The Daily - Two Futures Face Off in Brazil

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Voters in Brazil on Sunday will choose between two larger-than-life, populist candidates in a presidential race that is widely seen as the nation’s — and Latin America’s — most important election in decades.Who are the candidates, and why is the future of Brazilian democracy also on the ballot?Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: The contest — a matchup between Brazil’s two biggest political heavyweights — could swing either way and promises to prolong what has already been a bruising battle that has polarized the nation and tested the strength of its democracy.For the past decade, Brazil has lurched from one crisis to the next. Brazilians will decide between two men who are deeply tied to its tumultuous past.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. On Sunday, voters in Brazil will cast their votes in a presidential race that is widely seen as the most important election there in decades. I spoke with my colleague, Jack Nickus, about the two larger than life candidates in the race and why the future of Brazilian democracy is on the ballot. It's Friday, October 28th. So Jack, I'm in the U.S. where a midterm election is kind of in full swing at this point, two weeks away. You're in Brazil, and you are also covering an election, a presidential election. Tell me about the stakes of that contest. Well, I think this is arguably the biggest election in Latin America in decades.

This is arguably the biggest election in Latin America in decades. Brazil is by far the largest country in population in Latin America, and it is also the largest economy. But it is a country that's really been struggling. You know, 10 years ago, Brazil was really thought to be ascendant. Brazil's economy has been going through a boom for years. But since then... Well, Brazil faces a number of real challenges at the moment, the economy is flatlined. Brazil has one of the lowest GDP forecasts in the region. There's been

a ton of political turmoil. Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro has been lashing out at the country's media after stories over a corruption scandal. And lines of hungry people waiting for a meal. We're now even seeing the return of hunger in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro acknowledged that Brazilians are struggling with the state of the economy. And it is now deciding between two of the biggest political figures in the modern history of Brazilian politics. So a highly consequential election here in Brazil. These are two essentially populists, one from the left and one from the right, who represent very different visions for the country and who want to take the country in very different

directions. And they have run a campaign that has gotten rather ugly. And things have really tightened in recent weeks, and it's now looking like a potential toss-up. The eyes of the world watching what happens here in tomorrow's election. Okay, so two populists, one on the left and one on the right. Tell me about them. Who are they? So on the left, we have Luis Anasio Lula da Silva, who is universally known as simply

Lula. He's 77 years old, and he's a former president. And he is one of the most famous and important political figures in Latin American history. And that is in part because he has this really incredible political story. So he grows up in Brazil's poor northeast in the 1950s in a shack with no electricity and no plumbing. His parents are illiterate farm workers. He didn't learn to read until he was about 10 years old. And he leaves school after the fifth grade.

Now, eventually, he moves to Sao Paulo and starts working in a factory. And there he loses a finger in an accident. And, you know, even to this day, his nine fingers have become a sort of symbol of his working class identity. Now, as a factory worker, he becomes connected to the labor movement. So connected that he eventually rises to become the leader of one of the country's biggest unions. he eventually rises to become the leader of one of the country's biggest unions. And then from that position, he goes on to create a political party, the Workers' Party, and begins running for political office.

And over the next several decades, he and the Workers' Party become one of the most powerful political forces in Brazil, if not the most. And eventually, in 2002, he's elected president. And what did Lula do as president? I mean, what did he become known for? So Lula was elected to lead a country that had long been seen as a nation that had tremendous potential, but really had never lived up to that potential. Right.

And he's arriving at a time when Brazil is just 17 years removed from the end of a brutal military dictatorship. So it's a relatively new democracy. It's still dealing with some growing pains. You know, it's trying to find its place in the world. But Lula arrives at a time where actually there was some real economic tailwinds, and he was able to take advantage of that. And what were they, the tailwinds? So China had just entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 and was industrializing itself and had an enormous appetite for commodities. And Brazil had an enormous supply. It is a huge supplier of soybeans, iron ore, meat, a lot of things that China wanted.

economic relationship with China at that time and with many other countries to really lift Brazil's finances to, over the course of administration, become the sixth largest economy in the world, which was a huge improvement for the country. During his administration, Brazil also discovered offshore oil, which was another windfall for Lula. He famously said at the time that God is Brazilian. which was another windfall for Lula. He famously said at the time that God is Brazilian. And as a result of these financial successes, he had a lot more money to play with. Got it.

And he used that to kind of remake Brazil in a way. He oversaw enormous investments in infrastructure and education, a large expansion of the social welfare state. And over his eight years, he was able to lift about 20 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty. Wow. Yeah, it was roughly a tenth of the country. He also was successful lifting Brazil on the international stage. He was instrumental in getting the World Cup and the Olympics to come to Brazil, kind of seen as a coming out party for the country.

