The second round of the presidential elections in Brazil will take place on Oct. 30, pitting the extreme right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro against the left-wing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Contrary to poll predictions that Lula would likely win by a large margin, the first round ended with 48.43% for Lula and 43.20% for Bolsonaro.

Jair Bolsonaro's government is defined by right-wing extremist ideological bias and a liberal economic orientation, guided by Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, the man mainly responsible for the privatization of the major state-owned electricity company, Eletrobras. The president has threatened the national Judicial Branch on several occasions, filled many government positions with military personnel, relaxed rules on carrying weapons in the country, and prioritized ideological alliances with growing evangelical segments, which already constitute more than 30% of the population.

Government mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic has been responsible for the deaths of more than 680,000 Brazilians to date, and the effects of the economic recession and high inflation rates have greatly affected the poor. However, implementing the Brazil Aid program has guaranteed some compensation for the president's popularity due to the monthly aid of 600 reais for low-income families.

The leftist Lula of the Workers' Party (PT) ruled Brazil between 2003 and 2010. His party also led the country with Dilma Rousseff from 2011 until 2016, when she was impeached and replaced by the centrist Vice President Michel Temer, now a Bolsonaro supporter. Corruption allegations from Operation Car Wash led to Lula being imprisoned for 580 days between 2018 and 2019. He was released after the Judicial Branch overturned his convictions.

In contrast to the Rousseff government, which was marked by an economic recession, Lula governed Brazil during the commodities boom and is remembered for providing financial aid and implementing popular housing social programs, such as Bolsa Família and My House My Life, for low-income families. He also carried out essential infrastructure work, mainly in the northeast, and foreign policy aimed at South-South cooperation ties. In the face of the Bolsonaro government's political and economic problems, Lula began to rank highly in the presidential election polls soon after obtaining freedom.

Aiming to isolate Bolsonaro politically, Lula sought alliances with traditional sectors of the center and right-wing parties, appointing the former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, as Vice President in his coalition. With a moderate program, he promises to maintain the main characteristics of the neoliberal economic model that has operated in the country since the early 1990s. However, he promised to pay greater attention to the implementation of social programs and rebuff the advances of privatization projects relating to the state-owned oil company Petrobras. The main appeal of his campaign is his intention to “save democracy.” 

The main Brazilian poll centers indicated a probable victory with a significant advantage for Lula in the first round. This situation caused many business people and influential politicians to disengage from the current president's campaign, seeking a rapprochement with Lula on the eve of the election. However, the results differed, with Bolsonaro approaching Lula's vote. His party – the Liberal Party (PL) – got the best results in the election for the House of Representatives and Senate seats. His supporters won the elections for the governments of the critical provinces of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro in the first round. In the second round, they also led the race for São Paulo's government. On the other hand, Lula achieved wide voting in the northeastern provinces, affirming a pattern repeated since the 2006 elections: The left wing hold a massive majority of the vote in the northeast, while the right wing has the majority in the southeast, south, and midwest.

Both candidates moderated their speeches for the second round to attract undecided voters and supporters. Although the PL and the PT have obtained large seats in the National Congress, the majority continues to be formed by centrist parties. Different manufacturing, financial, and agribusiness branches also support both candidates. The third and fourth runners-up in the first round, centrist Simone Tebet (4.16%) and leftist nationalist Ciro Gomes (3.04%), have already announced their support for Lula. Nevertheless, the positive results secured by Bolsonaro and his party attracted support from several business sectors and some provincial governors already elected in the first round.

If Lula wins, moderation and the search for political stability should be the main vectors of his domestic policy. As in his former government, Lula should seek to build a broad coalition with centrist and right-wing parties, now aiming to isolate the extreme right-wing radicalism that has taken root in the country. In economic terms, he has already indicated that he will pursue the main pillars of the neoliberal order, adhering to inflation targets, maintaining the autonomy of the Central Bank, and appointing a man trusted by the financial system to the Ministry of Finance. However, Lula seeks to curb the main privatization projects pushed by Bolsonaro and rehabilitate the role of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) in the national economy. In the same vein, he is likely to promote new social programs aimed at low-income families, increase investments in science and technology, and seek to resume the refining capacity of the state-owned oil company Petrobras.

Regarding foreign policy, Lula will probably seek to strengthen ties with South American countries, the leading market for Brazilian manufactured goods. Looking for bilateral relations with China, the trend would be to strengthen the strategic partnership and boost South-South cooperation initiatives, such as the BRICS. Despite the friction between the Brazilian left-wing and the United States, Lula has already made numerous gestures of rapprochement with Joe Biden and should seek the resumption of equitable relations with the U.S.

If Bolsonaro wins, the election will consolidate the role of extreme right-wing ideologies in the national political spectrum and the decadence of the Brazilian left wing. While the extreme right wing has presented several possible young candidates to succeed Bolsonaro in the future, the Brazilian left wing has not been able to produce names capable of inheriting Lula's political and electoral heritage. But despite the radicalism of its supporters, Bolsonaro is unlikely to have the capacity to change the balance between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches, and he would hardly have the support of the high military ranks for such kind of adventure. However, a victory in the elections would strengthen Bolsonaro's ability to articulate authoritarian and neoliberal reforms in the National Congress.

In terms of foreign policy, the radicalism of former Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo during the first years of Bolsonaro's government generated several political frictions in Brazilian relations with its trade partners. After reforms in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil shifted to a more pragmatic foreign policy, improving trade ties with China and making political rapprochements with Russia. This change expressed the interests of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, especially the agribusiness and mining sectors, and further exacerbated Bolsonaro's friction with the U.S. Democrats due to his closer ties with the Republicans. The tendency is for the continuity of this more pragmatic bias. However, the problems in relations between the many leftist governments of South America tend to remain.

Discredited by the wrong predictions in the first round, some reputable Brazilian institutes have already released polls indicating a technical tie between the two candidates for the second round. Therefore, only at the end of Oct. 30 will Brazilians have a clue as to the winner of one of the most heated, disputed, and unpredictable elections in Brazil's history.

Tiago Nogara is a Ph.D. candidate in Global Studies at Shanghai University.

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