text/Yang Xiaoyu
edit/Qia Fei
Local time on October 2, Brazil will usher in the most important election of this century and the most torn election.
Brazilians will make a choice from 11 presidential candidates. Brazil's Supreme Election Court stipulates that in the first round of voting, candidates can only be elected if they receive more than 50%. Otherwise, the candidates who won the top two votes in the first round will enter the second round of showdown and the result will be decided on October 30. Judging from the current polls, the presidential battle will be between the left-wing Labor Party candidate Lula and the right-wing Liberal Party candidate Bolsonaro .
Lulla and Bolsonaro faced tit-for-tat in the presidential TV debate.
For Bolsonaro, this year's campaign is just another stage of his performance. As the current president, when he hosted the celebration of Brazil's 200th anniversary of independence on September 7, he turned the event of tens of thousands of people into an individual campaign rally. In the end, Brazil's Supreme Election Court had to prohibit Bolsonaro from using any images taken on the same day for campaign promotion.
is at the most critical moment of the campaign. Bolsonaro did not forget to imitate his "idol" and former US President Trump 's behavior to the end. He said early: If he loses, he will refuse to admit the result. This is undoubtedly a direct provocation to Brazil's democratic system.
From a realistic perspective, Bolsonaro may not have many days in high positions. Poll data at the beginning of this year showed that Bolsonaro's biggest opponent, former President Lula, once led him by 17 percentage points; as the campaign became fierce, the gap between the two narrowed to less than 10 percentage points, but according to the latest poll released on September 29, Lula ranked first with a 48% approval rating, and Bolsonaro ranked second with a 34% approval rating. The other nine candidates all have low approval ratings.
Whether it is the return of Lula, the "most popular former president of this century", or the re-election of "Trump in the Tropical Region", will determine the attitude of the largest economy in South America to meet the challenges of the post-epidemic era.
A referendum on democratic systems
During the election, Bolsonaro continued to criticize the country's electronic voting system for being "filled with fraud" and accused election officials of being enemies of him. He publicly called on the Brazilian army to stand on his side, and told his tens of millions of supporters to "be prepared for combat."
Brazilian society has thus entered a state of high alert. The most concerned issue for voters is not who will win, but whether the losers will accept the election results. This is because the country has only had 33 years of history in establishing an elected government. Currently, a considerable number of voters have never seen a polling station or participated in any voting when they were young.
The Brazilian military government did not officially fall until 1985. It was the last country in South America to overthrow the dictatorship. Although the democratization process in the country has gradually advanced since the mid-1970s, it was not until 1989 that the first democratically elected president in modern history appeared in Brazil.
After the military mutiny in 1964, Brazil remained under the dictatorship of the military government until it was overthrown in 1985.
By the mid-to-late 1980s, due to the impact of rising global oil prices, Brazil's economy shrank rapidly, and the former "country of the future" was blocked by soaring inflation rates and high debts. The economic myth created during the military government was broken overnight. You should know that a few years ago, Brazil's GDP (GDP) soared with an annual growth rate of 10%. It was not until 1994 that the then Finance Minister Cardozo proposed the "Real Plan" to peg the Brazilian real to the US dollar and stabilize the currency price that the economic difficulties gradually eased.
Bolsonaro has attracted attention from the attitude of "authoritarian sympathizer" and "anti-democracy" from beginning to end, and it also caters to some voters' suspicion of the "path of democratization".
Among the supporters of Bolsonaro, in addition to a large number of evangelicals and rural merchants, some are personnel with military backgrounds: from active-duty military police, retired military personnel to military families, and even ordinary people who are friendly to the army.In their opinion, democratization burst the bubble of the last golden age of the economy, and Bolsonaro, who was born as an army captain, was their best spokesperson.
Bolsonaro's signature article "Salary Too Low" was published during the military, criticizing the salary system of the Brazilian army.
In order to cooperate with Bolsonaro's remarks that "election is a battle between justice and evil", his wife and first lady Michel Bolsonaro also came out to help, saying that before her husband came to power, the Brazilian presidential palace was living in the "devil". The implication is that the left-wing presidents from the Labor Party are all devils, and her husband is an angel who defeats the devil.