And he was one of the driving forces in creating BRICS, which was this alliance of emerging economies with Russia, India, China, and South Africa. So by the time he left office in 2010, he had an 80% approval rating, which is essentially unheard of. And Obama even famously called him at an international meeting, quote, the most popular politician on earth. So it was a successful eight years. So he was beloved and lifted all of these people out of poverty and really gave Brazilians a sense of pride in their country, kind of put Brazil in a different place, a higher place in the world. That's right. And Lula and his Workers' Party were kind of on top of Brazilian politics. They seemingly couldn't lose. And after he left in 2010, because of term limits, his hand-picked successor was quickly elected to office.

Wow. But then things started to change for the Workers' Party. And what happened? Well, first of all, there were the economic issues. Commodity prices dropped, which was obviously very bad for Brazil. And Lula's successor, trying to protect the economy, intervened. She cut taxes, she imposed price controls and pressured banks on interest rates. And all of this backfired. It really just made things worse. Got it. And around the same time, there was actually an even bigger problem for the Workers' Party.

And that's the revelation of an enormous corruption scheme that had played out for years deep inside the Brazilian government. Basically, construction companies and Brazil's state-owned oil company had for years been paying out hundreds of millions of dollars of kickbacks to politicians and government officials in order to get public contracts. And a lot of that money went to Lula's key deputies and allies within the Workers' Party. Nearly 300 people end up arrested in this corruption investigation. And eventually, prosecutors homed in on Lula himself. In two separate cases, he was convicted of corruption. In both cases, it involved construction companies either giving him a condo or making renovations to a home that allegedly was his. And eventually he was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Wow. So he went to jail.

That's right. Now, he's always maintained his innocence and kind of framed this as political opponents trying to prevent him from running for president again. Yet there was enough evidence to convict him. Wow. And after all is said and done, multiple companies are convicted under U.S. anti-corruption practices law. Billions of dollars are eventually paid in fines and returned to governments and investors. And it's really a big black eye for Brazil. And yet a lot of the population see it as a breath of fresh air, because for the first time, they saw this as a rooting out of the corruption

they had long suspected deep inside the Brazilian government. And in the wake of the investigation, one candidate in particular used that to his advantage. And that was Jair Bolsonaro. So tell me about Bolsonaro. He's the current president of Brazil, of course, and we've talked about him a lot on the show. But remind me of what we need to know about him. So Bolsonaro is the other figure in this race that's going to be decided on Sunday. But when he first ran for president in 2018, he was already a character on the political scene.

He's a former army captain. He had spent three decades in Congress, but was more known for saying offensive things on the far right of Brazilian society. You know, for instance, he once suggested to a rival lawmaker that she wasn't worthy of being raped. He also had said that he wouldn't be capable of loving a gay son. So he made a lot of headlines for these sorts of things and wasn't be capable of loving a gay son. So he made a lot of headlines for these sorts of things and wasn't really considered to be a serious politician. But in the presidential election of 2018, in the wake of this investigation, he arrived with this enormous political momentum. And that was in large part because he hammered on the corruption of the Workers' Party and of Lula and talked about how he would build a government

that would further fight this corruption. And it worked with voters. In 2018, he won the presidency. So in some ways, Lula's fall leads to his rise. That's right. And he also took advantage of this sort of wider, global right-wing populism that had lifted other candidates like Donald Trump to office. I was going to say, it sounds a lot like Donald Trump's candidacy. Completely. Bolsonaro for a long time has been called the Trump of the tropics.

And the Trump of the tropics. I think the comparison is apt. And like Trump, the four years of his first term were tumultuous. Tell me about what happened. What happened in his first term? Well, he kind of came in with a scorched earth approach. He attacked the press, the judiciary, his political opponents, environmentalists, health professionals, many of his peers across Latin America. But what I think is clearly the most notable thing that happened in his first term was that in his second year in office, the pandemic arrives. And Bolsonaro, you know, much like Trump again, was someone who was very skeptical of the

scientific consensus about social distancing and masks and even vaccines. He was someone who promoted unproven drugs as a cure, and someone who stalled in buying vaccines. And even today, he still refuses to say whether he has been vaccinated. In fact, his government has put his vaccination status under a 100-year government seal. As a result, Brazil's had more than 600,000 deaths in the pandemic, which was second only to the United States. Oh, wow. So a lot of people are upset, and about half the country is desperate for a new leader. And then in November 2019, something big happens. Lula is out of prison.

So basically, after 19 months in prison, the Supreme Court ruled that he had been tried in the wrong jurisdiction, and also that the judge in his case was biased. What this means is his convictions are nullified. It does not necessarily mean that he's been absolved or that he's been found innocent, but it does mean that he could run for president again. And that's what he does. We'll be right back. Okay, so Lula is out.

