Lula da Silva

Workers’ Party (PT) candidate, former president Lula da Silva, won the Brazilian presidency with just over 50 percent of the vote in the runoff election held on October 30. Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist, received 49.10%. With a clear chain of ballot custody, the required presentation of government issued identification (ID), same-day voting at documented residential locations, site-specific paper tallies of ballots delivered in real-time (highly functional exit polls), no hackable internet connection for its electronic voting machines, open-source programming and no mail-in ballots, Bolsonaro’s repeated claims of election fraud remained unsubstantiated–even by the military that conducted an investigation at his urging in October during and after the first round of voting and found “nothing irregular.”

Just a few minutes ago, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced Lula da Silva’s victory by over 2 million votes or 1.5%. Undoubtedly it was a tight race with many obstacles for the progressive candidate, but in the end, the people’s will to leave behind 4 years of a disastrous government prevailed. With over 99% of the voting stations counted, Lula won almost 51% of the votes, while his rival, the ultra-right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, achieved a concerning 49% of the votes. This runoff was similar to the first round’s turnout. In other words, neither of the two candidates managed to significantly mobilize those who did not take part in the political process in the first round. Apparently, Bolsonaro achieved better results as his numbers shrank from the first round’s difference by almost three million votes.al process in the first round.

Moisés Mendes, a Brazilian journalist, recently wrote that the dissemination of fake news by the Bolsonaro camp had reached a level such that voters will miss the ‘mamadeira de piroca’. The reference is to the penis-shaped baby bottles with which Bolsonaro’s campaign inundated social media in 2018, falsely charging the Workers’ Party (PT) presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, with distributing them in schools along with ‘gay kits’ to teach homosexuality. Film director Wagner Moura is convinced the ‘mamadeira’ won Bolsonaro the 2018 election. Mendes is right; since 2 October (the date Lula won the first round with 48%), the defeated Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters have spewed a huge amount of fake news against the PT presidential candidate and his supporters.

This Sunday October 2, Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, will elect its president. This election is decisive not only for the South American country but also for the entire region, since its outcome will heavily influence the correlation of forces. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (progressive candidate of the Workers’ Party)’s predicted victory would be a boost for the Latin America left and the rejection of neo liberalism, which has strengthened in the last 3 years. Meanwhile, if Jair Bolsonaro (ultra-right and Trump supporter) wins, it would mean a retrenching for the right-wing to resist. Regarding this election that carries such weight, Resumen Latinoamericano in English interviewed Micaela Ovelar Marquez, who is in Brazil directing a documentary on the current political electoral process of that country.

Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday accused President Jair Bolsonaro of lying 20 times during a meeting with international diplomats in which the far-right incumbent repeated his baseless attacks on the integrity of the nation's election system. While offering no credible evidence to support his claim, Bolsonaro told dozens of diplomats from countries including the United States and members of the European Union that the Brazilian electoral system is "completely vulnerable" to fraud in the run-up to this October's presidential election. According to Folha de São Paulo, two of the diplomats present for Bolsonaro's 50-minute presentation at the Palácio da Alvorada, the executive residence, accused the president of using "Trumpist tactics," a reference to former U.S. President Donald Trump's failed efforts to delegitimize and ultimately overturn the 2020 election.