Brazil Watch Thread

[Time_Traveller]

Brazil election: Bolsonaro and Lula trade insults in first debate

3 hours ago

Brazil's right-wing President, Jair Bolsonaro, and leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have taken part in a fiery first television debate ahead of October's general election.

Mr Bolsonaro accused the former president of having led the most corrupt government in Brazil's history.

Lula, in turn, said Mr Bolsonaro had destroyed Brazil.

Opinion polls suggest Lula - who served as president from 2003 to 2010 - is ahead in the election race.

But the gap between the two candidates seems to be narrowing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-62710526

[caltrek]

The Censoring of Brazil’s Indigenous Voices
by Gabriel Leão
August 24 , 2022

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The June assassinations of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Araújo Pereira in the Brazilian Amazon’s Javari Valley is a gruesome chapter unraveling the silencing of voices defending environmental and Indigenous peoples’ rights. In many cases, however, those who suffer the most from such physical and psychological harassment are local Indigenous communities themselves.

During the search for the whereabouts of Phillips and Araújo, Indigenous people helped the most to locate their bodies, as they know the terrain and understand the climate. Still, the work of these real-life trackers organized by the Union of the Indigenous Peoples from the Javari Valley was barely discussed in the mainstream media, as seen by press interviews that lacked an Indigenous presence to answer the reporters.

In a certain way, aside from the physical and psychological harm that Indigenous peoples suffer, the neglect is also a way of censoring their voices. This is nothing new to them.

In May 2021, a Brazilian federal judge was forced to suspend a police probe into Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara, who criticized President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing a lack of evidence that Guajajara had committed a crime. The president has been victimizing the country on a large scale, and Indigenous people, although a minority, are receiving the brunt of it.

In many cases the Indigenous are treated as either children or “noble savages” by liberal celebrities and mainstream media, or they experience hatred from far-right politicians resulting in their voices being shut out of critical conversations.

Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/08/2 ... nsorship/

[caltrek]

Brazil’s Lula Endorsed by Another Former Rival, Environmental Activist
by Mauricio Savarse
September 13, 2022

Introduction:

SÃO PAULO (AP via Latino Rebels) — A former environment minister and presidential candidate who had broken with Brazil’s ex-leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva endorsed him for president on Monday as his campaign continued efforts to reach out to centrist voters.

Marina Silva, who built an international reputation as an environmental crusader, made three unsuccessful runs for the presidency —twice getting roughly 20 percent of the first-round vote— after resigning from da Silva’s Cabinet in 2008 following disputes with more development-minded officials.

The man Brazilians know as Lula leads in all polls against President Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the October 2 election. Those same polls have shown the right-wing president has strong support among evangelical and middle-class voters—groups to which Silva, herself a Pentecostal Christian, also has had strong appeal.

She said at a news conference that her endorsement comes at “a serious moment of our country’s political, economic, social and environmental history” and said it was necessary “to beat Bolsonaro and the evil seeds he is sowing in our society.”

Creomar de Souza, founder of the political consultancy Dharma Politics, told the Associated Press the reconciliation shows that da Silva is continuing to try to reach beyond his leftist base. His centrist running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, was his main rival in the 2006 elections.

Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/09/13 ... lamarina/

[caltrek]

Noam Chomsky & Vijay Prashad: A Lula Victory in Brazil Could Help Save the Planet
September 30, 2022

Introduction:

(Democracy Now!) AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

In Brazil, voters head to the polls Sunday for an election that could see far-right President Jair Bolsonaro replaced by former President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. Polls show Lula has a strong lead over Bolsonaro, but it remains unclear if he has enough support to win the 11-way race outright. If not, Brazil will hold a runoff election on October 30th.

Lula has been running on a platform to reduce inequality, preserve the Amazon rainforest and protect Brazil’s Indigenous communities. There’s widespread fear in Brazil that Bolsonaro could attempt to stage a coup if he loses the election.

