Brazil, Nuts, Con't

Brazil's presidential election between current right-wing fascism-curious President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva just got a whole lot more interesting as Bolsonaro, trailing by double digits, has suddenly found new life and new hope as he has forced a runoff in Sunday's first round.

Brazil's top two presidential candidates will face each other in a runoff vote after neither got enough support to win outright Sunday in an election to decide if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world's fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office.

With 99.5% of he votes tallied on Sunday's election, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 48.3% support and President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.3% support. Nine other candidates were also competing, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.

The tightness of the result came as a surprise, since pre-election polls had given da Silva a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

"This tight difference between Lula and Bolsonaro wasn't predicted," said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said: "It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Bolsonaro's victory in 2018 was not a hiccup."

Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil's southeast region, which includes populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.

"The polls didn't capture that growth," Cortez said.

Bolsonaro's administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.

But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.

While voting earlier Sunday, Marley Melo, a 53-year-old trader in capital Brasilia, sported the yellow of the Brazilian flag, which Bolsonaro and his supporters have coopted for demonstrations. Melo said he is once again voting for Bolsonaro, who met his expectations, and he doesn't believe the surveys that show him trailing.

"Polls can be manipulated. They all belong to companies with interests," he said.

 

To recap, Brazil's version of Trump managed to avoid a blowout in the last week or so, with his popularity in the shitter, constantly questioning the accuracy of the polls and the integrity of the election itself for more than a year now., claiming his assured victory would be stolen by rigged voting machines.

But astonishingly, the election results find him able to force a runoff election when a total loss was expected, against the skyrocketing fortunes of Lula, whose conviction for corruption was thrown out by the country's Supreme Court as biased and political.

Imagine if Trump ran against Hillary Clinton again after having her locked up, and then her conviction overturned by SCOTUS, and you get the idea.

The runoff election will be held in 4 weeks on October 30.

It's a runoff that many folks, including myself, think should not be necessary, but here we are.