The count begins in Brazil: polarized vote and a normality inexistent four years ago

São PauloBrazil's electoral authority has begun counting the votes from the first round of the presidential elections. The last time Brazilians stood before an electronic ballot box to elect a new president, in October 2022, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) carried out massive road closures with traffic controls in the northeast region, which is the great electoral bastion of the left, to suppress the vote for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Supreme Court and the Federal Police considered these blockades to be part of the attempted coup d'état, for which the then-president, Jair Bolsonaro, now imprisoned, was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

With Lula da Silva (Workers' Party) in power, who is seeking the last reelection of his long career, internal democratic normality has returned this Sunday –the interference of the United States, however, has hovered over the entire electoral process–, in a harsh clash with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), the firstborn of the Bolsonaro clan. The polls closed at 10 PM (Catalan time).

On social media, the constant polarization of the last eight years has been more present than ever throughout the day, fueled by flawed algorithms: with posts ranging from personal disqualifications and fake news in a very harsh tone, mass-disseminated by far-right bots, to subtle irony and memes, as it is well known that Brazilians are renowned for their creativity in this area.

At the polling stations, however, the climate has been calmer, at least in general terms. Even so, former president Dilma Rousseff, who suffered an impeachment in 2016 and is now president of the BRICS Development Bank, was harassed by Bolsonaro supporters when she voted in Belo Horizonte. A similar situation was experienced by Fernando Haddad, Minister of Finance this term and PT candidate for governor of São Paulo.

Virgin Mary T-shirts

There have been many queues, some exceeding one hour in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in a country where voting is mandatory for those between 18 and 70 years old and where, this time, the voting receipt from the first round served as proof of life for all retirees and pensioners who collect Social Security benefits, a sector in which Lula prevails over the far right.

The process required a lot of patience. Voters had to confirm up to six candidates at the electronic ballot box, who are listed by number, because this Sunday they chose, apart from the president, two senators, a deputy to Congress, the governor, and a regional deputy.

As in the last two presidential elections, there has been a re-edition of the chromatic battle at the polling stations. The absolute majority has been for Brazilian football teams, which are usually part of the Brazilians' Sunday attire, even though there was no Brasileirão league matchday today. L’ARA has witnessed this at various voting points in São Paulo, the country's largest city.

The far right insists on making the shirt its own green and yellow, of the Brazilian national football team –which, by the way, is experiencing one of the worst moments in its history–, as one of the symbols. Left-wing militants wore the traditional red attire, many of them with the image of Lula –which is not prohibited by electoral justice– and with adaptations communists of football team jerseys. Quite a few have been seen in São Paulo from Corinthians, the club of which Lula da Silva is a staunch supporter. Four years ago, the organized fan groups (animation stand) of the São Paulo group opened the blockades on many federal highways of the far-right coup plotters who did not accept the return of the left to power.

The religious war that has marked the final stretch of the electoral campaign has reached the ballot boxes this time. The news that, in the event of reaching the Planalto Palace, Flávio Bolsonaro (reconverted to evangelicalism) would strip the Virgin of Aparecida, a black image venerated since 1717, of her status as the country's patron saint, has translated into a Catholic mobilization.

This Sunday, the Brazilian Bishops' Conference published a message defending sovereignty –one of Lula's arguments in the face of Donald Trump's support for Flávio Bolsonaro–: “We entrust our homeland to the protection of the Virgin Mary”. For the first time, Catholics, mainly elderly women, have been seen going to vote wearing t-shirts with the image of Aparecida, which have become an electoral symbol.