We’re joined right now by two guests, by Vijay Prashad, who’s just back from Brazil. He’s joining us from here in New York. He’s just back from Brazil. And with us from Minas Gerais, Brazil, is Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, where he taught for more than half a century.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Noam, let’s begin with you in Brazil. Can you talk about the significance of this election that is going to take place on Sunday, and what this means for not only Brazil, but for the world?

Read more here: https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/30 ... ad_a_lula

[wjfox]

Polls put Lula on brink of comeback victory over Bolsonaro in Brazil

Sun 2 Oct 2022 09.24 BST

Brazil’s former leftwing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on the brink of an astonishing political comeback, with polls suggesting he is poised to defeat his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro in Sunday’s election.

Eve of election polls suggested Lula was within a whisker of securing the overall majority of votes that would guarantee him a first-round victory against Brazil’s radical incumbent, whose calamitous Covid response, assault on the Amazon and foul-mouthed threats to democracy have alienated more than half of the population.

“I’m going to win these elections so I can give the people the right to be happy again. The people need, deserve and have the right ... to be happy once more,” Lula, 76, told journalists on Saturday during a visit to São Paulo – one of the election’s three key battlegrounds, alongside the states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.

José Roberto de Toledo, a political columnist for the news website UOL, said Lula would undoubtedly come out on top when 156 million citizens voted in what is considered Brazil’s most important election in decades.

Pollsters give the leftist veteran a 14-point lead over Bolsonaro, the hardline nationalist who retains the support of about a third of voters, including many evangelical Christians and members of Brazil’s largely white social elites.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -in-brazil

[caltrek]

Brazil’s Upcoming Presidential Elections Are the Most Hate-Filled in Recent Memory
by Isabella Dias
September, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Every other day, my WhatsApp bursts with messages from friends in Brazil and abroad expressing equal parts of excitement and apprehension as Sunday’s Brazilian presidential elections approach. On Wednesday, my best friend who lives in the country’s capital, Brasília, texted to say she was scared of wearing red clothes to go vote this weekend because red is the color associated with the Worker’s Party of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, the current front-runner, has a real, if slim, chance to beat far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in the first round by getting more than 50 percent of valid votes. “The mood is terrible,” she wrote, later adding that in the last 48 hours, four instances of political violence had been recorded across the country. “It’s very sinister this fear of expressing yourself.”

Further Extract:

Bolsonaro…has said his only three options are prison, death, or victory, maintains that he’ll accept the result of the elections, but always with the caveat that the elections must be “clean.” Other times, again using similar tactics to the former US president, he rallies his base by saying it’s impossible for him not to win in the first round and that if he doesn’t get 60 percent of the votes, something “abnormal” will have taken place…On top of widespread disinformation around election fraud, researchers with ActiveFence, a tech company using artificial intelligence to monitor online harm, have detected online discourse promoting military intervention—including calls to misappropriate article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution, which states the armed forces are, under presidential authority, to guarantee “law and order”—and suggesting the military should play a more active role in the electoral process.

The stakes of the Brazilian presidential elections can’t be overstated. In some ways similar to the choices facing US voters ahead of the November midterm elections in the United States, Brazilians will be weighing whether or not to uphold democratic institutions and values, truth, and freedom of expression.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... t-memory/

[caltrek]

Brazil Votes in Tense Election with Lula da Silva Tipped to Win
October 2, 2022

Introduction:

(Al Jazeera) Voting is under way in the most divisive presidential election in Brazil’s history with left-wing former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva squaring off against far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro.

The frontrunner da Silva, popularly known as Lula, said he is running for president “to get the country back to normal” after four years under President Bolsonaro’s rule.

“We don’t want more hate, more discord. We want a country at peace,” said the 76-year-old ex-president, who is seeking a comeback after leading Brazil from 2003 to 2010. “This country needs to recover the right to be happy.”

About 156 million people are eligible to cast ballots.

Recent opinion polls have given Lula a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published on Saturday found 50 percent of respondents who intended to vote said they would choose Lula versus 36 percent for Bolsonaro.

