PT voters celebrate victory over Bolsonaro, but predict that the future government will have difficulties with Congress and express a desire to overcome the polarization that divides Brazil. celebrate the victory of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) over President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the presidential election. The celebration took place without violent incidents, with speeches by Lula and political allies, and ended with a concert by singer Daniela Mercury, who sang the national anthem accompanied by the crowd.
Fears that Bolsonaro would contest the defeat immediately, with the possibility of conflicts, were not confirmed. The president remained silent, and some of his allies even recognized the PT’s victory.
At Paulista, the atmosphere was one of celebration and joy for the PT’s victory, but there was also caution that the coming months and years will be difficult for the country. A hybrid synthesized by Lula himself in his speech in the sound car, when he said he was “half happy and half worried”.
“Starting tomorrow I have to start worrying about how we are going to govern this country. I need to know if the president we have defeated is going to allow a transition to take place so that we become aware of things”, said Lula.
DW asked some Lula voters who went to Paulista how they evaluate PT’s victory and what awaits Brazil in the near future.
“Flag was stolen to symbolize a group”
Doctor Perla Oliveira Schulz, 44, and radio broadcaster Marcelo Mamomi, 49, went to Paulista carrying a large Brazilian flag, a national symbol that ended up being appropriated by Bolsonarism. Their objective was to rescue the flag as something that represents the entire Brazilian people and not just the president’s supporters.
“We feel restricted in the right to be able to use the symbol of our patriotism, which was stolen to be the symbol of a fascist ideal, an anti-democratic ideal, which does not symbolize the Brazilian people”, said Schulz. “We have to show that the fight has to be for the nation, for all the people, and not just for a few.”
Despite showing joy when walking along Paulista with the flag, she said she fears that the next Lula government will be very difficult, as the majority of the Chamber and Senate are not with the president. “But I think that with a lot of conversation, with the exchange of ideas and information, we are gradually improving things.”
“Justice was done, by Lula and against racism”
Social worker Gina Rodrigues, 52, was dressed all in red at Paulista to celebrate Lula’s victory, which according to her symbolized Justice – “for Lula himself, for social justice, against racism and homophobia”.
She recalled Lula’s conviction in the context of Operation Car Wash, which kept the PT member in prison for 580 days and was later annulled by the Federal Supreme Court. The court ministers concluded that the then judge Sergio Moro, who later became Bolsonaro’s minister of justice, was a suspect and had no competence to judge the case.
“Lula was wronged, he could not run for Bolsonaro to enter, he was called a thief, he was humiliated, and God did justice,” said Rodrigues.
She believes that Bolsonaro will contest the election result, as he is “a liar and false”, and that Lula will face many obstacles in his third term – “but it will unfold, because he manages to unfold together with the positive force that we have”.
“It won’t fix in the first few moments, but there will be an improvement. At least less hunger, I guarantee Lula will bring it,” she said. Overjoyed, Rodrigues mentioned that Bolsonaro is the first president not to be re-elected and said that this has to be celebrated.
“Victory Against Authoritarianism”
For journalist Eduardo Tironi, 52, the most striking aspect of Lula’s victory is the broad coalition of political forces that PT managed to gather around himself. “It was a victory for Brazilian society against authoritarianism. What Lula did was a broad front, and Brazil turned against authoritarianism, against the extreme right,” he said. “It wasn’t just left or right, it was authoritarianism against democracy.”
He predicts that the new Lula government will have a lot of difficulties ahead, as the elected Congress is “very conservative” and the PT will find a country “completely broken”. “With everything that has been done in recent months from a fiscal point of view, a debacle, he will find the public accounts in a very difficult situation.”
However, says Tironi, “the good news is that Lula is a great negotiator, he managed to negotiate the other time he was in power”.
“Open the chest, which was locked”
For historian Sônia Vaz, 69, the result of the second round was so fierce that it resembled a penalty shootout, but she sees nuances in the high vote obtained by Bolsonaro – 49.1% of valid votes – and considers that neither all his voters are on the extreme right.
“Many people followed the anti-PT movement, and I hope that in the next four years Lula, who is an incredible negotiator, will be able to improve this 50-50 division,” he said.
She said that she went to Paulista for the cathartic aspect of the celebration, “to open her chest, which was locked with all this horror”.
His companion, civil engineer Leonardo Manzionni, 65, also said that he had gone to the avenue to “see this joy, the people on the street, regain our courage”.
“But it will be difficult, the country will take a long time to get back to what it used to be. You spoil it quickly, but building it takes a few generations, it’s not just a government,” he said. Manzionni expressed fear that, in the coming months, Bolsonaro would “spoil the rest” of what, according to him, had not yet been affected in his administration.
“There’s always something else to spoil, if you’re up for it,” agreed Vaz. She hopes that the next Lula administration will carefully choose the next Minister of Education, because, for her, the Bolsonaro administration was a total disaster, with a negative impact on the formation of the current generation of students.
“There is strong emotional polarization”
Professor Oscar Vilhena Viera, director of FGV Direito SP, closely followed Bolsonaro’s attacks against democratic institutions and was one of the organizers of the Letter to Brazilians in Defense of the Democratic State of Law, read on August 11 at the Faculdade of Law at USP. In Paulista, he declared himself very happy with Lula’s victory, which, according to him, gives Brazil “a possibility of reconstruction, of continuing on the democratic trajectory begun in 1988”.
“I don’t have a party affiliation, I have an affiliation to democracy and the Constitution. And I understood that Bolsonaro’s victory would further exacerbate the erosion of the democratic rule of law. I have young children, and it matters a lot to me that they have their youth within a democratic country.”
Viera assesses that the electoral campaign was marked by a “very strong” use of public resources in favor of Bolsonaro’s candidacy, which caused an imbalance, but also by an “unusual alliance” in the recent history of Brazilian democracy, which united sectors of the central-central region. right to left sectors.
He predicts that the coming years will be a very difficult period due to the tension in society. “There is a polarization of a much more visceral than political nature. It is not merely a political and ideological polarization, it is a strong polarization of an emotional nature, and that really makes it difficult to rebuild bridges,” he said.
However, Vieira notes that the speech made by Lula after the confirmation of his victory proposes to rebuild these bridges. “It was not a revanchist speech, it was a speech of building dialogue, and he is a man who has the political talent to recompose that dialogue,” he said.
He claims to see space within the spectrum of the right for initiatives that strengthen democracy in the coming years. “It won’t be easy, but on the side of President Bolsonaro’s voters there are also a very large number of people who are not radicalized, but who have an anti-PT perception, more to the right, which is highly healthy in a democracy, and that will contain this radicalization”, he said.
Vieira considers that Lula will have to make a government of conciliation with Congress, and that the right won in important states, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. “Brazil has a course to take, a course of moderation, and I hope that this overcomes the wounds that were created during this electoral process.”
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