And now you have this kind of incredible battle between the former president on the left and the current president on the right, and it's down to the wire. Yeah, it's pretty dramatic. If you're on the left in Brazil, this is a moment where the man who lifted Brazil up is suddenly back to save it from this far-right, dangerous president

who is bringing Brazil down the wrong path. And if you're on the right, instead, it's this ex-convict who had overseen all of this corruption for years in Brazil who was suddenly trying to get out of prison and take back control of the country. And as a result, a lot of this campaign has been pretty ugly. Just in the first debate, you know, it was not about the future of Brazil. It was really about these two men's past. And at times, it devolved into Bolsonaro calling Lula an ex-convict and corrupt.

And Lula saying that Bolsonaro wakes up in the morning and can't stop lying. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. So, Jack, you said that the debate was largely about the past, but what do we know about their pitches to Brazilians about the future? So there are three main issues in this campaign. I think to start with the economy. So Lula, you know, a traditional leftist, has pitched the public on rather vague plans to increase taxes on the rich in order to increase services

for the poor. He talks a lot about expanding the social welfare programs that he first introduced in his first administration, essentially increasing the minimum wage, trying to reduce inflation, and giving more money to those who need it from the government. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, surprisingly, has been giving out a lot of money to the poor as well, especially recently as he's been trying to get re-elected. But Bolsonaro has certainly governed as sort of a right-wing free market politician. He has cut red tape for businesses and has really tried to deregulate and reduce the size of government. And some people in the market and economists say that he's done a decent job around the edges

with Brazil's economy in that sense. So actually, in terms of campaign promises and the economy, they're actually looking pretty similar. The funny thing is, yes, when you look at the details, I think they're closer economically than one would imagine. However, rhetorically, they are miles apart. And that is in part because Lula frames Bolsonaro as someone who is in bed with the bankers and Bolsonaro frames Lula as a communist. But their economic priorities bleeds into the next major issue, and that is the Amazon

rainforest. So what we can say is the four years of Bolsonaro's presidency has been very bad for the Amazon. Bolsonaro has cut funding and staffing for some of the key federal agencies that are tasked with protecting the rainforest and the indigenous groups that live there. And he has also championed many of the industries that exploit the forests. And that has really emboldened a lot of the illegal loggers and ranchers and miners who've invaded the forests and a lot of the indigenous protected territories in order to extract wood and natural resources from the Amazon. And as a result, deforestation has soared on his watch. Yet Bolsonaro has run on protecting the forest. He has said that he will increase enforcement, and that really goes against what the reality has been in his administration.

Lula, meanwhile, has a much better track record on the Amazon. He reduced deforestation during his eight years in office, and he has run on a promise to eradicate illegal logging and mining during his administration, though where that fits in on his priorities is not exactly clear. And how else are they different? I would say that, you know, probably the most significant difference and really where a lot of this campaign has been focused has been on the culture wars. So Bolsonaro has found that it is politically very popular for him to frame the left as a party that is trying to do away with the traditional Brazilian way of life.

In fact, he generally talks less about the economy and more about protecting Brazilians from things like gender ideology or the sexualization of children, abortion, censorship of social media, lies from the press. And it's another way that the Brazilian right has begun to resemble the American right and the larger right-wing populist movement across the world. Really relying on these hot-button cultural issues that, in a lot of ways, politicians in America rely on too. Exactly. It's really the cornerstone of the Bolsonaro campaign and political movement, frankly. And who supports that? Who's his base? His base has often been described as Bibles, beef, and bullets. And that is the large evangelical population in Brazil, the large agricultural industry in the country, and also the law enforcement and military, all of which largely side with Bolsonaro, and many of whom

really relate to some of these cultural issues. Got it. Okay. And what about for Lula? Who's his base? So Lula has really built his base on the working class. It has been his political identity from the beginning. Brazil is a country that has a very large working class and is true to his roots as

a person and as a politician. class and is true to his roots as a person and as a politician. But in this campaign, he has also succeeded in building a really wide tent from the center to the far left. But now there's a big question about whether or not that coalition is still going to be enough with the sheer strength of the Bolsonaro movement. Okay, so who's going to win? Well, first of all, to win the presidency in Brazil, you need at least 50% of the vote. And on October 2nd, there was the first round of voting with Bolsonaro and Lula and a number of other candidates. And at the time, the polls had actually indicated that Lula had such a wide lead, he might even be able to surpass that 50% threshold and win the election outright.

