October 2 General Election in Brazil
People's Forces Unite in Action to Take Back Their Country, Affirm Rights
Election rally in support of Lula in Salvador, Brazil, September 30, 2022.
There is much at stake for the people of Brazil and the region in the general election taking place on October 2. Brazil is a resource-rich country with the second largest population and third largest land mass in the Americas. It has the biggest economy in Latin America and is a member, along with China, Russia, India and South Africa, of BRICS. There are 156 million eligible voters who can vote for the president, over 600,000 of them living abroad. Voting is compulsory for Brazilian citizens between 18 and 70 years of age who are literate. Others, including 16 and 17 year-olds, can vote voluntarily.
The elections are for the president of the republic, all 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies and one third of the 81 members of the Senate (which together constitute the National Congress), along with the governors of Brazil's 26 states and the federal district and the members of state legislatures and municipal councils.
Although there are 11 presidential candidates, the two main contenders are the current president Jair Bolsonaro who is seeking a second consecutive term, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), a popular two-term president (2003-2010) and former union leader. Bolsonaro is the candidate of a three-party coalition, For the Good of Brazil. His vice presidential running mate is a retired army general, while he himself is a former army captain, indicative of the military's prominent role in his coming to power and his government. Lula, leader of the Workers' Party (PT) and former leader of the Metalworkers' Union, is the candidate for the Let's Go Together for Brazil coalition. What began in April as an alliance of the PT, the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) and the Green Party, known as the Brazil of Hope Federation, has since been joined by seven other parties in a ten-party coalition for the election. Lula's running mate is a prominent member of the Socialist Party and a former governor of São Paulo. If no candidate achieves at least 50 per cent of the vote plus one on October 2, the two candidates with the highest number of votes will go to a second round on October 30.
Bolsonaro's campaign basically rests on his record to date and continuing down the same road of neo-liberal nation-wrecking and taking no social responsibility for the lives and well-being of the Brazilian people. The tragic and unforgivable consequences of this were on full display during the pandemic.
Lula's platform revolves around rebuilding the country after six years of the anti-social offensive launched after President Dilma Rousseff, of the PT, was removed in a coup in 2016 to placate the international financial oligarchy. After that the coup forces took aim at Lula to prevent the people's forces from returning him and a PT government to office in 2018, so the wrecking could continue. The program for rebuilding Brazil that Lula is running on today calls for investing in social programs, combating inflation by controlling prices, protecting the environment and defending Brazil's sovereignty.
Bitter Experience of 2018 Election
In the last election, as in the current one, Lula consistently led all the voter intention polls. This was in spite of his being in prison and having to fight one legal battle after another to defend himself against trumped-up corruption charges aimed at destroying his reputation and taking him out of the running for a third term as president. The operation mounted against him involved persecution in the media and by politicized judicial actors on a mission to have him convicted, jailed and disqualified as a candidate -- without evidence and in violation of his right to due process and the presumption of innocence.
The
Armed Forces were also mobilized to play a role. The Chief of Staff of
the Army issued a thinly veiled threat via Twitter to the justices of
the Supreme Court, that the Army would "reject impunity" should the
court not deny Lula's bid to remain out of jail. Lula had made it clear
he would continue to fight as long as there were still avenues open for
him to appeal the harsh prison sentence handed to him by the architect
of the judicial war ("lawfare") being waged against him.
It is worth recalling that following a U.S.-supported coup in 1964
the Brazilian people suffered through 21 years of bloody military rule
that only ended in 1985.
The Supreme Court justices seemed to
get the Army's threat that it would "reject impunity" and voted by the
narrowest of margins to lock Lula up to begin serving an unjust 12-year
sentence. The disqualification of his candidacy came a few months later
when the campaign was in full swing, necessitating a last minute change
in candidates and ultimately costing the PT and its allies the
presidency they had been on track to win.
Last year, with Bolsonaro in the presidency and Lula out of jail with his convictions all on the way to being quashed (all have since been annulled), the Army chief who tweeted the threat to the Supreme Court confirmed that it did not come from him as an individual but from the Armed Forces as a whole. He also let it be known that at the time, the business and banking communities were demanding a military intervention.
