Brazil has voted: lessons and perspectives
The Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) held a roundtable discussion on 7 November, 2022, focusing on the evaluation of the results of the Brazilian presidential election. The discussion was attended by Dr. Judit Ricz, researcher at the Center for Economic and Regional Studies, Institute of World Economy, and Dr. Gyula Sándor Nagy, professor at the Department of World Economy, Institute of Global Studies, Budapest Corvinus University. The event was moderated by Dr. Béla Soltész, IFAT’s senior research fellow.
Gyula Sándor Nagy emphasized that the election results were very close – in the first round Lula da Silva received 48.4%, while Jair Bolsonaro received 43.2% – despite the fact that the polls published before the elections from the end of August showed that Lula could win the presidency already in the first round, while the support of the incumbent president was preliminarily measured at around 35%. According to Gyula Sándor Nagy, the error of the pollsters may indicate that Bolsonaro’s supporters did not answer or did not answer according to their true intentions during the survey (this could be caused by the lack of trust in polling institutes and/or the considerable deterioration of their credibility in the recent past). In addition, it is worth adding that Bolsonaro managed to expand his voter base compared to 2018.
Evaluating the Bolsonaro presidency, Judit Ricz explained that a few months before the presidential election, the government transformed the former Family Fund (Bolsa Família) program and provided significant social support to help those in difficult situations. This was a realpolitik decision that went against the previous economic direction of the president and his ultra-liberal finance minister, Paulo Guedes, whose name has been associated with measures such as the cutting of the state pension system or the partial privatization of Petrobras since 2018.
During the evaluation of the election results, the two experts emphasized that although the traditional north-south / northeast-southwest fault lines are clearly visible on the map, the current results also show important shifts. Some Amazonian states deserve special attention, where Bolsonaro’s good results in recent years can be attributed to the settlement of illegal loggers and miners who came to these areas, but it will only become clear from the research of the following years which strata and social groups have moved to the left, and to the right in the past period.
Gyula Sándor Nagy said that as a result of the congressional elections held at the same time as the presidential election, nineteen different political parties will be found in the lower house of the Brazilian legislature, meaning that political life is characterized by significant party-political fragmentation. Although Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party won the most seats (98 in number) and right-wing formations are in the majority in the lower house of Congress, the party loyalty of the representatives is highly doubtful. Judit Ricz added that bolsonarismo will probably remain a significant factor in Brazil for a long time, but it is questionable who will continue its legacy, whether the former president will retire or whether other actors will step forward. Also, in January 2023, legal proceedings are expected to begin in many cases against the former president and his family.
After Lula da Silva takes office, experts expect that, in addition to the politically and economically unfavourable conditions, the fragmentation of the House of Representatives may also cause problems, but at the same time, Lula knows the strategies of parliamentary politics well and has significant experience in coalition building. Brazil’s GDP growth remains low, and based on the budgetary situation, it does not appear that there is too much scope for structural reforms, but at the same time, it would be important (within the limits of the possibilities) to find creative solutions to economic problems and to rejuvenate the political background of the Workers’ Party. In the issue of Amazonian rainforests, it is expected that the focus on environmental protection will strengthen, but at the same time, the management of the social aspects of the issue should not be neglected either.
With regard to Brazil’s foreign relations, the experts emphasized that with Lula’s victory, the political map of Latin America has become “red” in its entirety, so the harmony between the left-led states can offer good opportunities for reviving regional integration. In Brazilian foreign policy, there is a good chance that the pursuit of the role of the leading power of the Global South, which was also decisive during Lula’s previous presidency, may return, but at the same time, this may burden the country’s relationship with the United States (e.g. in the Russo-Ukrainian war, Brazil will probably remain neutral and not willing to interfere).
The election maps presented and analysed during the discussion can be viewed here!
Photo by: Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT)
The podcast of the event is available on our SoundCloud-channel or Spotify!