’ Party, which is Lula’s party. People are eager to show off their political leanings and happy to debate them. The campaign is kind of in-your-face that way. |
Beach towels are another example. You see vendors selling these towels with enormous prints of Lula’s or Bolsonaro’s face. Some of the vendors keep track of sales and post them on a sign — a sort of informal presidential poll. |
There have been huge rallies across the country. Just down the street from me here in the Copacabana neighborhood, thousands of people gathered last month to celebrate Brazil’s 200 years of independence. In name it was a national celebration, but in practice it was a political rally for Bolsonaro. To avoid confrontations, Lula asked his supporters to attend a different rally on another day. |
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The fact that people wear the national colors to support Bolsonaro makes me wonder about soccer jerseys. Will people still wear the iconic jerseys of Brazil’s national team even if they don’t support Bolsonaro? |
The national team has been the pride of Brazil for so long. But now its jersey is also a symbol of Bolsonaro supporters. How will Brazil cope with that during the upcoming World Cup in November, weeks after such a contentious election? |
You’ve also reported on Bolsonaro’s antidemocratic moves, such as casting doubt on the country’s voting system, despite no evidence of fraud. American readers might see similarities with Donald Trump, with whom Bolsonaro has forged close ties. Is the state of democracy as big a topic in Brazil as it is in the U.S.? |
It’s one of the biggest questions overhanging this election (along with a sputtering economy, rising hunger and the destruction of the Amazon). People saw what happened in the U.S. in 2020, and they know about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. On the left, people are worried about a similar situation here because of Bolsonaro’s rhetoric. He was one of the last world leaders to recognize Joe Biden as the winner of the election. |
Bolsonaro has said repeatedly that he sees three possible outcomes in this election for him: He wins, he’s put in jail or he’s dead. Those are aggressive words that worry a lot of people. From our reporting, it appears that institutions like the courts and Congress are prepared to stand up to an election challenge by Bolsonaro. And the armed forces, which had also been questioning the voting systems, now also don’t seem to have any interest in backing a coup. |
The bigger threat may be that Bolsonaro’s supporters take to the streets if he doesn’t accept a loss. Many Bolsonaro supporters believe that Lula’s team and election officials are set on rigging the election. That belief doesn’t have any basis in the truth, but years of false claims by Bolsonaro have persuaded a large portion of the population. |
What about Lula’s campaign strategy? |
In a way, Lula’s campaign has been very Biden-esque. Even though Lula is much more of a leftist than Biden, he has also tried to build a broad coalition and appeal to the center. And like Biden, given his time as vice president, Lula has already spent eight years in the presidential offices. He’s a well-known face, and he’s trying to play it safe against an unpopular incumbent. |
We should know the result, and whether there will be a runoff, around 7 p.m. Eastern tonight. Just because Lula is leading in the polls doesn’t mean something unpredictable can’t happen here. |
Jack Nicas leads The Times’s coverage of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazilians were fascinated by his efforts to translate the Portuguese words “tchutchuca” and “imbrochável” in his election coverage — two slightly vulgar words that each had their campaign moments. |