Lula also said similar things, saying, "If someone is possessed by the devil, it must be Bolsonaro."
In contrast to Bolsonaro, Lula's growth history as a politician is almost a microcosm of Brazil's democratization process. After the founding of the Labor Party in 1980, Lula vigorously promoted the reform of the Brazilian electoral system, requiring the president to come to power through public voting and make the election process transparent.
After being accused of corruption in the 2016 anti-corruption campaign "Car Wash Operation", Lula has been accusing of wronging herself on various occasions, but never expressed her desire to challenge the judicial process. After the Supreme Court's verdict was issued, he also abides by the sentence and served one and a half years in prison until the crime was cleared. After two presidency, Lula represented a stable and reliable defender of democracy that he was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Because of the so-called Bolu, the two of them, that this "century election" seems to have become a referendum on the democratic system.
On November 9, 2019, Lula was released from the prison in San Bernardo de Camp and supporters went to greet him.
Bolsonaro was assassinated in 2018, but the recent situation has caused concern that the person who launched the attack this year is more likely to be supporters of the current president. Earlier this year, his supporters surrounded Lula's car and verbally yelled at it. And in July, a Bolsonaro supporter killed an official from Lula's Labor Party.
On September 24, 2022, a Labor Party official was shot and killed in Parana, Brazil. The assailant claimed to be a supporter of Bolsonaro.
Even Lula's supporters have become targets of attack. At a rally in June this year, a drone sprayed a foul-smelling liquid on the crowd. At a rally in July, a man detonated a homemade explosive containing feces. What is even more worrying is that Bolsonaro, who supports gun possession, recently relaxed gun control measures, allowing his supporters to stock up on guns and ammunition.
is approaching the election, and as the confrontation between the left and right wings of camps becomes increasingly fierce, more bloody and violent incidents occur.
First, on September 9, in the state of Malo Grosso in the midwest, 24-year-old Rafael Silva de Oliveira stabbed 42-year-old Bennettito Cardoso Dos Santos with a knife. The former was a supporter of Bolsonaro and had an argument with Bennettito over the presidential candidate issue, which resulted in a tragedy. Lula commented on the violence in an interview that day. He said, "There is a completely abnormal atmosphere of hatred during the election process."
Then, on September 24, 59-year-old Edmilson Frere da Silva killed others in a bar in Cascaville, Ciala over political arguments. The victim was Antonio Silva de Lima, 39 years old, who claimed to be a supporter of Lula. But according to a relative and friend of the victim, the victim was not a political fanatic himself, and his seven brothers didn't even know who he would vote for. The family was surprised to learn that he was assassinated for political discussions.
Therefore, several UN UN experts have to urge Brazilian authorities, candidates and political parties to ensure the upcoming elections are carried out in a peaceful manner and to prevent election-related violence. The statement said threats, intimidation and political violence, including death threats against candidates, continue to rise, have caused panic among the people and prevented potential candidates from participating in the campaign.
To put it into a sentence that Americans describe Trump, Bolsonaro may step down, but "Bolsonaroism" will not leave.Maria Haro Sly, a scholar, Latin American policy adviser and analyst at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, commented to " Phoenix Weekly ", saying, "Bolsonaro may become the first Brazilian president to lose his re-election campaign. If he loses the election, he will definitely criticize the entire election process. But this is very dangerous and will make the country lose its stability."
"The most misogynistic and hateful elected official"
questioned that the election process is not the only commonality between Bolsonaro and Trump: they both participated in the election as outsiders in the political arena, promising to fight the political elite; both encouraged nationalism and supported gun control, and both dominated social media.
For four years, Bolsonaro's rule has been full of complaints. Since he stepped onto the campaign stage, he has triggered a climax of public opinion again and again. Some reporters described Bolsonaro as "the most misogynistic and hateful elected official."
Bolsonaro comes from Eldorado, a small town in northwest of São Paulo, Brazil. His father is a dentist. His opportunity to sign up for the army came from a rebellion launched by Captain Carlos Ramaca in 1970. After witnessing the battle with live ammunition with one's own eyes, Bolsonaro decided to apply for the Agoras Negras Military Academy located in , Rio, . But unfortunately, in the seniority ranking of the military system, Bolsonaro is just a "poor boy" and his promotion opportunities are quite limited in the army that relies on nepotism. In the end, Bolsonaro's highest rank was only as high as the Army Captain.
