Janae Pierre: I'm Janae Pierre in once again for Melissa Harris-Perry. This is The Takeaway. Brazilians went to the polls yesterday to choose between two men who have already served as president of Latin America's largest democracy.

[cheering Lula]

[cheering Bolsonaro]

Janae Pierre: Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula. Lula came in first place, but because neither candidate received 50% of the vote in the tight race, they will now face off in a runoff election later this month. The race has widespread implications for Brazil's democratic process, conditions in the Amazon rainforest, and economic recovery in the country. The bombastic right-wing incumbent, Bolsonaro, has frequently been compared to Donald Trump. He ran the country for the last three years denying the pandemic, rejecting calls to legalize abortion, and targeting LGBTQ and Indigenous rights.

Leftist challenger, Lula, was president of Brazil for two terms from 2003 until 2010. His expansion of social welfare programs helped greatly reduce poverty in the country, but a major bribery and corruption scandal led to Lula's conviction on corruption charges in 2017. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and served 19 months before being released. He was only able to run after his case was annulled by Brazil's Supreme Court. Here now to unpack the election is Ana Ionova, a freelance journalist covering the Brazil election in Rio. Hi, Ana. Welcome to The Takeaway.

Ana Ionova: Hi, Janae. Thanks for having me.

Janae Pierre: Of course. What reaction are you seeing on the ground in Brazil?

Ana Ionova: I think everyone is just surprised that the race is so close. Of course, the president has been saying for weeks, if not months, that the polls are wrong and it seems that he turned out to be right. Really, the mobilization of his base was not predicted by most experts. I think what we're looking at in the next four weeks is a much tighter race than people expected.

Janae Pierre: Yes, you're talking about the next few weeks. We have a runoff election coming up on October 30th. Go ahead and talk about what comes next.

Ana Ionova: Essentially, both candidates will really have to work the campaign trail once again. Bolsonaro is further behind than Lula, for sure. He still needs to get about six million Brazilians on his side. He will probably be looking towards those who were either abstaining or those who cast a vote for a third candidate that is no longer in the race, but Lula is short about 1.8 million votes, which would be easier to get, but obviously we saw that his rejection rate is quite high, so he will have to convince people to give him another chance.

Janae Pierre: These two candidates are about as different as they could be, right? Can you talk a little bit about what's at stake here?

Ana Ionova: Of course. Jair Bolsonaro has leaned on a very traditional conservative right-wing agenda. He has really been quite successful in mobilizing social conservatives through rhetoric around abortion and transgender rights, placing himself in opposition against, for example, teaching LGBTQ rights in schools. He has also made, really, a strong appearance in the Evangelical circle. He has been very successful in making Ingrams in this ultra-conservative sector.

Lula on the other hand is a very traditional leftist leader. He has a track record of lifting millions of people out of poverty during his presidency, and during the campaign trail, he has leaned on that glorious past as much as possible. He has promised people that through generous social spending and the kinds of policies that he used in the past, he would be able to make life easier for Brazilians again. These are the two choices, polar opposites that Brazilians have at the moment.

Janae Pierre: We'll have more with Ana Ionova on Brazil's presidential election after the break.

[music]

Janae Pierre: I'm Janae Pierre in for MHP, and we're back on The Takeaway talking about Brazil's presidential election, which will go to a runoff later this month. One of the many ideological battles between the political rivals and Brazil's election is over gun control. You're listening to an ad supporting the leftist former president, Lula. In it, artists and supporters of the Workers' Party rotate the pistol hand symbol used by incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters into an L for Lula singing [unintelligible 00:05:16] Voto or turn the vote.

Lula isn't the only candidate with a campaign song, though. Brazilian soccer star Neymar Júnior shared a video on TikTok Friday dancing to Bolsonaro's song in a viral show of support.

[music]

Janae Pierre: Back with me now is Ana Ionova, a freelance journalist in Brazil who's been closely watching the race. Ana, one of the big fears going into this weekend was that Bolsonaro might not accept the results if he lost. How did he leverage mistrust in Brazil's electoral system during this presidential campaign?

Ana Ionova: Bolsonaro has been sowing doubts about the election system since last year and mainly through trying to bring back a paper ballot. Obviously, Brazil has been using electronic voting machines for more than two decades, and it's a system that there are no signs that there has been widespread fraud in the past, but he has really, really pushed this theory that the system is open to manipulation with his supporters and with his allies.

This strategy has been really successful. Speaking to people here on the ground, you hear this repeated over and over again that anything less than 60% of the vote for Bolsonaro means that there has been fraud. What we're watching here over the coming weeks is whether yesterday's result has reinforced this idea that the electronic machines can be manipulated. It definitely went a long way in proving that everyone else was underestimating Bolsonaro's support in his backing among Brazilians.

What we're waiting on as well is his official announcement, whether he will accept yesterday's results as legitimate. He has said that he is waiting on the armed forces to declare what they think about the issue since they were doing their own parallel monitoring of the vote. In any case, the doubts over the electoral system and the electronic voting machines will not be put to bed anytime soon.

Janae Pierre: Yes. I'm wondering, is Bolsonaro taking a page from Donald Trump's playbook here?

