On October 2, the first round of presidential elections took place in Brazil. The main contenders for the presidency of the country are the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and the current head of the republic, Jair Bolsonaro.
According to the results of the first round, da Silva received the support from 48.3 percent of voters, and Bolsonaro — 43.3 percent. Although exit polls foreshadowed a confident victory by a wide margin for the first candidate.
Da Silva represents the left Workers’ Party, Bolsonaro is an extreme right representative of the social liberals. The Social Liberal Party advocates, for example, the legalization of firearms, opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and the teaching of gender identity in schools.
Despite the polls, the former president did not receive an absolute majority of the vote. The second round of elections is scheduled for October 30. The country, torn apart by acute political and economic crises, has a turbulent month of uncertainty and even violence. The first riots in the country broke out immediately, because the voters of the two leaders are as irreconcilable as their leaders are.
Bolsonaro, or as he is called «tropical Trump», is actively supported by the former US president. He even recorded a video message in support of his colleague.
«To the people of Brazil, you have a great opportunity to reelect a fantastic leader, a fantastic man, one of the great presidents of any country in the world. President Bolsonaro. He’s done a absolutely incredible job with your economy, with your country. He is respected by everybody all throughout the world. <…> He is taking your country to great heights and again, your country is now respected because of him all over the world. So go out and vote for Bolsonaro,» Trump praised him.
It is worth saying that Jair largely copied the program of his «friend». So, it includes underestimating the severity of the situation with COVID-19 and climate change, spreading unfounded claims about election fraud, etc. Bolsonaro also claims, for example, without any proof, that Lula will close the churches if he is elected as president. And evangelicals are perhaps the main electorate of Bolsonaro. Despite being a Catholic, in the 2018 election, for the first time, all major evangelical churches supported one candidate. In the second round, 70 percent of evangelical voters voted for the far-right candidate, whose second name is «Messiah.» Yes, and he himself said so: «Only God,» he said, «can remove me from the presidency.»
Furthermore, the first gesture of friendship came from the Brazilian leader. Wanting to support Trump after the US elections, and Joe Biden’s victory, Bolsonaro announced the falsification of the voting results, citing his sources of information. However, Jair managed to quarrel for his presidential term not only with Biden, but also with French President Emmanuel Macron.
A few words about election promises
The current president promises economic growth, the development of technology and the new jobs creation. Actually, his latest victory was the result of the very changes voters voted for. And to be fair, his economic policy was generally successful. He also paid attention to social policy, achieved the removal of budget restrictions on social programs. In addition, much has been done in banking sector. Today, the largest digital bank is a Brazilian bank. And all this, of course, is the merit of the Bolsonaro government. He also launched 5G technology, which makes it possible to provide remote areas of the country with communications and the Internet.
However, there are many problems. The pandemic, the Ukrainian crisis, anti-Russian sanctions, internal challenges are not in favour of the Brazilian economy.
The main slogan of Lula’s election campaign is «inclusion of the poor man in the budget.» Among the main promises: an annual revaluation of the minimum wage above the inflation rate, an increase in financial support of poor families, although this will affect the country’s budget, tax revisions (so that the poor pay less and the rich more). According to Lula da Silva, the state should stimulate employment.
Lula is a well-known and popular trade union leader, during his last two presidential terms he was able to reduce the level of extreme poverty in the country from 33.3% to 15.5%.
In addition, the presidential candidate promises to reform agriculture and support farmers in order to guarantee the country’s food sovereignty.
Lula plans to change the policy of the largest oil company with state participation Petrobras, reorienting it to guarantee fuel supplies and investments in refineries. Also, in his opinion, its prices should be based on the real, not on the dollar.
The company is notorious for its personnel policy. Bolsonaro in May fired its third CEO, after the company refused to sell fuel at a discount to consumers, warning that it would lead to a diesel shortage. The president believes that Petrobras should use its profits in order to reduce fuel prices and help to control inflation.
Characterizing the electoral campaign as a whole, according to the political expert Enrique Refoyo, with whom we managed to discuss the electoral process, it is «disgusting on both sides.»
“Both candidates use the hatred of voters to each other, trying to get all the votes of left and right, leaving no chance for the other candidates,” Enrique said.
Course change and new coordinates
Note several important things, Bolsonaro is a pro-Western politician, he has always been on the side of the United States and Israel, he has always supported Western regimes. However, everything changed when Biden came to power, partly because of his relations with Trump. That was the first time Jair openly took the side of Donald.
As a result of such a new party on the geopolitical board, the foreign policy course of the Latin American country began to change, due to the upcoming political isolation (including Jair himself) and Bolsonaro had to take decisive action.
In February of this year, in order to maintain political significance in the eyes of the international community and find a way out of the current situation, the Brazilian leader, despite pressure from Washington, made an important visit to Moscow. In addition to negotiations with the Russian President, the first meeting of the heads of the Foreign and Defense Ministries of the two countries took place at that time in the «2+2» format.
Deciding to take advantage of the BRICS membership, Bolsonaro signed very important contracts with Russia and China.
The Brazilian factor for the current foreign policy of Moscow
For Russia, the range for mutually beneficial cooperation with this South American country is quite wide, from railways to pharmacy, agro-industrial complex and even the defense sector. So what to expect from candidates?
The election of Lula as leader of Brazil is quite dangerous. First of all, because he advocates the internationalization of the Amazonia. The question is acute and has long been relevant.
Back in November 2000, during a debate in an American university, Workers Party governor of the Federal District of Brasilia, Cristóvão Buarque, was asked about the ideas on internationalizing the Amazonia, and he gave an answer that is still popular in Brazil:
“If the United States wants to internationalize the Amazon Rain Forest to minimize the risk of leaving it in the hands of Brazilians, we should internationalize its nuclear arsenals, if only because the country has already demonstrated it is capable of using these arms, causing destruction thousands of times greater than the deplorable burnings done in the forests of Brazil.»
This fact is of particular concern, given that similar initiatives of handing over control of the Amazonia directly to the NATO command, have already been launched by the newly elected President of Colombia, Petro.
Here it is worth recalling that Colombia is one of the main US allies outside NATO, despite the general opposite trend on the continent in recent years.
Apparently, NATO is planning to open department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Amazonia, or the alliance has begun to adopt the experience of its Ukrainian colleagues (who shoot down drones with missiles), and will put out fires in the jungle not by fire hydrants, but by the artillery. Although from this point of view, the words of Chrystia Freeland become clear, who recently called for exclusion of Russia from the IMF and the G20, asserting that «The IMF and World Bank meetings are meetings of the firefighters».
«You know, that we’re not going to surrender our sovereignty over the Amazonia. But we know, that the Amazonia does not belong only to us,» Lula da Silva said during one of his campaign speeches.
And he sees the European Union as the best ally in this matter.
“If we win the elections, it will become clear that Brazil needs the European Union. We need help, we need partnership, whether in terms of investment, in terms of sharing scientific knowledge and technology, or in terms of contributing to a truly clean without carbon dioxide emissions”, the former Brazilian president explained.
And here, we must understand that the Amazonia is a place with a very small population, but very rich strategic resources. This is a kind of geopolitical supermarket, which Western countries have been striving to monopolize for many years. In fact, this will mean the end of Brazil as a South American major power, along with many other countries of the continent.
Russia, in turn, stands for the preservation of sovereignty, which was once again confirmed at the February meeting of Putin and Bolsonaro.
Such possible changes will significantly affect the ongoing process of new world order forming.
In recent years, Brazil has established stable cooperation with Beijing and Moscow, whether it is bilateral initiatives (including interagency cooperation, a mechanism for consultations on security issues, sectoral cooperation) or multilateral formats, such as BRICS, G20, SPIEF, etc.
Since 2010, Brazil has firmly held its position as Russia’s number one partner in Latin America, with a share of 33% of Russia’s trade with this region. According to the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, in 2021 the volume of mutual trade between Russia and Brazil amounted to $7.5 billion.
This South American state is one of the ten largest trading partners of China. By the end of 2021, their trade turnover amounted to $164 billion. In April of this year, it was reported that the Central Bank of Brazil quadrupled its investment in the Chinese yuan. Thus, the share of the Chinese currency in the reserves of the regional leader increased to 4.99%, which brings it to the third position, shortly behind the share of reserves in the euro (5.04%). In addition, in countries such as Chile, Mexico, Argentina, and especially Brazil, Chinese capital has gradually turned from an auxiliary position into one of the important forces capable of determining the situation in local economies.
The country also supports Russian and Chinese colleagues within the UN. Earlier, Bolsonaro said he would not vote for a UN resolution condemning Vladimir Putin or proposing sanctions. Although, in fairness, da Silva also verbally supported him, and noted that if he again leads the country, then their position will still be neutral.
It is also important that the format of the emerging new «Big Seven» of developing countries consisting of Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Russia and Turkey, reached over the G7 in terms of GDP (PPP) — the total GDP of the «New Seven» reached $ 37.8 trillion, and G7 — $34.5 trillion.
On the eve of the second round, tension increases
Recently, the first debates of the second-round presidential election took place in Brasilia. The event was marked by sharp attacks of candidates against each other, and also caused a strong reaction in social networks. The candidates speeches turned out to be so questionable that a winner wasn’t determined.
The left-wing candidate began with harsh criticism of Bolsonaro for his negligent attitude to the situation with the coronavirus. «Half of Brazil’s 680,000 deaths could have been avoided with more effective and responsible policies,» he said. Then he made things personal, calling Jair «the king of false news and stupidity» and «a little dictator.»
Then Bolsonaro went on the attack, condemning the opponent for corruption scandals, during which Lula himself was arrested on charges of bribery. The arrest was later overturned by the Brazilian Supreme Court, making it possible for him to run for presidency. And following the example of da Silva, he also did not chose terminology, called enemy a «liar» and «shame of the nation.»
In addition to the pandemic and corruption, candidates also raised issues of the Amazonia, the fight against poverty and the future of the oil company Petrobras. Both promised to implement a maximum effective welfare program, without specifying where are they going to get money.
Lula still has a lead of around 5%, but Bolsonaro’s side are looking to turn the tide of the electoral campaign in the near future.