Bolsonaro has been swaying on the edge in his subsequent congressional career. He spent 27 years in the House of Representatives' career as an unknown congressman, in stark contrast to his sensationalism in the presidential campaign. In fact, before 2016, few Brazilians knew Bolsonaro's name.
But precisely because he never achieved success, his unruly and even vulgar words became the "trump card"; he seemed to represent Brazil's "silent majority", who were tired of the rule of the elite group and the chaos of the party system, and complained about the rich and poor gap that Brazil could never overcome.
Bolsonaro's radical right-wing tendencies brought him incredible controversy and exposure, but over the past four years, his political achievements have made his previously hailed "political strongman" character a gimmick.
It is worthy of recognition that as the impact of the new crown epidemic gradually faded, Brazil successfully pushed the economy to a small peak last year; the pension system reform promoted by Bolsonaro in 2019 also contributed to the country's economic improvement. But these still cannot conceal his failure in economic and epidemic prevention and control. Bolsonaro's denial of the epidemic and resistance to vaccines have cost Brazilians a real price - 680,000 Brazilians died of COVID-19, the medical system was almost collapsed for a time, and the Brazilian real also depreciated to a historical low.
The last round of economic recession still affected Brazil. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic and the Ukrainian war, inflation and consumer goods prices remain high. This has put Brazil's middle class and even low-income groups in concern. More and more Brazilians are starting to starve: "I no longer buy meat, nor buy biscuits or vegetables for my children. In order to bring rice, beans, and oil home, I have to throw away some things first and give priority to bulk items." A woman told Brazil's Global.
The long epidemic has spread the problems of hunger and food insecurity. According to a research report by Brazilian public welfare organization "Seeing Hunger" and the Wilson Center, the US think tank, from 2018 to 2020, the number of Brazilians facing severe food shortage surged, from 5.8% to 9%; by 2022, it reached 15.5%, which means that 33 million Brazilians are starving.
Old Town in El Salvador in northeastern Brazil, homeless people are waiting for food donations.
During his tenure from 2003 to 2010, then-President Lula implemented an ambitious " Zero Hunger (Fome Zero)" program to eliminate food security issues in Brazil from education, infrastructure and microcredit, including a program called "Family Grants", which is directly subsidized by the government to poor families for cash to purchase food.
Bolsonaro banned the plan when he took office, but before the 2021 campaign began, he proposed a plan called "Brazil Aid Fund" to directly distribute the subsidy of 400 real to citizens who had originally received the "family subsidy". In August this year, the Brazilian government decided to increase the previous amount of 200 reals. Currently, the government's bill on welfare will exceed 13 billion reais, of which 12.1 billion reais are used for the "Brazil Aid Fund" program and 624 million reais are used for gas subsidies.
Lula proposed a new version of the "Family Grants" plan in this campaign. In addition to restoring the main characteristics of the old plan, it also "using the expansion of subsidy coverage" as the guiding principle, based on the appropriate income threshold, a basic subsidy system suitable for Brazilian citizens is built in stages. He promised to subsidize an additional 150 reais to each family with children under 6 years of age on the current benefit of 600 reais. This may be an overly bold plan for Brazil today. Why did the former darling of emerging markets of
fall? When Lula was in office, Brazil experienced the first stage of economic takeoff after the military government ended. Some analysts said that Brazil happened to ride the east wind of rapid development of the global commodity market during this period. Therefore, the government has developed the state-owned economy to generate income while integrating into the international market, creating an economic miracle, making Brazil a " BRICS " and becoming an anticipated force in emerging markets. Brazil like
not only gained bargaining power on the international stage, but Lula's leadership charm has also elevated Brazil's international status to an unprecedented level. During his tenure, Brazil successfully won the host rights of the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Even when he stepped down, Lula's national approval rating still reached an astonishing figure of 87%.
On October 2, 2009, Rio de Janeiro successfully bid for the Olympic Games and obtained the right to host the 2016 Olympic Games.
