Jair Bolsonaro did not pass the first electoral test | …

From Brasilia

Eight fateful days for Bolsonaro. The defeat of the Bolsonarist candidate, the evangelical Celso Russomanno, occurred this Sunday in the municipal elections of San Pabloy Donald Trump’s fall announced on November 7 they left the president and the former army captain on their knees.

In his first electoral test since arriving at the Planalto Palace, the president was crushed in São Paulo, and failed to perform well in many of the nearly 5,600 municipalities. they elected mayors. With its 12 million inhabitants, San Pablo is the national political and economic dynamo.

According to Ibope release numbers, the mayor of São Paulo, Bruno Covas of the right-wing Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) ranked first with 35% and will contest the tie with Guilherme Boulos, of the Socialism and Freedom Party (Psol) who obtained 25%,

In fifth place was Russomanno, the sponsored president, with 8%, according to this projection.

The elections in São Paulo must be seen as a “national election” which can mark the fate of the president, as stated in an interview with this newspaper Luiza Erundina, the vice-candidate of the formula led by Boulos, who with a Franciscan campaign managed to move to the second team on November 29.

Instead, Russomanno, relied on the media and spiritual apparatus of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, in addition to the favors that came directly or indirectly from the presidential office. The aid includes the storm of fake news pulled by bloggers possibly linked to the Cabinet of Hate, an underground ministry that operates on the third floor of the Planalto, the same where the head of state’s offices are located.

In the next fortnight, Boulos will not have to face the low blows of the ruling Russomanno, but he will have to face the equally millionaire machine of the mayor’s office and the São Paulo government, the latter also dominated by the PSDB. Governor Joao Doria, seeking to run in the 2022 presidential election, said on Sunday that the conditions are right to form a “broad front” against Bolonarianism. But he did not speak of a front comparable to the Uruguayan left coalition, but rather formed by the neoliberal center and the right, an alchemy well seen by financial and media companies.

Until the second shift, Boulos and Mayor Covas will have equal time in the free TV advertising program and will be the only participants in the debates. A field in which the young Boulos, philosopher and graduate in psychology, handles with talent.

This result creates a confusing new sandbox: Bolsonaro will be, at least formally, out of the fight for São Paulo in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will surely participate, a valuable contribution to the left-wing candidacy.

Bolsonaro’s defeat was not absolute. In Rio de Janeiro, the second Brazilian capital, its sponsored mayor, pastor and gospel singer, Marcelo Crivella, went on waiver. Rio is the political territory of the president, who was deputy for that district for 28 years, where he also has the parapolice “militias” as allies.

In 2018 Bolsonaro came to the presidency with a combination of fake news, an electorate hypnotized by anti-pedophile and anti-political rhetoric, and basically, Lula’s ban.

The picture has changed now.

Ending Bolsonaro would be frivolous, since he still has several instruments of power (including the armed forces, despite the differences that some of them have expressed with the former captain) and it is not known whether the opposition, that either the People’s Democrat or the neoliberals will be able to make this Sunday’s victories a concrete political advantage.

Moreover, Bolsonaro knows better than anyone how to create instability to favor himself and cause chaos to neutralize politics. And degrade democracy.