This Sunday, all of Brazil will go to the polls to decide the next governors of the States, state and federal deputies, senators and the President of the Republic.
Voting is compulsory and there are several people vying for the presidency.
However, two candidates polarize the vast majority of voting intentions.
On the one hand, the current president Jair Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, and on the other, former president Lula, of the Workers' Party (PT).
Lula is the greatest popular leader in the history of Brazil and for two terms he was the president who developed fundamental public policies for the poorest, most of whom are black.
In the field of education, for example, he was responsible for the expansion of federal universities, racial quota policies, and programs to get the poor into higher education, which was truly transformational.
In 2010, when he left office, he had an 83% approval rating, a record that still stands.
Lula would have been the ideal candidate for the position in 2018, the election in which Bolsonaro emerged as the winner, but during the electoral contest he was arrested by Operation Lava Jato, commanded by Sergio Moro, a former law judge and current candidate for senator. by the State of Paraná.
In 2018, Moro assumed the Ministry of Justice from Bolsonaro, which was favored by his judicial decisions against Lula and the PT.
It was another of the many scandals of the Operation, which ended up being annulled by the Supreme Court – belatedly, it must be said – due to the obvious bias of the magistrate.
Now free of all charges, the meeting that should have taken place in 2018 will take place this weekend, in which hope is progressive.
Different polls have coincided in indicating a good margin of advantage for Lula.
In the latest polls, Lula is at 48, 49, some point to 50%.
According to the electoral legislation, if no candidate reaches 50% of the valid votes in the first ballot, there will be a second round of elections.
For this reason, a great effort is being made so that the election is decided in the first round in Brazil.
Political alliances in a broad (very broad) front against Bolsonaro, public declarations of vote on television, radio and social networks by people from various segments of society and public acts in the streets seek to ensure that minimum margin for turn one of the saddest pages in the country's history and Bolsonaro lose his re-election, which would be an unprecedented event in the country's short presidential history.
The reasons for the aversion against Bolsonaro are extensive.
Brazil is a country of continental dimensions, with more than 220 million inhabitants from various regions and multiple identities.
So it's not just a lie that makes 51% of Brazilians say they never trust anything they say, according to the latest Datafolha survey.
Bolsonaro has horrified at different times, in different areas and in different regions, but the consensus seems to be that his unspeakably horrible performance in the pandemic makes it possible to understand his popularity crisis.
As countries scrambled to develop a vaccine, the government was spending billions on chlorquine, a drug designed to treat malaria, but in this case intended to treat covid-19.
He was one of the main propagators of fake news on the internet and systematically opposed the advice of the international scientific community.
The Ministers of Health resigned one after another for not wanting to take responsibility for the policy adopted at the request of "Captain Chloriquine", a nickname by which he was known, even the current minister, an obedient general of the Army.
As for the vaccine, given the imminence of the production of millions of Chinese doses by the Government of the State of São Paulo, of which he is an opponent, he could only say that he did not trust the products that came from China, also pleasing his example from the North, former President Donald Trump.
On social networks, the Bolsonarist digital militias supported his rejection of "VaChina."
And it was not enough to promote misinformation about the use of medicines, which caused numerous cases of hospitalization and death;
to delay vaccines and boycott those that were being manufactured, Bolsonaro put on a depressing show of unfortunate statements during the pandemic period.
Phrases like "it's just a little flu", "I'm not an undertaker" (by refusing to answer about the number of deaths in the country), "we're sorry for all the dead, but it's everyone's destiny", among others.
To this must be added his attitude of going out without a mask in the midst of the pandemic and not having even visited a hospital.
Before the pandemic, Brazil was already following a policy of economic, environmental, and political setbacks;
the coup that removed President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 was the turning point of obscurantism.
Unthinkable labor and welfare reforms were carried out in the countries of the Global North with the promise of generating many jobs that never came.
The part of society that suffered the most from this change were the poor, who in Brazil are mostly black people, who are the majority of the population.
But in the pandemic, what was bad got worse.
The increase in cases of domestic violence found in Brazil a catalyst for the drastic reduction and even the eradication of funds allocated to public policies for the reception of women victims of violence, such as integrated shelters, denunciation and treatment centers. social care.
The country occupies a prominent place on the podium of femicides, sexual abuse of minors, rape and domestic violence.
Data from 2019, in a pre-pandemic scenario, from the Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública (Brazilian Yearbook of Public Security) records that every 8 minutes in Brazil a woman, young person or child is raped.
The report indicated that 57.9% of the victims were 13 years of age or older.
In 84.1% of cases, the rapist is someone known to the victim: a family member or a trusted person.
According to the same Yearbook, every two minutes a woman is assaulted.
There were 266,310 records of bodily injury as a result of domestic violence in the country.
In this chaotic context, the reduction of the budget for women's protection policies by the Bolsonaro government by 94% is cruel and responsible for the death and misfortune of countless women and girls in the country.
I could spend a whole day listing the absurdities we've been forced to put up with over the last four years and it still wouldn't be enough.
I could talk about the disinvestment of 34% in the annual Science and Technology budget, which has led to a scenario of chaos in higher education, with the end of exchange programs, the precariousness of research in the country and the lack budget for public universities to continue operating.
I could talk about what Bolsonaro's policy has meant in terms of death for indigenous peoples, with the encouragement of the war unleashed by illegal mining on protected lands, as well as the policy of environmental damage.
I could talk about many things, but the truth is that Brazil can't take it anymore.
A profound change is necessary and fundamental.
Djamila Ribeiro
is a Brazilian political philosopher, journalist and feminist activist.
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