Brazil's presidential election is heading to a runoff, and the numbers are not kind to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. With 47% against 45% for Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president faces a steep climb. Yet the race is far from over, and Lula's path to victory, while narrow, is not closed.
What went wrong for Lula in the first round
Three factors explain Lula's underperformance. First, at 80 years old, he is the oldest candidate in the race, and his Workers' Party (PT) has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Voters, frustrated with the status quo, are taking it out on the party in power—a pattern seen in the United States and elsewhere.
Second, Brazil's corporate media, dominated by a few conglomerates like Globo, has been relentless in manufacturing scandals against Lula. The collapse of Banco Master, a financial institution run like a Ponzi scheme, has been repeatedly linked to Lula's circle, despite the bank's CEO being a vocal Bolsonaro supporter. The media's attempts to implicate Lula's son, Fabio Luis da Silva, have been widely ridiculed, and Globo even had to apologize for a conspiracy-theory infographic.
Third, the influence of former US President Donald Trump cannot be underestimated. Trump's training and validation of right-wing movements in Brazil provided critical support to Bolsonaro's allies, even if it was not decisive.
Lula's path to victory
Despite the odds, Lula can still win. He lost by only 2%, and several third-party candidates, who collectively took 8% of the vote, have said they will not endorse Bolsonaro in the runoff. Additionally, 29 million Brazilians abstained in the first round, and many could be persuaded to back Lula if they fear a Bolsonaro presidency.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate is set to vote on a measure to shorten the workweek from six days to five. Bolsonaro opposes it, and Lula could use this to mobilize workers against his rival.
Lula's age and the PT's long tenure are liabilities, but his campaign has a chance if it can energize the youth and the working class. The PT's failure to recruit young candidates, as seen in the Senate race in Rio de Janeiro where 84-year-old Bendedita da Silva lost badly, is a warning sign.
The media's attacks on Lula have been relentless, but they may have backfired. The Intercept Brasil's release of a WhatsApp message showing Bolsonaro asking Banco Master's CEO for $26 million to fund a bizarre biopic about his father, starring Jim Caviezel, has kept the scandal alive. Polls showed Lula leading while the story was fresh, but the media's subsequent barrage has eroded his advantage.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the prosecution that jailed Bolsonaro, has accused a Bolsonaro-appointed justice of leaking information to the press to smear Lula's allies while hiding evidence against Bolsonaro's. Moraes has asked the federal police to investigate, adding another layer of controversy.
Lula's road is tough, but not impossible. He must consolidate the anti-Bolsonaro vote, win over the abstainers, and hope that the media's overreach turns public opinion in his favor. The runoff is a test of Brazil's democratic resilience, and the outcome will have ripple effects across the region.
As Brazil goes to the polls, the world watches. The stakes are high, not just for Brazil but for the entire Indo-Pacific, where democratic backsliding and right-wing populism are on the rise. The parallels with other democracies are striking, and the outcome could signal the direction of global politics.