However, Lula's economic policy of focusing on welfare and significantly increasing government spending has laid hidden dangers for the future. Brazil's economic structure relies too much on raw material exports, and agriculture, mining and energy mining constitute the cornerstone of the country's economy. However, in the economic aftershock brought by the subprime mortgage crisis, Brazil, a major exporter of raw materials, became the first victim.
As the financial crisis continues to penetrate and radiate into the international market in Europe and the United States, international consumer goods prices began to fall sharply in 2011. Brazil's exports of non-energy commodities such as soybeans, sugar and iron ore took a sharp turn for the worse, greatly restraining Brazil's trade development and national economic growth.
Brazil's gross domestic economic value (GDP) growth rate gradually slowed down after reaching its peak of this century in the first quarter of 2010 (9%). Since Lula's successor Rousseff 's second term in 2014, Brazil's economy has experienced negative growth and has since stagnated. In the decade ended 2021, Brazil's GDP grew by only 0.15% per year on average.
Comparison of per capita GDP of the BRICS countries, Brazil's economic growth has stagnated since 2013. Source: IMF
A series of joint effects have plunged Brazil into a double turmoil between politics and economy: Rousseff was impeached, and Brazil's political and business circles have also experienced a major reshuffle.
In 2016, then President Temer implemented austerity policies, but he was also powerless and failed to fulfill his vision of improving economic indicators in the short term. It is obvious that the drawbacks such as monopoly of state-owned enterprises, insufficient infrastructure investment, and complex taxation systems are clearly visible during the economic downturn. A mature economic system is far from being formed in Brazil. Once the international market fluctuates, Brazil will soon fall into a passive position.
Lulla and Bolsonaro both proposed to carry out tax reforms in the campaign, but they were blurred in details. Many governments have claimed to promote tax reform, but the relevant plans have never been implemented, making this problem a chronic disease of Brazil's economy.
Environmental policy is controversial, and the deforestation rate hits a high. Bolsonaro's votes are nicknamed "BBB": beef, Bible, and Bullets. "Beef" is an image description of the Brazilian agricultural elite group that benefited through Bolsonaro. How to meet the interests of these people is also the starting point of Bolsonaro's environmental policy.
Of all Bolsonaro's policies, environmental policy is undoubtedly the most controversial. Since the beginning of the campaign, Bolsonaro has clearly opposed the environmental protection personnel and indigenous rights protection personnel of Amazon , and even opposed the international forces to protect Amazon, insisting that "Amazon belongs to Brazil." For four years, he has fulfilled his previous environmental commitment: to open up large areas of Amazon for logging, mining and industrial agriculture.
Data released by the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE) in August this year showed that from August 1, 2021 to July 31, 2022, a total of 8,590 square kilometers of forests were detected to be deforested, a decrease of 2.3% from the previous year, while the deforestation in the previous year reached the highest level since 2006. The area of forests affected by degradation and selective deforestation, which is usually a precursor to thorough deforestation, rose 15.6% year-on-year.
Between the mid-2000s and 2012, the deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon fell sharply and has been on an upward trend since then, especially since Bolsonaro came to power. Last year, Brazil's environment minister was investigated by the United States and accused of participating in illegal logging and trafficking.
According to observations by the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE), the country's deforestation situation from August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2022.
Since being released from prison in 2019, Lula has been criticizing Bolsonaro, claiming that she will hold accountable for all crimes that have occurred in the Amazon basin, including illegal mining, deforestation and crimes against indigenous peoples.
During his administration, Lula reduced Brazil's deforestation rate to a historical low. He also promised that if he came to power, the deforestation rate would be reduced by 82% on the current basis to offset the negative impact of Bolsonaro's developmentalist policy. At the same time, he will also rebuild the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and establish a new Aboriginal Affairs Department.
But critics point out that Lula is too emphasizing his "brave back then". His environmental policy is not uncontroversial: although he is committed to reducing deforestation rates and actively building a protection system in the Amazon basin, he still firmly believes that Brazil's economic development needs to rely on the energy industry.
This is also a point that Lula was criticized during his tenure: while protecting the rainforests, Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions and oil extraction rates remain high. In addition, Lula and his successors built hydropower dams in the middle of the Amazon River, which wreaked havoc on the forest and its indigenous ecology.
