If Lula had governed during the pandemic, everything indicates that Brazil would have its own Milei now.
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In Brazil, municipal elections are a political thermometer, just like midterm in USA. Brazilians vote for president of the Republic and governor of the state at the same time; in the middle of their terms, there are elections for mayor.
As I explained in greater detail here, the city hall which attracts every eye in Brazil is that of the largest metropolis in Latin America. On the eve of the elections, research institutes didn’t even know who would go to the second round; and, in fact, the result shows that it was unpredictable: 29.48% for Ricardo Nunes, the current mayor formally supported by Bolsonaro; 29.07% for Guilherme Boulos, supported by Lula; 28.14% for Pablo Marçal, the disruptive coach who I can summarize by saying that he is a kind of Milei with an extensive criminal record. The governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio Freitas, said that if Brazil were a serious country, Marçal would be in prison now.
The governor is right, and the statement was motivated by a mischief made by coach on the eve of the election. He had spent the entire campaign saying that he had an incriminating document against Guilherme Boulos, and that he would only show it the day before, so that people wouldn’t forget it when it was time to vote. Two days before the elections, he posted a falsified medical report on Instagram, according to which Boulos had been hospitalized with a psychotic episode due to cocaine use. The false report had errors in Portuguese, was signed by a dead doctor who was not a psychiatrist and had never worked in the capital of São Paulo. To make matters worse, the owner of the clinic was a friend of Marçal who had falsified his own medical degree and had ties to the PCC. Marçal then took the post offline and even faked a print to say that the post had been removed by Instagram (the supposed print was dated the 5th, but was posted on the 4th).
Seeing these facts, it is still bad news that Marçal had so many votes. And this can only be explained by the Brazilian population’s desire for rupture, which was perceived widely across the country.
Lula’s PT and the Left are seen as a “the system”, while the right is seen as anti-system. Therefore, Marçal’s strategy included doing wrong things with the aim of being punished, and so appear to be the true anti-system, while Bolsonaro would be a traitor. Thus, even if candidates from Bolsonaro’s party have won important elections across Brazil (or had surprisingly good performances, such as Ramagem in Rio and André Fernandes in Fortaleza), it does not follow that the former president is strong. After all, an important politician like Nikolas Ferreira, a YouTuber-deputy who was the most voted in Brazil in 2022, supported Marçal instead of Nunes. Furthermore, Nunes himself can have his victory explained by a series of factors that only include Bolsonaro’s timid support.
Being considered part of the system wouldn’t be bad, if the government or the “system” was good. The Lula government has been marked by the fundraising efforts of Minister Haddad. He tries to please the Greeks on the traditional Left and the neoliberal Trojans by increasing cash through taxes, but he doesn’t please anyone: neither the government is present at communities, nor the “fiscal framework” seems good enough to liberals. To make matters worse, the fundraising effort included the regulation of online gambling. The so-called “bets” quickly turned into a social problem, with poor children betting money from social programs at school and poor people spending 3 billion reais of social security in just one month. Because of family debt, improvements in employment rates were not reflected in Brazilian commerce.
But things could be even worse for the Left. In municipal elections, the anti-system Right has recalled the tyrannical measures implemented during the pandemic by mayors, with the aim that none of them would be re-elected. In Brazil, Bolsonaro did not impose tyrannical measures, and the Supreme Court decided that mayors had the power to do so. Unfortunately, the vaccine passports and the strangulation of local commerce have become normal across the country. However, an especially rigid place was Araraquara, governed by Edinho Silva, an important name in the PT. In this election, he was unable to make a successor, and the city elected a politician from the PL, the party that hosts Bolsonarism.
If Lula had governed during the pandemic, everything indicates that Brazil would have its own Milei now.
