I’m not starting with the discussion about predictions. They’re increasingly unreliable — or at least debatable. I suspect some are published in altered form to demobilize certain forces while concealing the real assessment. I’m starting from reality: Lula da Silva, the incumbent and current occupant of the Planalto Palace, was defeated in the first electoral round by Flavio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s first son. This is my brief take.
The integrity of the count
The first point worth highlighting is the robustness of Brazil’s counting process. After cases as serious as Honduras last year or Venezuela in 2024, a reliable vote-counting mechanism that raises no serious doubts is always welcome. With practically all polling stations counted, the official site resultados.tse.jus.br — maintained by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court — shows Bolsonaro winning the first round with just over 47% of the vote; Lula crossed the 45% threshold but with a significant drop in performance compared to 2022.
The forecast is that Lula will have to row hard against the current to recover in the second and final round. But even then, he will face a clear disadvantage in Congress — a battlefield where his political camp lost key duels in both legislative chambers. The Bolsonarista party is set to control roughly a third of the Senate after nearly doubling its representation there. In coalition, they will retain substantial firepower to support or punish any future government. Lula also suffered heavy losses in the state governorship races. Tarcísio de Freitas, for example, defeated former presidential candidate and former Lula's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad by a wide margin in São Paulo. Overall, it was a bitter night for most of the former ministers who sought regional or national office.
The economy
The high cost of living proved an insurmountable barrier for Lula among a critical segment of voters. “Someone earning the minimum wage has no way to get ahead,” a São Paulo butcher told Reuters. There is a clear vibecession at work: while Latin America once again hears talk of macroeconomic advances, large parts of the population feel that little or none of the distribution reaches them.
Coalitions and debts
The preoccupation with staying in power and running the vast machinery of the state creates a growing distance between promises and concrete results. That distance is particularly sharp between the people at the very base of a movement like the PT and those who claim to represent them. A governing party must reach forces that may even oppose it, leaving little room to maneuver. Lula 2.0 fell short in translating his discourse into practical projection. And that vacillation is paid for dearly at the ballot box.
Source for the cover image.