Ana Ionova: Absolutely. He has been very vocal about his support of Trump and his admiration of his tactics. We've seen him use those very same tactics over and over again here in Brazil, and he has been quite successful in creating this notion that there is a threat of a stolen vote, which, of course, analysts say that there's very little risk of, but still, his supporters are convinced that it's a major threat.

Janae Pierre: Lula's corruption conviction was annulled by Brazil's Supreme Court and the UN Human Rights Committee found the criminal proceedings violating his due process. Was this a problem at all for him in this campaign?

Ana Ionova: Absolutely. Lula has been able to legally clear his name, but in the consciousness of many Brazilians, they're still linking him with corruption. He hasn't been able to shake off this tainted image of a leader who saw this massive sprawling corruption scandal unraveling under his presidency and under the presidency of his hand-picked successor. In many cases, Brazilians haven't really put this history in the past, and I think he's had trouble winning back the trust of many people here.

Janae Pierre: Bolsonaro's support of agribusiness led to a certain deforestation in the Amazon during his term. By contrast, though, deforestation declined after 2004 when Lula was president. How much of this vote is for the health of the Amazon rainforest?

Ana Ionova: That question was at the forefront during the campaign, but yesterday's result really makes quite a key difference because what we saw was a really big win for Bolsonaro's allies and the far right within Congress and Senate. What we will probably see, even if Lula is able to get over that threshold and win in the next round, we will probably see him really struggling to govern with a very hostile set of lawmakers. A lot of the regulations and policies that have been so destructive for the Amazon rainforest are being crafted within these spaces. It was not a great day yesterday for progressive politics and most likely for environmental policy in Brazil.

Janae Pierre: Bolsonaro has touted his pandemic social welfare programs, although studies show food insecurity is only increasing among the poorest Brazilians. Lula was popular for expanding social welfare programs when he was president, effectively widening the middle class in Brazil. What might we expect in terms of economic policy in the country going forward as the economy struggles to rebound?

Ana Ionova: Both candidates have put forward quite different visions of how they would try to save the economy and make life better for Brazilians. Bolsonaro has placed his bets on a liberal economic agenda trying to stimulate investment, but at the same time, he has promised to maintain a scheme that was rolled out as an emergency measure during the pandemic, which gives about half a minimum salary for very poor families here in Brazil. That has been his bet on how to win over the poorest voters who are struggling the most right now.

Lula has proposed a similar measure with a monthly voucher of the same amount, which he says would help keep the poorest from hitting rock bottom. At the same time, he has proposed a more left-leaning agenda that has been based on social spending. He's promised to spend more on education, healthcare, create more jobs using his old strategy, which has been spending more and having a bigger role in the economy.

Janae Pierre: In Brazil, nearly 700,000 people have died from COVID-19, putting it second only behind the US. Now, Bolsonaro largely rejected lockdowns and mask mandates during the pandemic. How much of an issue is this for voters?

Ana Ionova: The big question was whether voters were willing to forgive the president for his handling of the pandemic, which most of the rest of the world sees this as quite catastrophic. I think what we see here on the ground is that his attempts to distance himself from the impacts of the pandemic have been quite successful. What I mean by that is that, in the height of the pandemic, he placed a lot of the blame on governors and mayors and actually tried to frame the closures as the problem. He said that, basically, the economic pain that Brazilians were feeling was because of the closures. It seems that this rhetoric has worked. His popularity, obviously, was hit by the pandemic, for sure, but it seems like not as much as most people expected.

Janae Pierre: You touched on this briefly, but how did social issues factor into the race? I'm thinking here of abortion access, LGBTQ and Indigenous rights, gun access, religious fundamentalism, and traditional family values.

Ana Ionova: What we've seen during this election has been, on Lula's side, a very quiet stance on these issues. What we believe is that this is because he's also been trying to make inroads with more conservative voters who he needs on his side to win an edge over Bolsonaro. He has said very little about abortion and LGBT rights. Traditionally, his party has positioned itself in support of these issues, so he still has the support of many socially liberal voters who are looking for more progressive policies.

On the other hand, Bolsonaro has been very vocal about these issues because they help him get the support of these very conservative voters that he's eyeing. He has repeatedly said that he will protect Brazil from turning into one of its neighbors, which has leaned towards more progressive reproductive rights policies. He has really played into this rhetoric during the campaign.

Janae Pierre: Now, aside from the presidential election, you've also written about the Indigenous candidates running for other public posts in Brazil. Their messaging pretty much defends Indigenous and environmental rights, specifically from Bolsonaro. What does this result mean for Indigenous politicians and activists?

Ana Ionova: We have seen some positive results from yesterday's vote with some of these Indigenous candidates being elected, but I think this climate that they will face within the Senate and within Congress will be really difficult to navigate for them. They will probably have to deal with opposition that is even more hostile to Indigenous rights. Most likely, we'll see a lot of this clashing in the years ahead as Indigenous activists and candidates try to protect rights and others who are aligned with agribusiness and mining try to dismantle them.

Janae Pierre: I've been speaking with Ana Ionova, freelance journalist in Brazil. Thanks for your time, Ana.

Ana Ionova: Thanks for having me.

[music]

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