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Two candidates in the queue and an anticipated winner in the Brazilian elections: the great opportunist center

2022-10-05T19:26:39.522Z


The result of the first round not only points to the continuity of the right-wing wave in Brazil, but also to Bolsonaro's ability to transfer votes to his closest allied base.


Although opinion polls mostly indicated a halt to the far-right momentum of 2018, including the possibility of former president Lula da Silva's victory in the first round, Sunday's result not only points to the continuation of the right-wing wave in Brazil, but also to Jair Bolsonaro's ability to transfer votes to his closest allied base: the governors and parliamentarians of the so-called Centrão.

Although he failed to create his own party in 2021, Bolsonaro helped the Liberal Party and the Centrão obtain one of the most significant results for Congress.

If the current president is defeated in the second round, the composition of the legislative branch will be a big problem for his successor.

The Centrão is a block of center-right and right-wing legislators that has been active since the 1988 Constituent Assembly and has become a key element of the presidential coalition system in Brazil and a challenge to governability.

Although it brings together part of this right, in practice it is a pragmatic and informal bloc that will negotiate positions and amendments in exchange for support.

Members of this bloc are deputies from the Liberal Party, the Brazilian Union, the Progressive Party and the Republicans.

In Sunday's elections, former president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva obtained 57 million votes (48.44%), compared to the 51 million received by Bolsonaro (43.2%).

He did not win, to the frustration of his voters and his party, who wanted to end the dispute as soon as possible, but he obtained ten million more votes than in the first round of 2006, the last election he ran for, which shows the strength of his charisma.

To confirm the trend indicated in the polls, Lula will have to articulate the forces of the left and the center and the moderates of the right to be elected and then govern.

The support of Simone Tebet and Ciro Gomes and the leadership of the MDB and the PDT in the second round could be decisive for the victory and for the first months of government.

If Lula wins,

In recent years, the Legislative Power has gained strength and there is even talk of the possibility of establishing a Brazilian-style semi-presidential system.

In Brazil, the traditionally right-wing parties together make up the majority in Congress, but since 2014 there has been a strong trend to the right with a neoconservative agenda.

The figures for 2022 confirm this behavior.

Of the 27 seats in dispute, which correspond to 1/3 of the composition of the Senate that will be renewed in 2022, 14 were occupied by candidates supported by Bolsonaro, eight by allies of Lula.

General Hamilton Mourão, current vice president, was elected senator.

He will be a companion of the Minister of Human Rights — Pastor Damares Alves —, of former Minister Marcos Pontes — Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force —, and of the former Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Teresa Cristina.

Another former minister and now an adversary of Bolsonaro (and also of Lula), former judge Sérgio Moro, was also elected senator.

In total, the Liberal Party registers 15 seats and Unión Brasil, which can strengthen Bolsonaro's campaign in the second round, has 11 senators.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the Liberal Party obtained the largest bench, with 99 deputies in a total of 513 seats.

The controversial former Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, is one of them.

The leftist parties grouped in the federation (PT, PC do B and PV) have 80 deputies, the second largest number, and a better result than in the previous elections.

Of the thirteen governors elected in the first round, six were supported by Bolsonaro and five by Lula.

In the second round, ten are supported by Bolsonaro and nine by Lula.

As polarized as the presidential election but fragmented between various parties, the situation of the states, which will be defined at the end of October, may increase or hinder the governability of the future president of the Republic.

Another aspect that the next government will inherit is the greater participation of the military of the Armed Forces not only in the candidacies, but also in eminently civil actions such as the control of the ballot boxes.

Military interference in the elections, based on the distrust of Bolsonaro and his subordinates towards civilians, has become less of a protection and more of a latent threat, especially for the opposition, for the electoral process and for democracy itself.

This is because the line that defines the institution as a State or as a government becomes increasingly blurred with the instrumentalization of the military by Bolsonaro.

Across the country, 1,257 candidates linked to the Security sector and the Armed Forces registered, a figure slightly higher than that of the previous elections, 1,209. Among them, two senators and 17 federal deputies were elected, all of them linked to the base ruler.

The performance of Generals Hamilton Mourão in the Senate and Eduardo Pazuello in the Chamber of Deputies may serve as an extra shield for Bolsonaro in the event that a Parliamentary Commission of Investigation is instituted.

Pazuello, who was Minister of Health and character investigated by the ICC of Covid during the period of the pandemic, has in his favor a presidential decree that guarantees him a secret of 100 years, exactly 100 years, about the internal demand that the Army has against him.

In this scenario of the permanence of Bolsonarism,

Eduardo Heleno

is a political scientist and professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Fluminense Federal University (INEST-UFF) in Brazil.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-10-05

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