On October 30th, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's presidential election. The election was very close, with Lula winning by only 1.8 percent of votes. Lula is a leftist politician who previously served as Brazil’s President from 2003-2010, leaving office with an 87 percent approval rating. Lula will fight for liberal values, but, like in the U.S., Brazil's economy is suffering from inflation. Before he can jump into his liberal agenda, Lula must rebuild a struggling country with many people in poverty and going hungry. As Lula pointed out during his campaign, Bolsonaro was pro-torture and pro-dictatorship. Lula’s goal is to return Brazil to a stable democracy. Along with his promises to enforce laws preventing deforestation, Lula also pledged to increase the minimum wage and social welfare, and support civil rights.
Despite Lula’s support from the left, Bolsonaro has a very strong base on the right, so the race was expected to be close. Bolsonaro did not comment on the election results for two days. Voters and politicians alike were concerned that Bolsonaro would react to his loss like Donald Trump — to whom he has been compared in the past — by refusing to accept the election and encouraging violent protests to election results. Bolsonaro’s son fed worries when he claimed that in 2022, Brazil faced “the greatest electoral fraud ever seen.” Although Bolsonaro did not explicitly admit that he lost the election and did not congratulate Lula, he did say that he would follow the Brazilian Constitution's process of the peaceful transfer of power and admitted defeat to the Supreme Court. Vice President Hamilton Mourão and Bolsonaro's top aides, on the other hand, explicitly recognized Bolsonaro's loss. The international community expressed widespread relief, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will attend Lula's inauguration on January 31.
Election Controversies
Many of Bolsonaro's supporters were not as accepting as their leader. Two days after the election results were announced, Bolsonaro said "peaceful protests will always be welcome. But our methods must not be those of the left, which always harm the population, like invading property… and impeding the right to come and go." In the same speech, he also claimed that his voters are protesting due to "indignation and a sense of injustice." Consequently, he is not trying to stop his supporters from mobilizing. Truckers made up a significant portion of Bolsonaro's supporters because he passed a law that gives truckers and taxi drivers vouchers for gas. They took to the streets in protest against Lula's win. The federal highway police (PRF) reported breaking up 306 roadblocks on November 1, with 267 active roadblocks remaining, including barriers on major highways and the road to Guarulhos Airport. Bolsonaro asked them to protest somewhere else because the road blockage was becoming dangerous. Vice President Mourão agreed with him, lamenting, "It's extremely serious to compromise people's health, supplies to hospitals, vaccines, food, fuel. Who's going to pay the damages?"
During his 2022 campaign, Bolsonaro constantly reminded Brazilians of a 2017 scandal that found Lula guilty of gaining billions of dollars from bribes and overpriced oil contracts, leading back to Petrobras, an oil company run by the state. However, Lula's conviction was annulled in 2021, allowing him to run for re-election. Lula accused Bolsonaro of corruption, citing the "secret budget" passed in 2019, which allowed Bolsonaro and other lawmakers to spend money at their own discretion. Bolsonaro denies Lula's claims, but the secret budget indisputably exists. Bolsonaro also stoked fear about election voting machines that he claimed were susceptible to voter fraud, parroting President Trump's rhetoric about voting in the United States.
What this Election Means for the Amazon
The future of the Amazon Rainforest was a topic of extreme concern for many voters. 60 percent of the Amazon is in Brazil, and both Lula and Bolsonaro claim to have the best record protecting it. Deforestation numbers were high when Lula took office, but steadily declined over his seven-year presidency. Conversely, Bolsonaro's term started with less deforestation than Lula's, but deforestation increased during his time in office.
Erika Berenguer of the University of Oxford told New Scientist that watching Bolsonaro's attack on the Amazon "was like having to silence a scream inside you every day as you watched the object of your life, your career and passion destroyed. Lula's election is a victory not only for the region but for humanity and life itself." Deforestation in the Amazon has increased by 75 percent since 2017 when Bolsonaro became president. Conversely, from 2004 to 2016, during Lula and Dilma Rouseff's presidencies, deforestation dropped by 72 percent. Lula's plans are grandiose, including "the subsidization of sustainable farming, the creation of a ministry dedicated to indigenous peoples and a national climate change authority that ensures Brazil's policies align with its Paris Agreement goals. Lula will attend the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
The State of Brazil
Since Bolsonaro’s loss, protesters have been calling on the military to step in and keep the current President in office. But, on November 9, Brazil’s military announced that there is no sign of election fraud. While the report did not rule it out completely, the military showed no signs of intervening and attempting to overturn the election. However, the report has not stopped Bolsonaro supporters from continuing to claim election fraud. Lula and his supporters, on the other hand, continue to assure voters that the election was free and fair. With Lula’s leadership, Brazil’s new policies will appeal to the political left, but Bolsonaro’s extensive right-wing support shows no sign of accepting Lula’s election.