It once worked for the right to elect a far-right candidate. Accompanying the radicalization of their bases, who no longer wanted a candidate from the PSDB, they chose Jair Bolsonaro who was better in the polls in the field of the right. Despite having a long and mediocre political career and even defending absurd positions such as being in favor of the coup and the military dictatorship, of torture and the death penalty, that the population arm itself, among others. The right wing mounted a monstrous operation around this candidate, centered on fake news and the collusion of the judiciary and the media, to elect Bolsonaro.
Soon the right realized that, if he had been a candidate adapted to their need to defeat the PT in any way, as ruler Bolsonaro quickly proved to be a failure. Without the ability to command government programs, to put together a minimally capable team, to formulate a speech that could dispute hegemony in public opinion with the PT’s speech, it gradually lost support, revealing that it would not be capable of doing a minimally competent government, nor manage to aggregate political forces around that government.
At the same time, when Lula recovered his political rights and projected himself as a strong candidate to return to the presidency of Brazil, the level of rejection of Bolsonaroism was revealed to be greater than the antipetism with which the right had managed to build the image of Bolsonaro. He reaches the end of his Government, on the eve of the new presidential elections, defeated. Not just because of all the polls, but because of his inability to come up with a program that would justify a second term. He limits himself to pointing out the supposed risks for the country of Lula’s return, counting on a certain forgetfulness of what Lula’s government was and on the disinformation of part of the population.
The very positions of the two candidates are revealing. Lula speaks and is interviewed as the new president of Brazil. His speeches design programs and concrete measures, the interviewers ask the next president of the country questions. Bolsonaro behaves like a loser. Whether in depressive moods, whether in the way he responds to interviews, whether in his own statements, in which his themes continue to be the questioning of the electoral results that he knows will be negative for him, in the question about how he is going to behave in the face of the negative electoral result, or how Lula will lead the country, in his opinion.
An endless stream of polls, and especially the most reliable ones, reiterates the level of support for Lula, as well as the difficult results for Bolsonaro. Having 50 percent rejection and 35 percent support only dooms you to defeat. In addition, the time is getting shorter for Bolsonaro.
At the same time, Lula is gaining more and more support, both from people who have not yet defined themselves, like Marina Silva, and from people who have so far decided to vote for other candidates but realize that their candidate is not viable and that the only way to defeat Bolsonaro is Lula. The political framework is fully configured, two weeks before the first round. The most renowned poll analysts affirm that the current result, which has been going on for many months, will not change: whoever leads the polls a month before the elections always triumphed.
Bolsonaro spent his last letters – the one of September 7 was the most notorious – and his threats not to recognize the result of the elections, once again copying his guru Donald Trump, are no longer taken seriously.
In short: Lula has not won yet, but Bolsonaro has already lost.