Paradoxes in the long final stretch of the Brazilian presidential elections

This week began a central chapter in the long final stretch for the Brazilian elections on 2 October. It happens with two decisive facts. The first is the deflation recorded by Brazil of -0.68% in July, a record in almost half a century of monthly measurements.

This number reduces the annualized indicator from 11.8 to 10.07%. They are the same levels as last December, having reached 12.13% in April, the highest level since 2003.

This news, key to the aspirations of President Jair Bolsonaro, is linked to the “Package of benefits” that the government launched last Tuesday with subsidies extended to the poorest sectors of the country.

is 50% package increase. Help Brazil, the clone of Bag for the family popularized by former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s main rival and who for now leads the polls, albeit on a declining level. The effect of both movements is evident: the president’s and government’s approval of him has improved among the humblest voters.

Therefore, the difference between the two candidates is expected to shrink to a single digit, around seven points according to a company survey. FSB. The curious thing about this whole process is that, as this column has already pointed out, Lula is the victim of a populist maneuver by a far-right president which takes over a customary mechanism among the PT leader’s regional allies to snatch votes.

Bolsonaro, without dwelling on subtleties, inaugurated this “social aid” program. eight weeks before the election and with a strict deadline of 31 December. It will consume $ 8 billion of the public treasury, a patrimonial gift so that in those vast sectors overwhelmed by poverty, the election becomes only a plebiscitary, as the inevitable Guillermo O’Donnell would describe.

Inflation is falling due to another government engineering to improve its public image. Bolsonaro raised the leadership of Petrobras to impose a reduction in fuel prices and succeeded in passing legislation that eliminates a substantial part of the taxes that the state collects on gasoline and ethanol.

The provinces received these taxes to assign them to the health and educational programs. For the Brazilian who fills up with petrol, the loss is a close and tangible change. In transport, for example, the effect was measured with a significant retracement of -4.51%.

The President’s Problems

These maneuvers astonish but are inevitable for the president. As pointed out weeks ago The Economist “Bolsonaro is in trouble. He can no longer pretend to be a political outsider. And he is a less plausible crusader against corruption, after three and a half years of scandals in office “.

“As hunger rises to levels not seen in decades,” he added, “many voters will remember that Lula’s policies once helped fill their stomachs and few will forget Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the pandemic. left over 660,000 dead “.

Lula’s strategy, unlike other campaigns where she hardened her figure on the left, now tries to show itself in the center and, sometimes, even beyond. In this way he tries to define the quarrel with Bolsonaro less with ideology than with efficiency in public management and pragmatism.

Not only does he repeat the formula with a right-wing leader, former Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin. Before that post in the former president’s two terms was occupied by the late businessman José Alencar, a strict evangelist like Bolsonaro.

The PT leader tries to reassert himself even in the Brazilian establishment, of which a part does not accept the version that he is a “ferocious left” as he has just been stamped The New York Times.

One of the former president’s main allies is Roberto Setubal, president of Banco Itaú, the largest in Brazil and who has just signed a public letter against threats to ignore the election results promoted by Bolsonaro. He’s the same banker who gave him the green light to trust when the metal unionist first came to power in 2003.

This week Lula met the leaders of the Industrial Federation of the State of Sao Paulo, the powerful FIESP whose president is Josue Gomes, son of Alencar. There he outlined the terms of his he government project, proposing to recover the fiscal surplus and, in the style of what Colombian Gustavo Petro has just announced, reduce the administrative dimension of the state.

With an impetus that would surely have made his most dogmatic admirers in the region uneasy, Lula assured businessmen. “What I guarantee is the market”. And he promised them that “they will make money in the country again”, reminding them that during his two governments, banks and companies have collected the highest accumulation rate in the history of Brazil.

“If what they want is to invest in Brazil to earn money, it will be guaranteed. I will repeat three words that are part of my dictionary: credibility, stability and predictability. observed.

Included in this scheme is a tax reform which is a historic demand flag from the Sao Paulo establishment, where over 50% of Brazil’s GDP resides, and which seeks to simplify the intricate national tax system and reduce the pressure.

The numbers

The figure also appears in the message Fiscal Responsibility, a flag against the public spending of demagogic models extending across the region. “It is not possible to spend more than what is collected”, insisted the former president, a clarification in which he deliberately insisted to differentiate himself particularly from the case of the Argentine collapse.

The nightmare of our country It can be seen through a magnifying glass from those summits in Brazil with the surprise produced by the extent of the disaster and the persistence of incorrect practices around public spending and the consequent inflation it generates. Privately, Lula has been and continues to be a non-diplomatic critique of Argentina’s distraction and those responsible.

Brazil, by the way, has a much healthier structure than its South American neighbor. It has reserves of $ 386,478 million although it faces a public debt equivalent to the GDP of about one trillion, 400 billion. External debt is just over a third of that amount.

Lula’s centrist position is electoral, but it is convenient for an evolutionary Social Democratic leader who agrees with an old vice of the establishment of his country to keep Brazil as one of the most closed economies in the world.

When Uruguay began exploring the alternative of a free trade agreement with China, breaking unanimity pacts within Mercosur, Lula and his main political ally, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, opposites together in a public presentation. The word openness has no ideology in Brazil.

Bolsonaro did not even break the protectionist culture in his government, but was willing to break other rules by abusing the complicity with the Armed Forces.

Suffice it to note that in the eight months to May 2022 the cyber defense wing of the Armed Forces presented 88 questions on alleged vulnerabilities in the electoral process, especially the points of discussion that Bolsonaro exposes when he threatens the outcome of the elections.

It is the first time that the military has splashed into this field where its role has always been limited to the transport of the urns and their protection. Last year, the president’s current running mate, General Walter Braga Netto, even warned him “Either we will have clean elections or we will not have elections”.

That is why some dangerous news is feared in the events and in the speech of the president of September 7, the 200th anniversary of independence. The scenario is summarized by Wallace Corbo, a researcher of Getulio Vargas quoted by the British magazine: “Any Brazilian who is not worried is because he is not paying attention”.

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