Bolsonaro out, Lula in (again) – some less obvious take-aways

50.9%. That was tense.

Brazil’s two-term president Lula (2003-2010) narrowly beat incumbent far-rightist Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2022) in the recent second-round run-off. This has been greeted with relief and rejoicing around the world by almost everyone except the populist right.

There are some obvious take-aways. Bolsonaro was a disaster, fatally ridiculing Covid, trashing the environment, isolating Brazil internationally, spreading misogyny and homophobia, and showing credible signs of dictatorial intentions – a lifelong hankering. By contrast, Lula clears the lowest bar of simply being a competent democratic politician, and has experience. This is a relief for democracy and social equality, a relief for the Amazon, for Indigenous peoples, and for, well, almost everything.

Those are the obvious implications. What about the less obvious ones? To look forward, we need to look back.

Underlying political direction-of-travel: worrying, and historically-deep

For progressives, the celebrations must be tempered with wariness. Polling predictions of a thumping victory for Lula turned out to be way off. In absolute numbers, more people voted for Bolsonaro than in 2018. This is symptomatic of powerful shifting dynamics in the social base of Brazilian politics, and of the growth of a Bolsonarista right that will remain a major player. The sense among some was that Bolsonaro would be electorally humiliated, and his politics utterly discredited. Well, apparently not.

Although Bolsonarismo is a recent trend, there are older roots. Brazil has long had a significant constituency for hard-line rightist politics uniting evangelical Christianity, landowner and agribusiness interests, and gun-toting ‘law and order’ elements close to the military and arms industry. This has been represented in Congress by the so-called ‘BBB caucus’ – bullets, beef, and bible.

This stems from a longer historical context. The political economy of Portuguese colonial Brazil – mass slavery and latifundia – bequeathed to the post-colony a social structure of world-high inequality, and oligarchic tendencies, across land, business, media, religion, and politics. Entrenched elites do not cede power without a fight. This spurred frequent backlashes against any threat, from the attempted land reforms of the Empire period (1822-1889) to the socialist president João Goulart, whose removal in a US-supported coup in 1964 inaugurated the military dictatorship.

As I predicted in 2016, the impeachment of Lula’s Worker’s Party (PT) successor Dilma Rousseff in a barely-concealed soft coup that year, and her replacement with Michel Temer, was not so much a victory for popular anti-corruption, as widely reported. It was more the herald of the latest backlash, and of the unleashing of old reactionary energies that would shape the next phase of Brazilian politics.

Sure enough, the ‘media of 30 Berlusconis’ and the Lava Jato anti-corruption probe pummelled the Worker’s Party, and with the help of legal elites, an ultra-right Rio congressman rose to prominence. The former army captain’s brand was evangelical rectitude, and ‘anti-communism’. Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 and set about unpicking the progressive achievements of post-dictatorship Brazil – its painstaking erosion of the inegalitarian social-structural legacies of colonial Brazil. Bolsonarismo is, in one way, the latest incarnation of elite reaction against such erosion.

However, there are novel features. Firstly, yes, business elites certainly supported Bolsonaro into the presidency, cheered on by Wall Street, but while Bolsonaro is one of several recent examples where finance capital has swung behind a right-populist in preference to social-democratic alternatives, this is a risky business. In this case, the elites created a monster they can’t fully control. Secondly, this ‘monster’ has involved cutting-edge elements such as fake news, evangelical religious fervour, and a social media outrage-machine, to gain unprecedented cross-class public support.

Thus, Bolsonarismo is both old and new. It is a Pandora’s Box that will not very easily shut again. This has to be taken into account to answer the next question:

How will this Lula term compare to the previous two?

Lula left office as 'the most successful politician of his time', with 87% personal approval, a near-miracle in politics. Barack Obama called him ‘the most popular politician on earth’. Lula’s government oversaw inclusive economic growth and progressive legislation, lifting 35 million out of poverty. Some on the international left bemoan Lula’s compromises with business and neoliberal macroeconomics, but in the aforementioned historical context the achievements of his first terms are still major.

Meanwhile, the international centre and right will often lazily paint Lula as a stereotypical ‘corrupt Latin American leftist’. This too is misleading. Political corruption in Brazil is pretty much a structural feature of the ‘game’ of politics. Moreover, allegations against Lula (and especially Dilma) were, in context, low-level and impersonal.. The putative ‘anti-corruption’ crusade was revealed to be driven by biased and politicised judges allied to Lula’s political opponents (and, predictably, the CIA). Lula’s 2017 conviction was overturned after 1.5 years in prison. The ‘leftist’ part is also somewhat misleading. Despite Lula’s firebrand unionist origins, as president he governed as a moderate social democrat, famously mollifying financial markets.

So can he do it again?

The strengthened Bolsonarista phenomenon presents a trickier social landscape than 2003. Within formal politics, congressional arithmetic is more forbidding; Bolsonaro can be consoled by results in the Senate and Lower House. Economically, Lula’s first two terms rode a China-driven commodities boom; the macroeconomic situation is probably less felicitous now. Lula is also weakened by the now-public knowledge that the PT’s early 2000s posture of incorruptibility melted once in office.

Two final thoughts. Firstly, if Lula simply comes in, doesn’t do anything too outlandish, and mends some bridges, that will be an improvement. Secondly, Lula is a once-in-a-generation political talent, blessed with personal charisma and a pragmatic ability to smooth out unlikely political deals. This is the illiterate shoe-shine boy who, via the metalworking factories of São Paulo, co-founded a political party, and lost three elections before finally becoming president against vast historical barriers, and leaving office a legend. You wouldn’t bet against him.