By Alejandra Garcia on July 14, 2022
The eyes of the world are beginning to turn to Brazil. This October, the Brazilian people will go to the polls hoping to change the country’s political course and overthrow the unpopular Jair Bolsonaro. According to polls, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who was president from 2003 – 2011 is the people’s only hope for Brazil.
For several months, voting preferences have not changed. In the last Datafolha poll, published in June, Lula carried 53 percent of voting intentions. To win in the first round Lula would have to carry 51 percent of the valid votes.
The numbers speak for themselves. Bolsonaro, who’s seeking his second term, has only 31 percent of the votes. In third place is Ciro Gomes, of the Democratic Labour Party (PDB), with six percent. The rest of the pack, with nine candidates, barely reaches two percent.
There are many reasons to vote for former President Lula in next October’s elections. According to the renowned Brazilian writer and liberation theologian Frei Betto, the first purpose is to get Jair Bolsonaro out of the Planalto Palace, seat of the Executive Power.
“Another reason is that the people long to rebuild Brazil, demolished by this alliance of Bolsonaro’s militiamen, religious fundamentalists, neo-fascists, and fanatics-greedy elite,” Betto said in an article published on the official website of the Workers’ Party (PT, in Portuguese).
The almost imminent victory of the Brazilian politician provoked intimidation of a coup. But “there is only one way to avoid these serious threats to democracy: our mobilization!” commented the theologian.
Last weekend, a Bolsonaro follower shot dead a Lula supporter. Afterward, the far-right president downplayed the murder and even called on the civilian population to use firearms in order for Brazil to be “a free country”.
In 2020 and 2021, Brazil was one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. Thousands of Brazilians died while its president downplayed the impact of the COVID-19, insisting on calling it “a little flu.” Today, the nation suffers an increase in violence, intolerance, and polarization, all aftermaths of Bolsonaro’s erratic attitude.
“Brazilians do not need to buy weapons, but food, clothes, medicine. They need to recover their social rights so they can access universities, decent employment, and Brazil’s cultural life,” Lula commented in a recent speech.
“If the people had jobs, access to education, quality health services, leisure areas, culture, drinking water, sanitation systems for all communities, there would not be even half of the violence that the country experiences today,” the candidate argued.
We cannot declare victory before it’s time. Nothing guarantees that Lula will be elected and, if elected, that he will take office. However, the people trust him and remember how Brazil advanced in the 13 years of PT governments and their achievements.
In those years, the PT guaranteed affordable fuel, offered university fees, promoted projects such as Electricity for All; My House, My Life; More Doctors (Mais Medicos) in order to help the most vulnerable; corrected the minimum wage above inflation; and demarcated Indigenous lands.
“Love will sprout where they want weapons; peace where they urge conflict; respect against hatred; democracy versus dictatorship; fight against social inequality where they want to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
“It is time to stop being a spectator of the political conjuncture and act intensely to save Brazilian democracy,” Betto concluded.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English