Brazil may yet avoid a complete swing back to the left. With no presidential candidate getting a majority of the votes, the acknowledged top two candidates will be headed for a runoff election in four weeks. And this truly is a political battle between the right and the left in Brazil.

The leftist Workers’ Party has been the center of major corruption scandals over the last several years, which saw the former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (popularly known as “Lula”) convicted of bribery and money laundering charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison. However, the charges and conviction were tossed in March 2021 due to “jurisdiction” issues, not because the evidence against him was refuted. As a result, Lula walked out of prison and was able to run for president once again. Hilariously, Lula has been running on an anti-corruption platform.

Lula said he would create new mechanisms to investigate anyone in his government accused of corruption and punish them if proven guilty.”

“Whoever makes a mistake will pay, you can be sure of that,” he said in an interview with TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, a newscast with the largest audience in Brazil.”

Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, was jailed in the country’s biggest corruption investigation that put dozens of politicians and businessmen in prison for graft and bribes. His convictions were later annulled allowing him to run again for office.”

“I want to return to do things better this time,” he said, admitting mistakes by his handpicked Workers Party successor Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in the midst of a recession.”

And on the opposite side is current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. Now, the American media dislikes Bolsonaro a lot. Here is how CNN described him:

Bolsonaro, 67, ran for re-election under the conservative Liberal Party. He has campaigned to increase mining, privatize public companies and generate more sustainable energy to bring down energy prices. He has vowed to continue paying a R$600 (about $110) monthly benefit known as Auxilio Brasil.”

Often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro, who is supported by key evangelical leaders, is a highly polarizing figure. His government is known for its support for ruthless exploitation of land in the Amazon, leading to record deforestation figures. Environmentalists are warning that the future of the rainforest could be at stake in this election.”

Bolsonaro has also been widely criticized for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 686,000 people in Brazil have died from the virus.”

Hmmmm. Considering that the United States has seen over 1 million deaths attributed to COVID-19, with 400,000 of those deaths occurring while Donald Trump was president, that means that Joe Biden and Jair Bolsonaro actually have similar records on COVID-19. How very interesting that the media completely miss that little fact.

The bottom line is that Western media is busy tearing down right-wing leaders as “facists” – just witness the collective freak out over Giorgia Meloni’s win in Italy. The idea that Bolsonaro, who the media have desperately tried to tie to Donald Trump, could actually win re-election, would drive them bonkers. The media will happily and studiously ignore the bribery and money laundering convictions of Lula because they were thrown out on a technicality, all to support a left-wing candidate. And Lula was leading at the polls.

As we have all learned, sometimes the polls just aren’t asking the right questions or talking to the right people.

With 99.9% of he votes tallied, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 48.4% support and President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.2%. Nine other candidates were also competing, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva, who is commonly known as Lula.”

The tightness of the result came as a surprise, since pre-election polls had given da Silva a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published Saturday had found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.”

“This tight difference between Lula and Bolsonaro wasn’t predicted,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco.”

What does this mean? It means that on October 30, Brazil will be going BACK to the polls to vote in a presidential runoff election.

And instead of dividing the vote multiple ways, there will only be two names on the ballot. And Bolsonaro’s party has come away with some big wins in the Congress.

Final vote has Lula in front 48-43.5%: closer than predicted.

Lula will be the favorite to win the run-off but it's by no means guaranteed. There will be lots of questions.

Bolsonarismo itself had a solid night in key governorships, Senate seats, a big Congressional presence. pic.twitter.com/s5VvoIo8bx

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 3, 2022

Will Bolsonaro be able to pull off a come-from-behind win? Will these numbers motivate the bases on both sides of the aisle to come out and vote in the runoff? Will Brazil take a page out of Chile’s book and reject more left-wing ideology? We shall have to wait four more weeks to find out.

Featured image via gleidiconrodrigues on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license