Read more here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10 ... -election

[weatheriscool]

Lula may clinch Brazil election on Sunday, final polls show

BRASILIA, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a solid polling lead going into Sunday’s election against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, with a chance of clinching the race in the first round, fresh surveys showed on Saturday.

3 minute readOctober 1, 20227:25 PM CDTLast Updated 20 hours ago
Lula may clinch Brazil election on Sunday, final polls show
By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a solid polling lead going into Sunday’s election against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, with a chance of clinching the race in the first round, fresh surveys showed on Saturday.

Brazil’s most polarized election in decades will decide whether to return to power the leftist leader who spent time in jail on corruption convictions or the right-wing populist who has attacked the voting system and threatened to contest defeat.

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Two polls released on Saturday showed Lula with a majority of valid votes, which would mean outright victory, avoiding a bruising runoff.

Pollster IPEC showed Lula winning 51% of valid votes, excluding blank and spoiled ballots, and a Datafolha poll showed the popular two-term president with 50% of valid votes.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 022-10-01/

[weatheriscool]

, presidential election results (1st round):

4,50 % of polling places counted:

Bolsonaro (PL-inc): 48,84 %
Lula (PT): 42,07 %
Tebet (MDB): 4,74 %
Gomes (PDT): 3,18 %

[weatheriscool]

45.87%
33,694,356 vote

45.35%
33,313,006 vot

+.52

63.45% of totaled

[weatheriscool]

With 91.61 % of districts counted

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 47.25%

Jair Bolsonaro 44.2%

SOURCE

[weatheriscool]

Bloomberg
@business
BREAKING: Brazil’s presidential election Heads to an Oct. 30 runoff between Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva https://trib.al/hF27OnW
7:53 PM · Oct 2, 2022

[R8Z]

I am happy with the results, the cultural/economical split is growing with every election. The runoff difference will probably be even bigger.

[wjfox]

I am happy with the results

What do you admire about Bolsonaro?

[R8Z]

I am happy with the results

What do you admire about Bolsonaro?

Nothing really... We are in the same state of affairs as the US was in the previous election, everyone is voting to avoid getting the "bad guy" elected. My actual party candidate reached a miserable 0,47% in the election (and I didn't even vote for him as well).

I am just sad really, Latam countries every couple of years elects a leftist which will disregard basic economic principles and lead the economy to the dumpster. The problem isn't really being leftist, it's being protectionist, isolationist and have no regards for a stable budget. Our geography already doesn't do us any favors, but these guys get elected and first thing they do is to establish more tariffs on imports ("to save the internal industry") and taxes on exports ("flourishing the internal market"). The results is at least a decade lost, as can be seen in several countries down here.

Although there's plenty of countries that I could escape to if I wanted rational economic governance, I don't want to immigrate again and the truth is that my state within Brazil is not that bad as the country itself, hence the reason I am happy with a result that leads to more division between the states.

To understand why is that, here's a very brief a maybe a bit wrong explanation on how Brazil collects taxes on a federal level:

- States collect taxes and send them to the capital;
- The budget is fixed and split between states;
- Some states collect more than they earn in return;

Look at the following map, it correlates quite well with the election results, doesn't it? In red are the states that collect more taxes than they receive back to invest in their own region. Colonial feelings one may even say

It's not that Bolsonaro could be better, it's just that he steals less than the other guy (or at least pretends to).

[Time_Traveller]

I am happy with the results

What do you admire about Bolsonaro?

Nothing really... We are in the same state of affairs as the US was in the previous election, everyone is voting to avoid getting the "bad guy" elected. My actual party candidate reached a miserable 0,47% in the election (and I didn't even vote for him as well).

I am just sad really, Latam countries every couple of years elects a leftist which will disregard basic economic principles and lead the economy to the dumpster. The problem isn't really being leftist, it's being protectionist, isolationist and have no regards for a stable budget. Our geography already doesn't do us any favors, but these guys get elected and first thing they do is to establish more tariffs on imports ("to save the internal industry") and taxes on exports ("flourishing the internal market"). The results is at least a decade lost, as can be seen in several countries down here.