Belomonte Hydropower Dam, which began construction in 2011, is located in the Amazon River Basin of Paradise in northwestern Brazil.
It is worth pointing out that Bolsonaro's power is based on the support of Brazil's "centrists". This loose political coalition takes up half of the House seats, and their success or failure depends largely on cooperation with agricultural leaders. Developing the Amazon rainforest is the most direct way to give back to these "backers". Even if Lula wins the election, it will be a big challenge to deal with the "centricists" and agricultural leaders who support developmentism in the future, and strive for new economic development points while protecting the rainforest.
Brazil's international status is much worse than before?
Many people believe that the challenges of Amazon's development and Brazil's future environmental measures have increased people's interest in this Brazilian election.
The current government's position of allowing rainforest development has intensified the contradiction between Brazil's domestic vested interest group and international political forces. During the Amazon fire in 2019, the G7 (G7) provided Bolsonaro with $20 million in disaster relief funds, but he turned it out.
Amazon rainforest encountered large-scale wildfires in 2019. The picture shows the burning rainforest in the northwest of Rondonia.
As an important exporter of various commodities and raw materials, Brazil once enjoyed an important voice in international financial trade and international rule formulation as a regional leader. It is also a core member of the BRICS Five (BRICS) and the G20 (G20).
But Bolsonaro's perverse behavior made Brazil's international status worse than before. After taking office, he turned to be fully pro-US, regarded Trump as a political idol, and was the Trump administration's lead in terms of withdrawing from the " Paris Agreement " and considering withdrawing from the United Nations Global Compact on Immigration.
In March 2019, Bolsonaro visited the United States and presented him with a Brazilian jersey with his name to then President Trump.
During the Amazon fire, Bolsonaro's verbal battle with French President Macron escalated because he publicly mocked the appearance of the French First Lady, which led to an "unprecedented" diplomatic accident.
In March 2018, Bolsonaro visited Taiwan, China as a "presidential candidate", which aroused strong protests from China. He also questioned Chinese companies' land or investment in key industries in Brazil, and said alarmistly that "Chinese people are controlling Brazil's economic lifeline" and threatened that "Chinese companies are not allowed to own Brazil's land or control key industries."
But after being elected, Bolsonaro quickly changed his mind. When meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Brazil in November 2018, he said that Brazil attaches great importance to developing relations with China and regards China as a great partner. In October 2019, Bolsonaro visited China and met with the top Chinese leader.
He also invited Chinese investors to participate in the upcoming oil auction. The auction at that time was the largest oil auction ever in Brazil, with two Chinese companies being the only foreign companies to bid. The projects invested by Chinese companies in Brazil also include a large number of new energy projects and communication infrastructure projects. Although Bolsonaro has boycotted the 5G network industry of Huawei in Brazil and criticized China Sinopharm's new crown vaccine , in the end, he still reached an agreement with these two companies and established a good cooperative relationship.
During Bolsonaro's tenure, China has always been Brazil's largest trading partner. In 2020, the total bilateral trade between China and Brazil reached US$119.04 trillion, and most of the soybeans, beef, crude oil and iron ore exported by Brazil all flowed to China.
The United States also closely monitors Brazil's election. The BBC (BBC) described that there are several reasons for attracting the attention of the United States: trade, democracy, Trump and climate change.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Shannon served as U.S. ambassador to Brazil in the early 2010s. In his opinion, Brazil and the United States are each other's mirrors. "In these two democracies, what happens to one, the same thing will happen in the other."
Recently, a conversation between the US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns and Bolsonaro's assistant was leaked. During this time, Burns asked the Brazilian president to stop suspicion of the election. However, Bolsonaro denied that he had exchanged views with the US on this.
Reuters quoted sources on September 23 as saying that some American diplomats have assured Lula that they will "quickly acknowledge" the results of the Brazilian election in October so that no one can try to raise questions or create chaos after the vote results come out.
Shannon admitted that no matter who wins the Brazilian election, Brazil will be a major player in international affairs and the United States needs to cooperate with it and cannot pretend to be in a dominant position. "The difference between Brazil and the United States is that the United States is a global superpower, and everyone knows this. Brazil is also a superpower, but people have not yet recognized it."
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