Brazilian elections, Round #1: What happened? And what’s next?
Yet another brief reflection on what it means to be an immigrant watching the Presidential elections in my country happen from afar
So the big day finally arrived. And it’s now over. Well, not exactly.
The first round of Brazilian elections happened yesterday. Through my Instagram profile, I scrolled through my feed, watching people from both political sides rally for the big day. My Instagram bubble was an interesting balance between people wearing either yellow/green and red clothes.
Yellow-green demonstrates people’s support for the current President Bolsonaro — an unfortunate adoption of the flag’s colors as a distorted nationalistic symbol. Red colors, usually also followed by the ‘L’ hand sign, demonstrated people’s support for Lula and the colors of his Worker’s Party — yet the current government’s supporters view this color as the arguably imminent-yet-not-so-imminent communist threat.
Emotions were high, both here and there. Yet in Toronto, for most people, today was just another crips, lovely fall day. But for us Brazilians, the voting time window began early in the morning and ended at 4 pm EDT.
Following the election from abroad revealed to be even more nerve-wracking than expected. For the last Presidential election, in 2018, I was a sixteen-year-old girl — still in high school and still dreaming of studying abroad for university. And as my friend anxiously set up his laptop on the small grey table in his residence living room, I reminisced on how I watched the votes being counted back in 2018.
It was a different date, but still early October. It was a sunny spring day and the flowers began to bloom around the city. It was also one of my cousin’s birthday. After a small family celebration at our grandma’s house, we headed to her house with another cousin and watched the news broadcast of the electronic polling zones shared their combined results. The three of us watched the TV screen, laughing about frivolous matters. Yet we were still surprised and worried as the results came in. If the leading candidate achieved a simple majority, we were blindsided by the possibility of there not being a runoff.
This time, in 2022, the overall vibes were no different. The only difference?Different country, different city, and different social company.
My friend steeped some tea for us and we gathered on the small couch, anxiously refreshing the official results website for the real-time update of the vote count. My friends (two Brazilians and one Canadian) and I went off topic, occasionally joking about random, frivolous topics, but always refreshing the polling feed. Although the vote count started slow, since the beginning, the percentage difference between the two leading candidates (Bolsonaro and Lula) was marginal.
Bolsonaro led the polls at first. Maybe he would win simple majority of the votes. After all, he almost did in the 2018 election during the first round. But then, as more electronic polling machines released their vote counts, Lula took the lead.
At this moment, one of my friends cheered and celebrated. “De virada é mais gostoso,” I joked with my friend, quoting a popular Brazilian expression used in a soccer context (of course it’s from a soccer context) referring to how a team ends up winning the match when they actually began losing it. While he burst out laughing and I chuckled along, my political anxiety spiked.
Lula now led the polls. For now, it was just a few decimal percentages, but both candidates’ percentage vote counts were in the high 40s. And I let that update sink in for a moment. It was still early to tell, but maybe Lula would achieve the simple majority count to define the election results in one single round.
In the last election, the difference wasn’t so marginal. Instead, Bolsonaro was over 20 percentage points ahead of then left-wing candidate Haddad (who by the way, Lula selected to run in his place since he was ineligible to vote because of his corruption conviction and imprisonment).
I was in disbelief at what I was witnessing. Both candidates were fiercely competing, or rather, the votes truly demonstrated the deep division within the overall country’s population. I wasn’t necessarily upset for political reasons because I don’t actively support either candidate, but when this specific incident happened, I couldn’t sit still.
My friend was expecting it. And while I was too, rationally expecting it, emotionally, I felt overwhelmed. My heart raced even faster as worries about increased political violence crept into my mind. I started pacing around the living room.
Earlier yesterday, when my friend and I were having a late lunch, he showed me a short video of someone in Brazil destroying one of the electronic ballot machines. He was thwacking it with what seemed to be either a club. I was, at first, in shock. And while the individual was arrested for attempting to interfere in the electoral system and the machine’s votes were not compromised, this news was alarming. Our political views should never evolve into fanatism and hinder the democratic system.
But then, as I chatted with another friend who volunteered to serve as an electoral table clerk, this enraged reaction made more sense. She told me how, despite having served in this role for both electoral rounds in the previous 2018 election, yesterday’s day-long shift was even more exhausting because of the widespread skepticism towards the electronic ballot machines. This skepticism was fostered throughout the past months by current President Bolsonaro, and while his conduct is wrong and the relevant fake news spread on social media is problematic, I want to highlight other points.
To make it short — there was no outright victory yesterday. This means that the Presidential runoff will be happening later this month on October 30th. But the projected voting percentages were also quite off. The current percentage difference between Lula and Bolsonaro is at a bit over 5%.
And now that our candidate options are even more constrained, voters can now sway this approximate 5% margin to either direction in the political spectrum.
Regardless of people’s reasons for their voting decisions, people always tend to claim they vote for a specific candidate because they are confident they are the best person to serve the role. People tend to support their agenda and, if not that, the candidates' general charisma. If not both.
But I want to circle back to my concerns about political violence. People have already been killed for their political views. People have also been instigated to destroy physical electoral objects facilitating the democratic process. And since democracy returned to Brazil in 1985, our electoral institutions have never been as contested.
And again, I remind us all (myself included) that regardless of our political views, we have to defend the democratic system. This means engaging in difficult yet heartfelt conversations, in which we aim to let our guard down and truly discuss our concerns for the future of our nation.
To all my friends in Brazil — please carefully consider the power of your vote. Vote responsibly. Vote mindfully. Vote to unite rather than further divide. If not now, when? Elections are just the beginning. After the elections, another four-year government administration begins. And as Brazilian rapper Projota says in his song “Sr. Presidente,” “Mas existe uma chama acesa dentro do peito | porque não dá mais pra viver desse jeito.” (“But there is a flame burning inside the chest | because I can’t live like this anymore.”)
I just pray that this so-called “flame” does not begin with unnecessary and likely devastating political violence.
