Brazil counting votes in historic race of Lula vs. Bolsonaro
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s electoral authority was tallying votes Sunday night in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the farright incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva. With 20.3% of votes counted, Bolsonaro had 47.9%, ahead of da Silva with 43.3%.
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of two percentage points.
Fernanda Reznik, a 48-yearold health worker, wore a red T-shirt — a color associated with da Silva’s Workers’ Party — to vote in Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana neighborhood, where pro-bolsonaro demonstrators often congregate, and had been waiting in line for 40 minutes.
“I’ll wait three hours if I have to!” said Reznik, who no longer bothers talking politics with neighbors who favor Bolsonaro. “This year the election is more important, because we already went through four years of Bolsonaro and today we can make a difference and give this country another direction.”
Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.
But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.
Marley Melo, a 53-yearold trader in capital Brasilia, sported the yellow of the Brazilian flag, which Bolsonaro and his supporters have coopted for demonstrations. Melo said he is once again voting for Bolsonaro, who met his expectations, and he doesn’t believe the surveys that show him trailing.
“Polls can be manipulated. They all belong to companies with interests,” he said.
A slow economic recovery has yet to reach the poor, with 33 million Brazilians going hungry despite higher welfare payments. Like several of its Latin American neighbors coping with high inflation and a vast number of people excluded from formal employment, Brazil is considering a shift to the political left.
Da Silva could win in the first round, without need for a run-off on Oct. 30, if he gets more than 50% of valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots.
An outright win by da Silva would sharpen focus on Bolsonaro’s reaction to the count. He has repeatedly questioned the reliability not just of opinion polls, but also of Brazil’s electronic voting machines. Analysts fear he has laid the groundwork to reject results.