Bolsonaro Defeated at the Ballot Box, But What's Next for Brazil?

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will find it difficult to govern for all in a Brazil torn in half but, despite the tensions, hope has won out and the transition has begun.

Brazil's return to the global stage at this critical time is great news, and if the result is the defence of democratic values and an Amazon on the verge of being completely destroyed, the world has won in this crucial election.

Brazil is a highly emotional country and has experienced the election result almost like a football championship final between two irreconcilable teams. The tension that presided over the campaign has been transferred to the streets, and the blocking of hundreds of roads by radical pro-Bolsonaro groups with a clear pro-coup attitude has put the whole country in check.

But yesterday, after more than two days of tense silence, Jair Bolsonaro finally spoke for a few moments to say that he would act according to the constitution--although he did not have the democratic dignity to explicitly recognise his defeat.

The result of the election was incontestable. In the end, Lula won by 2,148,645 votes, or 50.90% to Bolsonaro's 49.10%. This result--although it represents a much smaller difference than in the first round, where the difference in favour of Lula was 6,187,159 votes--was wide enough to be incontestable.

Certainly, shaving more than four million votes off Lula's lead in the month separating the first and second rounds was a great result for Bolsonaro's aggressive disinformation campaign, which used any means available and had the weight of the government machinery behind it.

But damage to Bolsonaro's campaign was far from trivial. A former deputy, friend and ally of Bolsonaro attacked police with an automatic rifle and grenades when they tried to arrest him on suspicion of an electoral offence. And a prominent pro-Bolsonaro senator chased a Lula supporter who had rebuked her into the street, pointing a gun at him. The fact that the man being chased at gunpoint was Black did not go unnoticed by the many affected by the racist violence that persists in Brazil, and which Bolsonaro embodies.

But Lula's victory is a heroic victory for democracy and for the values of diversity and social justice, especially considering that four years ago he was imprisoned and destroyed and his Workers' Party (PT) was struggling to survive.

In his election night speech, Lula displayed his more moderate profile and asserted that there are not two Brazils but one. This sounds good, but in reality the country appears divided along some thick lines between Right and Left: north and south, rural areas and urban centres, evangelists and Catholics, middle and upper classes and popular classes.

Lula is going to have to govern for everyone in this Brazil broken in half. That will not be easy after four years of division and hatred fomented by Bolsonaro and his neo-fascist agenda, his incompetence and his provocative, despotic and messianic disposition. His painful electoral defeat (he is the first president to fail to renew his mandate since the restoration of democracy in 1988) makes resentment one of the emotions that Lula will have to deal with in the coming times as he strives for reconciliation.

The outgoing president, in an unprecedented move, took more than 48 hours to make a statement on the result, fuelling all kinds of speculation while his supporters blocked roads across the country. Coordinated protests were unleashed that sought to mobilise the Bolsonaristas to contest Lula's election with a clear coup intention. Fortunately, after some hesitation on the part of the federal highway police, this attitude was not backed by Bolsonarista strongmen, nor by the judicial authorities or the army, who put pressure on the president to enforce the law and restore order in the country.

Finally, in a vague and barely two-and-a-half minute speech--clearly the result of a long internal negotiation--Bolsonaro alluded to a sense of injustice and indignation about how the electoral process was conducted, but said that his people would not adopt the radical methods of protest that he attributed to the Left and said "the right to come and go" could not be violated. He also said, and this was important, that he would fulfil his constitutional responsibilities. He lacked the courage and decency to explicitly acknowledge his electoral defeat, but he acknowledged the 58 million votes he won and, in a toast to the sun, appealed to the colours green and yellow, the slogan "order and progress", and the slogan of "God, homeland, family and freedom" that defines his movement.