Lula resorts to fear of Bolsonaro's chainsaw in search of an unprecedented comeback

São PauloDaniella Marques, economic coordinator of Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign and well-positioned to be the next Minister of Finance in a hypothetical far-right government, has been promising the financial market for weeks, in the event of a victory, the implementation of an ultraliberal reform agenda inspired by that of the Argentine president, Javier Milei.

The executive, who was president of the public bank Caixa Econômica Federal during a period of Jair Bolsonaro's government, advocates for a large-scale fiscal adjustment, the reduction of the public apparatus, which would include the replacement of civil servants with artificial intelligence, and the end of tax benefits. She is already preparing a mega-plan, which would include the revocation of more than a thousand regulations, to reduce bureaucracy and taxes.

This chainsaw in a Brazilian version with which Bolsonaro's son could arrive at the government on January 1st, 2027, is the central axis of the fear campaign with which President Lula da Silva (80 years old, Workers' Party) attempts an unprecedented turnaround in the second round, that of Sunday the 25th. Since the country's redemocratization in 1988, never has the second-place finisher in the first round been able to make a comeback.

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (45 years old, Liberal Party), who comes from prevailing last Sunday with 47.03% of the votes ahead of Lula's 45.15%, is the favorite to confirm a victory based, not on the strength of his resume, but on the anti-Petista and anti-Lulista sentiment that permeates a large part of Brazilian society. This conservative electorate, fueled for more than eight years by an effective digital ecosystem of fake news, remains unfazed by the coup-plotting, the incompetence of Jair Bolsonaro's government (2019-2022), and the corruption scandals that have splashed the Bolsonaro clan for decades.

In one year, there has been a pendulum swing. And Brazil has gone from the Supreme Court's conviction of former president Bolsonaro to 27 years of imprisonment for attempted coup d'état to the victory of his firstborn in the first round of the presidential elections. And it has been accompanied by a predominant role for far-right candidates in the Senate and Congress and in a good portion of state governments and regional parliaments.

The second extremist wave in Brazil –the first was in 2018– has surprised all analysts due to its forcefulness and gives even more momentum to the current trend in Latin America, where ultra-conservatives have now added up seven consecutive presidential victories (the latest, partial, by Bolsonaro's son), with support from Washington from Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who have regained control over what they consider their zone of influence.

Lula's impasse

Four years ago, the defense of democracy with a broad political front that embraced everything from the extreme left to sectors of the traditional right (from which Vice President Geraldo Alckmin emerged) propelled Lula's triumph over Bolsonaro. The memory, still very fresh, of the disastrous handling of the pandemic by the denialist government, which cost the country 700,000 deaths, played a key role in recruiting the female vote in a scenario of polarization that still persists.

Now Lula has no way to broaden his base with new electoral alliances. The one who has done so is Bolsonaro's son, with two of the three extremist candidates who were also running. The president's strategy is to mobilize a record abstention, which reached 33.4 million voters last Sunday, even though voting is mandatory between the ages of 18 and 70. And that is why he is showing a more combative image to "deconstruct" Flávio Bolsonaro, which did not happen during the first round campaign and did not make explicit what the return to power of the extreme right and the implementation of the neoliberal agenda would represent.

“We must be very careful, because every time fiscal toughness is talked about in this country, what is at stake is the policy of social inclusion. It is not about taking benefits away from the rich, but about taking benefits away from the poor,” warned Lula, who diagnoses that he has not been electorally rewarded for the progress made by the PT governments, because the population sees that social benefits are guaranteed.

The left warns about the cuts, the freezing of the minimum wage, which affects low-income workers, and, mainly, the reduction in the purchasing power of retirees and pensioners, as happened with Bolsonaro, who adjusted payments below inflation.

In parallel, Lula da Silva, guarantor of the statu quo and of the institutions, has decided to distance himself from the crisis installed in the Supreme Court, of which he has paid the electoral consequences. Up to four judges, one of whom is Alexandre de Moraes, who led the trial and imprisonment of Bolsonaro, could be splashed by the mega-corruption case of Banco Master, already liquidated by the Central Bank and which has left a hole of 6.7 billion euros.

“There is only one anti-system candidate, and it is us. There is no other. And we carry on our backs a very serious issue: the promiscuity that has been established in the Brazilian Supreme Court following these denunciations,” pointed out Lula, who has shown himself in favor of implementing a reform of the judiciary.