10/10/2024

Brazil: What Are They Thinking (The Voters at the Ballot Box)

Last Sunday, Brazil held municipal elections, and the results could be interpreted as a setback for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. And while this conclusion may be valid, it could also be superficial. It would be even more so if we assume that bad news for the PT leader automatically translates into an indisputable victory for his rival, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

I find it more interesting to interpret the recent Brazilian elections as an indicator of the shifting nature of political opinions. Rather than focus on a headline that will last, at best, a few days or even hours, it might be more revealing to explore what was going through the minds of 153 million citizens from 5,569 cities when they cast their votes.

 In São Paulo, the race will be decided in a second round, between Bolsonaro’s candidate and a candidate endorsed by Lula, though not from the PT itself (which was unable to build its own viable candidacy). Neither of the two received more than 30% of the vote, and although the third-place candidate did not make it to the runoff, he was noteworthy: a far-right influencer with no political background whose discourse (that at times turned into action), was filled with violence. In the short term, this can be good news for the former president’s conservative Partido Liberal, as those who supported this outsider are likely to shift their votes to the right-wing candidate who made it to the runoff. However, in the medium term, a pessimistic interpretation emerges for the Bolsonaro rank and file. The outsider’s strong performance suggests that the right-wing electorate may no longer fully align with Bolsonaro. He played a minor role in his candidate’s campaign for strategic reasons and had to concede protagonism, not only in São Paulo but elsewhere. This limitation was not exclusive to the PL leader. Many candidates chose to avoid the polarization between the once-dominant electoral figures, Bolsonaro and Lula. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, from the centrist Social Democratic Party (PSD), won a resounding re-election and delivered a clear message. Although he had avoided featuring Lula in his campaign, once victorious, he thanked the president for his support but firmly stated: “It’s time to end the polarization. There are people here who think differently. We can come together, unite, and build something better for Brazil. We sent a message to the country.”

Similarly, the mayor of Bahia, who secured re-election with nearly 80% of the vote, also sidestepped the outright confrontation between left and right. Although his party allied with the PL, he emphasized during the campaign that his true alliance was “with the people.”

In other major districts, Bolsonaro supporters and Lula allies shared victories and defeats while leaving no doubt that the Lula-Bolsonaro confrontational axis is not going through a good moment. It no longer divides the country as sharply as it did before. Meanwhile, the centrist PSD emerged on Sunday as the party with the most victories, followed by the MDB. This reflects the strengthening of the center parties, known as the Centrão. Due to their growing representation, both legislatively and in mayoral offices, they are on their way to becoming the new political arbiters.

It is true that Brazilian municipal elections have a different political dynamic and character compared to presidential elections. In the elections that took place last Sunday, traditional parties with strong local influence took precedence over the PL and the PT. It is common for these larger parties to avoid presenting their own candidates, choosing to back or form coalitions with more promising candidates from other groups. Nonetheless, even within this context, Lula’s party struggled to field strong electoral choices, and the PT will only compete in the second round in four capitals, all starting from a disadvantaged position.

Although still fresh and currently developing, this electoral scenario seems to suggest that politics, and not only in the case of Brazil, may be moving into uncharted territory (at least electorally). There are very few reference points, and the most useful and precise tools to navigate and understand how and where to steer appear to be lacking.

Sunday’s elections confirmed that those who subjected to the will of the people were aware that the Bolsonaro-Lula rivalry no longer held the same appeal, or at least lacked the intensity that once gave structure to Brazilian national politics. The results reinforced findings from the DataSenado survey released by Agência Senado of the National Senate: 40% of respondents did not consider themselves politically aligned with the left, right, or center. Only 29% identified with the right, 15% leaned more to the left, and 11% placed themselves in the center. The fact that most voters do not identify with any political pole indicates that the national political figures do not dominate the minds of Brazilians. On the contrary, it could be argued that voters are more inclined to elect managers or administrators to govern their regions rather than politicians.

The survey concluded that the Brazilian population is not as polarized as it is often portrayed. Ideology is no longer the main question, at least not with the intensity of previous historical periods.

Although it wasn’t a presidential election, it was the first since the 2022 election, which gave Lula his third term, defeating Bolsonaro, who, to add insult to injury, controlled the state apparatus. Two years before that election, in 2020, with Lula still imprisoned, the PT suffered a severe defeat, failing to win in any state capital— a sort of coda to the parliamentary coup that ended Dilma Rousseff’s presidency. However, back in 2020, like in last Sunday’s results, Bolsonaro’s candidates also failed to achieve clear victories. The Centrão had already foreshadowed this 2024 outcome: in 2020, the MDB had the most victories, and Centrão parties ended up governing 45% of all municipalities. In a way, what happened last Sunday had already been set in motion four years ago. This was more than enough time for politicians, strategists, consultants, and planners to know, with some degree of accuracy, what Brazilian citizens were thinking when deciding their vote at the ballot box.


Aníbal Jozami, a sociologist specializing in International Relations, is the President of the Fundación Foro del Sur, Rector Emeritus of the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF, Argentina), and Director General of BIENALSUR.