Brazil Election Agony To Become Left-Wing Apocalypse?

This Sunday will see the second round of Brazil’s presidential election. Rightwing evangelical candidate Mr Jair Bolsonaro will square off to face leftwing PT (workers party) candidate Mr Fernando Haddad.

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In scenes reminiscent of Ms Clinton’s failed presidential bid, the leftwing candidate, Mr Fernando Haddad could be seen this week flanked by many of Brazil’s greatest singers and composers, including Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso, under the white arches of Rio’s Lapa samba district.

The former São Paulo mayor and candidate for the leftwing Workers Party (PT) said he was feeling a “turnaround in the air. We’re going to win the election, I have no doubt.”

Most commentators don’t believe it though, as all opinion polls point to a landslide victory for Mr Jair Bolsonaro, the rightwing evangelical candidate who was slammed for months on end in the mainstream worldwide media.

If all ends well, Mr Bolsonaro should win outright by some 60% of the votes.

Related coverage: <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/40069-Brazil-Election-Bolsonaro-Vows-Purge-Rivals-Will-Go-Overseas-Or-To-Jail”> Brazil Election – Bolsonaro Vows Purge, Rivals Will “Go Overseas, Or To Jail”</a>.

And so the vote that was supposed to be about Mr Bolsonaro’s unacceptable quotes from the past has for some become an opinion poll about decades of leftwing rule in Brazil, and government that has left the country with massive debt.

Many Brazilians by now despise the party for the corruption and mismanagement they believe marred its 13 years in office under subsequent Presidents Lula, Roussef and Temer. The first was jailed for corruption, the second fired for corruption and the third is still in office but will have a trial pending in 2019 for … you guessed it, corruption.

For all Mr Bolsonaro’s faults, the one thing they couldn’t pin on him was the issue that outdid all of his rivals: corruption.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">On the eve of Jair Bolsonaro’s much-anticipated election, the mood in Sao Paulo’s financial district is downright giddy <a href="https://t.co/f9LHixnf94">https://t.co/f9LHixnf94</a></p>&mdash; Bloomberg (@business) <a href="https://twitter.com/business/status/1055795607955271687?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Brazilian voters want change. They do not trust the PT anymore. The party is being blamed for a deep recession in 2015 and 2016 and many are scathing of its continued public alignment with the discredited Venezuelan regime of President Nicolás Maduro (and even other leftwing regional authoritarian countries, such as Cuba) which Brazilians have come to view as failed states.

Mr Lincoln Secco, a historian with the University of São Paulo, admitted that “it’s not feasible any more for the PT to not tell Brazilian society what it will do to reform itself. It will have to rethink itself.”

Observers of the election campaign now state that the PT made a clinical error in insisting on Mr Lula da Silva as a candidate and then appointing Mr Haddad as his declared substitute. This gave Mr Bolsonaro the easy solution to attack Mr Haddad as being a puppet to the former president and stating that Brazil would be ruled from Mr Lula’s jail cell.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Usually assumed that populist conservatism is supported by voters in poor rural areas bcs populist leaders represent values rooted in the countryside. Brazilian election: Bolsonaro support is coming mainly from voters in white and wealthy cities. <a href="https://t.co/lDEiGIg7Hd">https://t.co/lDEiGIg7Hd</a></p>&mdash; Mariel Aguilar-Støen (@MCAStoen) <a href="https://twitter.com/MCAStoen/status/1055800330242400256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Political commentator Mr Marco Antônio Teixeira agrees, stating: “This idea that a Haddad administration would be a government formulated from prison ended up catching on very strongly.”

Whereas most have now agreed Mr Bolsonaro will win on Sunday, the real question is how much damage will be done to the left. Will they remain a force in parliament or does it become the dreaded apocalypse?

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/brazil-fernando-haddad-final-push-win-over-lula-backers/4630007.html

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