Brazil election: Lula’s challenge hangs in balance amid voter suppression claims

The future of one of the world’s largest democracies and the Amazon rainforest was on a knife-edge as Brazil held its most important election in decades and its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, battled to cling to power amid claims that security forces were engaged in a pro-Bolsonaro voter suppression campaign.

Polls on the eve of the election had showed Bolsonaro trailing his leftist rival, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by a margin of four to eight percentage points, although first-round polls had underestimated support for the incumbent. Lula won the recent first round by about 6mvotes but fell just short of the overall majority that would have guaranteed him an outright win.

“For many people, this will be a very special day in Brazil’s history,” Lula told reporters as he voted in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial city where the former union leader began his political career in the 1970s.

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Tens of millions of progressive Brazilians were hoping he was right as they turned out to vote against a radical rightwing president whom they accuse of catastrophically mishandling the coronavirus pandemic and wreaking havoc on the environment and Brazil’s international reputation.

“I feel optimistic but terrified too, like all Brazilians who are rooting for democracy and for the Amazon,” said Tica Minami, an environmental activist who planned to vote for Lula.

“We want to start rebuilding, but this will only be possible once Bolsonaro has left power,” Minami added.

“The future is at stake here. We can’t let Bolsonaro be re-elected,” said Tales Takezo, 19, one of thousands of Lula supporters who packed São Paulo’s most famous avenue on Saturday afternoon for the candidate’s final campaign act, the “march to victory”.

“We have to fight until the very end, and we are still fighting because the fight is not over,” Takezo added.

Yet Bolsonaro followers voiced defiance as they cast their votes for the far-right populist, who continues to enjoy massive support, particularly among Brazil’s wealthy white elites and the evangelical community, which now represents about a third of the population.

In Barra da Tijuca, a bastion of Bolsonaro support in Rio de Janeiro, Rubens Francisco Dias Filho cast his vote while wearing Brazil’s yellow football shirt, which has become a symbol of Bolsonaro’s nationalist movement.

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“I’m optimistic. We see on the streets that a huge majority support Bolsonaro. We are worried there might be fraud though,” the 52-year-old commercial director said, echoing Bolsonaro’s unfounded claims that Brazil’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud.

Donald Trump, Bolsonaro’s most prominent international cheerleader, urged Brazilians to re-elect his South American ally. “You have the chance to elect one of the great people in all of politics,” the former US president said in a video message. “Don’t lose him.”

A Lula victory would cap one of the most remarkable comebacks in political history.

A former union leader who lost three presidential elections before finally winning in 2002, the 77-year-old led the country for eight years before leaving office with approval ratings above 80%.

However, his handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached and a wide-ranging corruption scandal led to the trial and jailing of several senior Workers’ party (PT) officials.

Lula himself spent almost two years in prison before his conviction was annulled, freeing him up to launch a once-unthinkable bid to reclaim the presidency.

Since then he has fought tirelessly against an opponent who will go down in history as much for the way he has tarnished Brazil’s highest office than for any major policy achievements.

Bolsonaro has frequently belittled opponents and his botched handling of the pandemic has led to almost 700,000 deaths in Brazil.

Deforestation in the Amazon rose to a 15-year high and a scandal is brewing over his creation of a “secret budget” that gives money to political allies with little transparency or oversight.

On the eve of the election, the head of Brazil’s supreme electoral court, Alexandre de Moraes, urged citizens to go out and vote “in tranquility, conscientiousness and freedom”.

However, as 156 million Brazilians went to the polls, there were alarming reports that members of the federal highway police – a notoriously pro-Bolsonaro security force – had set up roadblocks in Lula strongholds in the country’s north-east.

Brazil’s opposition denounced the unusual operations, which were reportedly planned during a meeting at Bolsonaro’s official presidential residence, as a deliberate attempt to prevent Lula voters reaching their polling stations.

“There is only one name for this: a desperate attempt to clobber our democracy,” tweeted Marina Silva, a prominent centrist politician who has backed Lula’s campaign.

Moraes demanded an immediate end to the police operations and summoned the highway police’s director – who reportedly posted a pro-Bolsonaro message on social media on the eve of the election – to explain why his forces were defying a judicial decision outlawing such activities on election day.

Lula supporters flooded social media with calls for police to “let the north-east vote”.

Randolfe Rodrigues, an opposition senator who is a key member of Lula’s team, demanded the immediate arrest of the highway police director, Silvinei Vasques.

“Crooks! Criminals! Bolsonaro is using the government apparatus to try to stop poor people voting … We must unite for our democracy and for our people,” Rodrigues tweeted.

Unusual security operations involving the military police and army were also reported in Rio de Janeiro.

A recent investigation by the magazine Piauí revealed that Vasques was appointed at the suggestion of Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro. “Since taking over the corporation, Silvinei Vaques has strictly adhered to the Bolsonarista playbook,” Piauí reported.

Addressing the media on Sunday, De Moraes cautioned against overstating the impact of the police operations on voters but said an investigation would look at whether there had been an abuse of authority.