Given this sordid history, the people's forces are taking nothing for granted today, even the possibility that based on the false claims Bolsonaro has repeated about the voting system being "insecure" and his suggestion that he might not accept the results if they are not "clean," he and his supporters, with many members of the police and military among them, might try to stage a Trump-style violent self-coup attempt to hold onto power. Whether or not that actually happens the people's forces have gained a lot of experience over the years through the fights they have had to wage against the forces of reaction that have interfered to prevent them from electing leaders and governments of their choosing, and they are in action to make sure that does not happen in this election like it did in the last one.
Voting System Is Secure, Abuse of Power Is the Problem
To refute the false claims floated by Bolsonaro about the unreliability of Brazil's voting system as a possible prelude to his crying "fraud" if he does not win, the PT recently held a video conference to inform its members abroad as well as political parties with which it has friendly relations about Brazil's electoral process. CPC(M-L) was among the 61 parties from 41 countries represented at the conference.
Gleisi Hoffman, National President of the PT, acknowledged that support from party activists living abroad and others who have for years stood with the Brazilian people in their fight to defend their democratic rights played an important role in the fight to free Lula and in opposing "the replacement of politics by hate" that helped raise Bolsonaro to power in 2018. Bolsonaro is a figurehead of the right-wing fundamentalist movement worldwide, she said, and holds a lot of power in it. She also said that his supporters have made many attempts to provoke the PT using violence, the most serious being the killing of two PT members, one the party's national treasurer, this summer. So they are being vigilant and careful not to get provoked and dragged into violent confrontations.
Some aspects of Brazil's electoral process emphasized in the presentation included:
- The security, efficiency and transparency of its fully digitized, auditable voting system which is among the most modern and sophisticated in the world. Voter fraud is not, and has not been a problem since the institution of electronic voting in Brazil over 20 years ago. It was a problem in the past when voting was done by marking paper ballots and depositing them in a box. Sometimes boxes would arrive at voting stations pre-filled with marked ballots.
- The abuse of power is a big concern. Over the last few months Bolsonaro has been handing out large amounts of public funds in so-called emergency aid to Brazilians and paying some parliamentarians from a secret parallel budget to buy their loyalty. He also turned a state celebration of the September 7 bicentenary of Brazil's independence from Portugal into a campaign rally, using public funds and the army for that purpose. After a complaint was submitted to the High Electoral Court it issued an order forbidding the use of any images or videos from that event in his election campaign. More recently, however, he did the same thing on the world stage, using the United Nations General Assembly as a platform to campaign for his re-election. The video of his shameless performance in which he told lies and attacked his opponent Lula in all but name remains available for viewing and listening to in seven languages on the UN’s website.
- Fake news and disinformation disseminated on a mass scale to manipulate the vote, as took place in 2018, has been addressed by the electoral law. The High Electoral Court which administers and monitors elections has solicited the assistance of major social media companies in detecting and countering activity prohibited by the electoral law and violations of their own policies on their platforms.
- Rules have been introduced since the last election to control use of the internet, social media and messaging platforms for campaigning. For example, no paid election ads can be carried on the internet, and mass messaging over any platform is only permitted for those who register voluntarily to receive such messages.
- For the first time official international observer missions along with a group of national observers will be present during the election. The PT is also preparing to welcome guests from other countries as it has in the past to accompany and monitor the election. They will be free to visit voting centres, ask questions, talk to voters, the press and others.
Asked what would happen should Bolsonaro claim the voting was not "clean" or transparent and refuse to accept the results, for which he has already tried to create public opinion, one of the speakers emphasized that Brazilians can be trusted to protect their democracy and institutions because they do not want to see their elections marred by fraud or violence. It is important that everyone understands the rules and the process so they can help protect the integrity of the election and so there can be a democratic transition of power, they said. Furthermore the PT, along with its allies and supporters in Brazil and abroad, have been mobilizing and denouncing the attacks on democracy since the coup against Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and are working now to keep everyone informed, so if Bolsonaro tries something it will not succeed.
The Canadian people and others the world over stand with the Brazilian people in the battle they are waging to assert and protect their democratic rights in the election and beyond as they fight for their own empowerment, the necessary condition for putting an end to the usurpation and abuse of power that is inherent to liberal democracy, an outmoded system of governance devised precisely to keep the people out of power.
No to Coups! No to Lawfare!
The Brazilian People Must Decide!
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 22 - October 1, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520221.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca