By Emir Sader on June 21, 2021
photo: focus.jor.bra
The polls have changed over the course of this year, basically due to Lula’s direct entrance into the presidential race. The consequences were immediate.
Lula became the favorite candidate, and Bolsonaro “deflated,” declining from 30% to 25% with a downward trend. The “third way” pre-candidates tended to disappear, as did those who are also on the left – Boulos and Dino, among others.
The polls combined the proportions of the always high preferences for Lula and Bolsonaro, leaving very little for other possible candidates, leading to a polarization consolidated between these two. None of the third way candidates was able to achieve significant support. On the contrary, as Ciro Gomes fell from 12% to 6% and the rest continued with statistically insignificant results. Also, the pre-candidates and their parties have not come to any agreement to concentrate their strength on one or two of them.
What we seek to understand is why these negotiations have not prospered, and, above all, why none of these pre-candidates has been able to stand out from the crowd. This contradicts the opinions of the analysts, who believed that there was meaningful space for alternatives and support beyond the Lula-Bolsonaro polarization.
In the first place, the polarization between the two candidates revolves around a fundamental question: in favor of the neoliberal model, or against it? This is a central theme in today’s world. Capitalism, having exhausted the development model prevalent from the period of the end of the Second World War until the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 80s, chose to adopt the neoliberal model, which spread throughout almost the whole world. Under the direction of the United States, this model spread to Europe and to countries in Asia, and to the great majority of the countries of Latin America, becoming the political-economic model that characterizes capitalism in the current period.
In Brazil, even the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, originally social-democratic, maintained and perfected the model inherited from Fernando Collor, allied to the traditional right-wing, making this model the universal option of the right and center-right in Brazil. The Partido Trabajador (Workers’ Party), by contrast, led the resistance to this model, and, when they finally won the elections, put an anti-neoliberal model in place in all the governments they formed.
Today, Bolsonaro represents a continuation of the neoliberal model, while Lula represents anti-neoliberalism. These are the two economic perspectives of society. Third way candidates tend not to comment on this alternative, or, when they do, they are in favor of the economic policy of the government. They do not represent a third way differing from these two fundamental alternatives.
On one side, Bolsonaro represents a militarized authoritarianism, while Lula represents a restoration of democracy. These are the two political perspectives of Brazil. Those who are not content with either of these two candidates are a minority, and they have not been able to find alternatives to convince those who support them. The right-wing and the ultra-right, whose rejection of the Partido Trabajador (Workers’ Party) is their fundamental reference point, have realized that they don’t dare abandon a candidate who continues to have about 25% support, compared to the 6% or less of the pre-candidates of the third way, in spite of the fact that Bolsonaro has constantly diminishing ability to defeat Lula in more or less normal elections. Even the hypothesis of an accelerating debacle for Bolsonaro does not guarantee that a third way candidate will be able to capture any of these votes, which may go at least in part to Lula.
Although there is still a lot of time in front of us, Bolsonaro seems used up as a leader. Even with proposing emergency assistance and other attempts to recover the support that he once had, his best case scenario is that he will be able to slow his decline in the polls. Since the third way is definitely not coming together and is becoming weaker, Lula will tend to maintain his current level of support or even to increase it.
To the despair of those segments of the right-wing that feel uncomfortable with the choice between Lula and Bolsonaro, this is exactly how the alternatives are shaping up. Therefore, this is the choice that Brazil has on the horizon.
One of these two will take the country toward perpetuating an anti-democratic political regime, with a model that favors financial capitalism and increases inequality and unemployment; the other will enable Brazil to restore democracy, resume economic growth, re-distribute income, create employment and reduce inequality.
Brazil, in the present and in the future, is divided between these two possibilities.
Source Alainet, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English