The elections in Brazil ended with great anticipation to know if Jair Bolsonaro got re-election or Lula da Silva returns to power after more than 10 years, in an unprecedented polarization scenario in the political history of the country since the end of the military dictatorship.
The election took place in a country almost divided into two equal parts. The fields of both candidates anticipated that they would be voted in the midst of a technical draw.
Nail 156 million people were called to vote, even if the more than 30 million who did not make it in the first round have been discounted. Abstention has grown in the country fueled by disappointment, especially among younger voters, for the management of policies.
The last debate, in which both candidates despised each other and insulted every proposal for the future, in a two-hour struggle, can they have kept many more voters away from the polls, according to specialists fear. Especially to young people who perceive from these deviations a strong deterioration of the institutional system.
This Sunday’s elections were important not only at the national level. Nine of the 12 states also defined their government as an ally of the PT and the Bolsonarists.
Lula had finished the first round with a six million vote lead over Bolsonaro. But the main thing is that both added 91% of the total votes. The other forces remained at a minimum. Both support and rejection are data that have focused analysts’ attention.
No less than 50 percent of voters predicted they would never elect Bolsonaro, while a similar figure, 46 percent, said the same of Lula. That is, a huge no vote that went through the other party driven by rejection.
Political scientist Bolívar Lamonier stressed this Sunday a State than the current division of the company it is unprecedented in our history. “Now it can be safely said that this crisis is much more dangerous and could lead to a reasonably long period of conflict.”
It is concluded that the country faces a lost second decade. The author of “Tribunes, prophets and priests” imagines the following scenario: “organized crime, endemics, a totally disoriented politics”, where nobody says “what with what” and concludes that the PSDB, the party of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso has disappeared as a political force “in a country that – he says – has no parties, but acronyms made by half a dozen people”.
For other observers, the scenario is less dramatic, even if the winner will have to have a special negotiating belt, especially if it is the former metallurgical leader.
Brazil next year will have to solve the tax debts that are accumulating, a serious budget problem that in this country has a secret chapter that is discussed in reserve with the Parliament and which would also be of abysmal dimensions.
Whether one or the other governs, the adjustment of public finances is inevitable, analysts say.
The press here leaked documents from the Bolsonaro Ministry of Economy that anticipate that, in the event of a victory, indexing of base salaries will end according to inflation, which among other things in 2022 has dropped to eight per cent today.
Lula da Silva’s refusal to inform in advance what her economic team will be and her plan on the matter would also indicate, it is claimed, that there will be a high level of pragmatism to deal with the red numbers which, if they had foreseen it, could have reduce his electoral support.
The former president who ruled in two administrations with liberal and managed economic policies eight years of fiscal surplus in public accountshas shown himself during the election campaign in the political center and towards the center right in recent times with the help of his main ally, Senator Simone Tebet, an anti-abortion and very conservative landowner respected by the agri-food sectora sector that has hitherto been vertically aligned with Bolsonarism.
St. Paul. Special delivery
Source: Clarin
