By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
We had to wait a month, but in the second round of Brazil’s presidential election held Oct. 30, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro lost to former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula; the latter won 50.9 per cent of the votes, against Bolsonaro’s 49.1. It was the first time an incumbent president failed to win re-election in the 34 years of Brazil’s modern democracy.
In one of the most contentious electoral battles in Brazil’s history, both candidates traded barbs and accusations of illegality. The country’s 217 million people were evenly split, by geography. The map tells the tale: Bolsonaro won the richer southern parts of Brazil, Lula the poorer north. And while Bolsonaro has lost, lawmakers close to him won a majority in Congress.
Bolsonaro had changed electoral legislation so that he could spend over fifty billion reais ($10 billion) in a bid to improve voters’ feelings about the economy. He claimed that if he lost, it would mean that the election had been stolen. He pointed to what he termed interference by the judiciary, thanks to a succession of Supreme Court decisions that had gone against him since he assumed office in 2019.
He may not be completely wrong. “The judicial system has been politicised in a way that has compromised its legitimacy,” asserted Filipe Campante, a professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Among its most contentious decisions was the annulment of corruption convictions against Lula last year, which paved the way for his candidacy.
Bolsonaro’s supporters were attracted to his mix of social conservatism, evangelical fervour and small government. As for Lula, he has been a fixture on the Brazilian political scene for decades. He helped form a powerful political party, had two consecutive presidential terms in office from 2003 to 2010, and served prison time over corruption and bribery allegations.
But does the election really matter? The fact is that Brazil’s dysfunctional politics won’t be fixed by whoever occupies the presidential palace in Brasilia. The problem, many believe, lies with the Congress, where 32 political parties with no discernible principles or loyalties, only ambitions and appetites, frustrate any attempts at real change. They call it the “Centrao,” or Big Middle.
“The Centrao’s strength emerges from the hyper-fragmented party system,” political analyst Octavio Amorim Neto, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, explained. “That’s bad for whoever is in power. The Centrao’s abiding interest is weakening the president to obtain benefits.”
Despite a free press and wider popular participation, corruption has not significantly diminished with authoritarianism’s demise in the 1980s. In fact, constitutional changes, which increased congressional power, facilitated cronyism at the public’s expense. Ironically, economic reforms also provided insiders with unprecedented opportunities for graft.
The legislators survived two major corruption scandals -- a congressional kickback scheme known as the “Mansalao” (Big Monthly Payment) scandal in 2004-2005, and the landmark “Lava Jato” (Car Wash) money-laundering investigation of 2014-2021.
The Big Monthly Payment affair involved a major parliamentary vote-buying scandal by Lula’s administration that threatened to bring down his government in 2005. The scandal was uncovered when a newspaper uncovered the fact that Lula’s ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) had secretly paid a number of deputies 30,000 reais (around $12,000) a month each to vote for legislation they wanted passed.
The Operation Car Wash investigators focused on graft and embezzlement of funds at the state-run oil company Petrobras. It emerged that Petrobras executives had accepted bribes from construction firms in return for awarding them contracts at inflated prices.
The task force was responsible for 295 arrests, 278 convictions and 4.3 billion reais ($803 million) in ill-gotten gains being returned to the Brazilian state. Among prominent figures sent to jail because of the investigation was the popular former president.
Under Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, the country plunged into recession while Lula was investigated in the Car Wash bribery scandal. Three years after the investigation began, Lula was found guilty of the first of five charges against him: that he had been given a beachfront apartment by engineering firm OAS in return for his help in winning contracts with Petrobras.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and banned from running for the presidency in 2018. The man who replaced Lula as the candidate for the Workers’ Party, Fernando Haddad, was defeated by the far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro.
The fact that Lula’s conviction was later annulled due to technicalities has not dimmed the feeling in many people’s minds that, despite his working-class roots, he is part of a corrupt elite.
As for Rousseff, a close ally of Lula, she found herself in trouble for allegedly moving funds between government budgets, which is illegal under Brazilian law. She argued this was common practice among presidents, but her critics said she was trying to plug deficit holes in popular social programs to boost her chances of being re-elected in 2014.
She won despite that but was afterwards charged with criminal administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget. As well, she was accused of criminal responsibility for failing to act on the Car Wash scandal and not distancing herself from the suspects in that investigation. She was removed from office two years later. And now Lula himself is back. So it goes in Brazil.
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