But instead, the polls were off. Bolsonaro did much better than expected, and the race went to a runoff. Lula still has a slight lead, but we've already seen that the polls are underestimating Bolsonaro. So it comes down to Sunday, and it's really too close to call right now. So what happens if Bolsonaro wins? If Bolsonaro wins, he's going to be emboldened and with a new mandate to carry out many of the same policies that he started in the first term. And he's going to have much more power. And that's because his party won the most seats in Congress in the first round. And he's now going to have even more control over the different branches

of government. And there will also be a sense of vindication after he had told everyone that the polls were underestimating him, that people were counting him out. Now he's back for a second term. And it means that the Brazilian people like his brand of governing. Okay, so what about the flip side? Say Bolsonaro loses. Well, that has the potential for a darker scenario.

So for almost eight years, Bolsonaro has been casting doubt on Brazil's election systems. Brazil uses electronic voting machines. It's actually the only country in the world to use a fully digital system without paper backups. And to Bolsonaro, that is a fatal flaw in the system. He says it's impossible to audit, and therefore it's impossible to know whether or not there was fraud. So for years and years, he has questioned the reliability of the elections. And he has really relied upon anecdotal evidence and inaccuracies and, frankly, downright falsehoods. Much like Trump in the U.S.

Exactly, and it seems to have worked. Polls have shown for months that roughly three out of four of Bolsonaro supporters trust the voting machines only a little or not at all, after years and years of Bolsonaro's rhetoric against them. And given the fact that the election has now tightened, it could mean that we have a scenario in which Bolsonaro narrowly loses the election and refuses to accept it. Oh, wow. The concern in Brazil and in the international community is that millions of his supporters then go along with his attempts to hold on to power.

And Bolsonaro has refused to say outright that he would accept the results of the election. Always hedging, he would only accept a clean election. And at times he has had even more worrisome rhetoric. Last year, for instance, to an enormous crowd in Sao Paulo, he said there were only going to be three outcomes to this election. He would be either arrested, killed, or reelected. So what are people saying about what might happen? I mean, you know, we all remember January 6th, of course, and what denying the results of an election can lead to. What's the thinking in Brazil? Well, the good thing is that it appears that Brazil's democratic institutions are prepared to reject any attempts to hold on to power. That includes the Congress, the Supreme Court, election officials. But it appears that many of his supporters are prepared to fight.

Over the campaign, I've traveled the country and talked to dozens and dozens of his supporters, and nearly all of them are convinced that if he loses, it will only be because of fraud. And many of them are preparing to go to the nation's capital to protest in the event of a loss. And so people are really worried about a scenario that does resemble January 6th, and we're going to have to see next week what happens. So it really sounds like the stakes of this election could not be higher. I mean, at the risk of kind of overstating it, it's like, can Brazilian democracy survive it?

Yes, this is more than just a typical election of two starkly opposed politicians. It is not only about the future of the country economically and socially, but also about the future of the democracy. And, you know, remember that we're talking about, you know, the Amazon rainforest, perhaps the most important biome on the planet. And that means there are high stakes for Brazil, but also really high stakes for the planet. So Jack, thinking about everything you've said and taking a step way back here, it sounds like half the population in Brazil leans left and is pretty nostalgic for the time that Brazil was booming and the government was spending a lot to help the poor and Brazil had gained this huge

stature on the world stage. And the other half of the population leans right and they are pretty distrustful of institutions and they want a Brazil that puts these cultural issues you've been telling us about front and center. That's right. The country is deeply split. And neither of these men have really presented clear visions for lifting Brazil out of what has been a lost decade. And as a result, it appears that the path forward is really trying to manage. path forward is really trying to manage. Bolsonaro is talking about protecting the social values of the country, and Lula is talking about making sure people get three meals.

There is no longer a vision for Brazil that is about a new path forward and becoming a global power. It's more about getting by. And I think that's been striking in this election, that this is not the Brazil that won the Olympics. It is a Brazil that is in a different position and is now choosing between two men who are really about the past in this country, which has been difficult and not so much about the future. Jack, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you should know today. A series of polls conducted by The Times in four swing congressional districts offer new evidence that Republicans are poised to retake control of the House of Representatives in next month's midterm elections. The poll found that voters in three of the four districts are more focused on economic issues than on social ones, and that the vast majority of voters worried about the economy plan to vote for Republicans. And the Times reports that as Elon Musk begins his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, a deal he sought to abandon but is now embraced, he's begun to purge the company's top executives. he's begun to purge the company's top executives. Musk, who closed the deal Thursday night, has fired at least four top executives,

including Twitter's chief executive officer, its chief financial officer, and its top lawyer. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Liz O'Balin with help from Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, Thank you. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Claire Tennis-Sketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Lee Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Luke Venderploeg, MJ Davis-Lynn, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Michael Benoit, Liz O'Balin, Thank you. Jodi Becker, Ricky Nowetzki, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reed, Carlos Prieto, Sophia Milan, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, and Lexi Diao. Special thanks to Sam Dolmick, Paul Schumann, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Cliff Levy, Dave Shaw, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Des Ibequa, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi.

We'll see you on Monday. Thank you.