Presidential election, first round
Opening observation
Hello! I will to try to keep this little newsletter about Brazilian politics going for as long as possible – not because I think it will be elucidating for potential future readers, but because I think it will elucidate me. As is commonly known, writing about something forces you to contemplate it at a deeper level. Nevertheless, I’ve kept the text relatively brief, focusing on the first-round election that took place recently. I haven’t covered the preceding campaigns or other important phenomena, like the “secret budget” [EN*], that has become integral to Brazilian politics. More of this (hopefully) to come in future texts. *And, yes, when a link to a source is followed by “[EN]” it means that the source is in English (normally I link to Portuguese-language websites).
Elections and polling results
The first round of the presidential election was held on Sunday, October 2nd. Lula received the most votes, 48.43% (57,259,504 votes in total) and Bolsonaro 43,20% (51,072,345 votes).
Even if ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ended ahead of Jair Bolsonaro, the sitting president gained a lot more votes than polls anticipated. Datafolha – a polling institute owned by Grupo Folha, also owner of the newspaper of record Folha de S. Paulo – showed in its last poll before the election Lula with 50% of voting intention and Bolsonaro 36%. IPEC, another oft-cited polling institute, showed 51% and 37% respectively. While Lula’s election result was correct, taking into account the margin of error, Bolsonaro exceeded estimations significantly.
How polls could be so off is, of course, hard to say. In the days following the election, the polling institutes themselves tended to adhere to the explanation that polls only give a momentary picture of how people intend to vote. Another factor is that it’s hard to predict how many of eligible voters will actually turn out to vote. Certain compositions of voters might declare their vote in favor of this or that candidate, but have less predisposition to actually go vote.
What is clear, however, is that the vote for other candidates – who never stood a chance to win but had opportunity to offer alternative viewpoints and gain national exposure – was overestimated, suggesting that those voters in the end opted for Bolsonaro to a higher degree than expected. The anti-corruption stance of presidential candidate Ciro Gomes – former ally and minister of Lula’s government turned fierce critic of both leading candidates – might, for example, have favored Bolsonaro.
Post-election polling, in anticipation of the second round of voting, registered a higher percentage of support for Bolsonaro, indicating that Bolsonaro voters have become less reticent in voicing their support for the president. The renewed energy of the Bolsonaro campaign, after seeing the better-than-expected results, might be reason for this.
Bolsonaro didn’t openly question the voting system subsequent to the vote, as he had done frequently during the campaign, although he later returned to sowing doubts about the integrity of the elections and the coming round. During the campaign, he had urged the military to monitor the vote count, which it did in certain “sampling” locations. According to journalist Malu Gaspar, however, when the president was informed of the report’s conclusion that the election had been carried out without incidents, he refused to make it public.
Another severe failure to predict results occurred in the election of governor for the state of São Paulo. The PT candidate (Lula’s party), Fernando Haddad, was expected to come out ahead of his opponent Tarcísio de Freitas, who was Bolsonaro’s infrastructure minister before entering gubernatorial race. The last Datafolha poll before the election showed Fernando Haddad with 39% of the vote and Tarcísio de Freitas with 31%. Instead, Tarcísio de Freitas gained the lead with 42.32% of the vote, against Haddad’s share of 35.70%. They are now up for a second round, but Haddad’s chance of winning the race is deemed slim.
Besides Tarcísio de Freitas, probable future governor of São Paulo, Bolsonaro also the received support from the current governor of the state, Rodrigo Garcia; in addition to Romeu Zema, the governor of Minas Geras, and Cláudio Castro, the governor of Rio de Janeiro – all in all, the three states with the largest electorates. Sharing the stage with these governors could translate into an advantage for Bolsonaro on the campaign trail up until October 30, when the second-round voting is to take place.
Irrespective of who wins the presidency, “bolsonarismo” will be a force to be reckoned with in the new Congress. President Jair Bolsonaro’s party, PL, elected 99 deputies to Congress’s lower chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, which holds 513 seats in total. It is the most seats gained by any one party in 24 years.
Closing commentary
This was a short recap of the the election so far. In view of President Bolsonaro’s unexpectedly strong performance, the race have become even tighter, especially for team Lula. The sentiment that this is the most decisive election in the history of Brazil’s democracy is often voiced by commentators. Both candidates have intensified their campaigns. Lula has set out to conquer votes in the southeastern states, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Lula clinched the support of the mayor of Belford Roxo, known by his nickname “Waguinho” (full name: Wagner dos Santos Carneiro), who in 2018 came out in favor of Bolsonaro. He is a popular mayor in a city located in Baixada Fluminense, a series of municipalities that are part of the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, where large groups of evangelicals are concentrated – a group that tend to vote for Bolsonaro. (Waguinho’s wife, known as “Daniela do Waguinho,” became the second most voted-for federal deputy in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the largest part of votes coming from Belford Roxo.) Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has continued to appeal to loyal bases such as evangelicals, but also tried to penetrate the traditional Lula bastions of northeastern Brazil by traveling to those states. More updates to come.