Although there's plenty of countries that I could escape to if I wanted rational economic governance, I don't want to immigrate again and the truth is that my state within Brazil is not that bad as the country itself, hence the reason I am happy with a result that leads to more division between the states.

To understand why is that, here's a very brief a maybe a bit wrong explanation on how Brazil collects taxes on a federal level:

- States collect taxes and send them to the capital;
- The budget is fixed and split between states;
- Some states collect more than they earn in return;

Look at the following map, it correlates quite well with the election results, doesn't it? In red are the states that collect more taxes than they receive back to invest in their own region. Colonial feelings one may even say

It's not that Bolsonaro could be better, it's just that he steals less than the other guy (or at least pretends to).

If i lived in Brazil or even any other country, i'd vote for the lesser of two evils.

[weatheriscool]

Third Place Candidate Endorses Lula in Brazil
Source: Political Wire

“Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has received two major endorsements as his campaign prepares for a runoff election against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro on October 30,” Deutsche Welle reports.

“Simone Tebet, the center-right candidate who came in third place during the first round with 4% of the vote, called on the 5 million people who voted for her to back Lula in the second round.”

“On the same day, former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is still respected in business circles, announced he too would cast his vote for Lula.”

Read more: https://politicalwire.com/2022/10/06/th ... in-brazil/

[R8Z]

For reference, here are the official government plans released by both candidates for the runoff.

Bolsonaro: https://archive.org/download/plano-de-g ... sonaro.pdf
Lula: https://archive.org/download/plano-de-g ... 20Lula.pdf

No comments from my side.

[caltrek]

Brazil’s da Silva, Bolsonaro Clash in 1st One-on-One Debate
by Mauricio Savarese
October 17, 2022

Introduction:

SÃO PAULO (AP via Latino Rebels) — Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro clashed in their first one-on-one debate Sunday, two weeks before the presidential election’s runoff.

Debates in the election’s first round featured several other candidates, none of whom garnered more than five percent of the October 2 vote, and were largely distractions from the two obvious frontrunners.

On Sunday, the two repeatedly called each other liars during an encounter lasting about an hour and a half. The term was used more than a dozen times by each of the candidates in the TV Band debate that, otherwise, was less aggressive than many analysts had expected.

“You are a liar. You lie every day,” da Silva said during one exchange. Bolsonaro frequently said: “You can’t come here to tell people these lies.”

Earlier this month, da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, won the election’s first round with 48 percent of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 43 percent. Polls indicate the leftist former president, who governed between 2003 and 2010, remains the frontrunner, though his lead has shrunk considerably.

Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/10/1 ... rodebate/

[weatheriscool]

Brazil election goes to the wire after ill-tempered final TV debate
Source: The Guardian

The two political heavyweights vying to become Brazil’s next president have locked horns during the final television debate before a momentous election with profound implications for the Amazon rainforest, the global climate emergency and the future of one of the world’s largest democracies.

The former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro faced off in Rio at the studios of Brazil’s biggest broadcaster, with eve of election polls giving Lula a slender but not unassailable lead.

During the tetchy encounter, Lula accused Bolsonaro of catastrophically mishandling a Covid outbreak that has killed nearly 700,000 Brazilians, arming organised crime by loosening gun laws, and trashing the Amazon and Brazil’s international reputation. “Brazil is more isolated than Cuba …. We have become a pariah,” the 77-year-old leftist said, castigating Bolsonaro’s “insane behaviour”.

Bolsonaro, who was visibly nervous and lost his footing on stage several times, repeatedly called Lula a liar and highlighted the corruption scandals that tarnished the 14 years in which the ex-president’s Workers’ party (PT) governed from 2003 to 2016. “Lula, you’re a crook,” Bolsonaro fumed. “Your government was a champion in corruption.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -bolsonaro