Municipal elections in Brazil: “our objective …

From Brasilia.The municipal elections this Sunday in São Paulo put to sleep an emotionally affected Jair Bolsonaro since the defeat suffered by Donald trump in the United States and by the cracks that have occurred in its civic-military coalition.

Polls predict that Bolsonarist candidate Celso Russomanno, of the Republican Party, could be defeated in Brazil’s most important city.

The latest Datafolha poll ranked the mayor of São Paulo, Bruno Covas, of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) with 32%, followed by Guilherme Boulos, of the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL) with 16 and in third place Russomanno who has the 14. According to the Datafolha poll, with figures similar to one carried out by Ibope, conservatives Covas and Boulos, on the left, would go to the polls.

Graduated in Philosophy with a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology Boulos, 38, is the leader of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST). His candidate for vice-mayor is Luiza Erunidina, a legend of the left and of social movements.

“I am 85 years old, with a whole life devoted to activism” reigns Erundina in this interview with Page 12.

“Bolsonaro is worried, he cannot hide his nervousness because these elections are a preview of the presidential elections of 2022, these elections are much more than electing the mayor of São Paulo, this Sunday the course of national politics is defined, if we win it will be a defeat of Bolsonaro “.

– Is it possible a victory for Boulos located 16 points below Covas?

– Now our goal is to beat Bolsonaro’s candidate and reach the second round with Covas. Then another campaign towards the ballot begins. Boulos is the great novelty of these elections and of national politics, he is the face of hope. We are determined to continue this journey by fighting every vote until Sunday and then fighting for victory in the ballot on November 29. “

“I know this city very well, a feeling of change is palpable in the neighborhoods, on the outskirts, the workers, the young people”,

Luiza Erundina was the first left-wing mayor of São Paulo. He won in 1988, when he was affiliated with the Workers’ Party (PT).

“No one was betting on me, on a social worker working in the outskirts of São Paulo, coming from the northeast (the poorest region of the country) from where I was persecuted by the dictatorship for supporting land reform. “

This São Paulo victory was a snap for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first presidential campaign in 1989, when he reached the second corner, in which he was beaten by Fernando Collor de Mello.

Erundina draws a parallel between 1988 and 2020.

“32 years ago we won a candidate who had held high positions in the dictatorship, today we face (Celso) Russomanno, backed by a government campaigning against the coronavirus vaccine and justifying the dictatorship. It’s a David vs. Goliath fight. They’re using their economic power, they’re using all kinds of cheap clichés and fake news, surely with the Cabinet of Hate coverage. “

The Cabinet of Hate is a clandestine wallet dedicated to filming fake news and coordinating campaigns against adversaries, which, according to what is known in Brasilia, operates on the third floor of the Planalto Palace, a few meters from the presidential office.

This mechanism works in coordination with far-right bloggers like Oswaldo Eustaquio, who was forced by justice last week to withdraw an apocryphal video against Boulos.

In June, Eustaquio was arrested for participating, probably with the endorsement of the Hate Cabinet, in a campaign for the coup.

As Bolsonaro and his admired Donald Trump are well aware, dirty campaigns become more effective in the hours leading up to the vote when the victim, in this case Boulos, has no way of refuting them. Therefore, further attacks are to be feared in the home stretch.

All these ingredients allow to project a very close election: Boulos, leader of the homeless, is only 2% ahead of Evangelical Russomanno, score representing a technical tie. Not to mention that Marcio Franca, of the Brazilian Socialist Party, also has chances, who is two points less than Russomanno.

The only thing that can be considered probable is the first place of the conservative Covas, of the same party as the former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the governor of São Paulo Joao Doria, a former bolonarian turned opponent.

Just under 148 million Brazilians are allowed to vote this Sunday in 5,568 municipalities – Elections in Macapá have been suspended due to a lack of energy – in the first elections since the former captain became president in 2019.

The main neighborhoods, in addition to São Paulo, are Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Salvador. According to the polls which tend to be wrong, no Bolsonarist is favorite in the first round of these municipalities. But two bolsonaristas, Russomanno and Mayor Marcelo Crivella, from Rio de Janeiro, can join second team.

Manuela d´ Avila, from Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B) is first in Porto Alegre with 27% of voting intentions according to the last Ibope measure, beating the mayor by 10 points Nelson Marchezan, from the party of Fernando Henrique Cardoso placeholder image.

Manuela, as her constituents call her, was running for vice president in 2018 in the PT-led formula Fernando Haddad launched at the last minute when Lula was banned by a series of legal measures. At 25, she joined the National Congress and this Sunday, at 39, she has a serious chance of being the only winning left-wing leader in a nationally projected capital like Porto Alegre, the most important city in the south of the Brazil. Although this victory does not prevent him from moving on to a second round.

Porto Alegre is an advanced metropolis, with high levels of politicization and a tradition of PT governments, under whose administrations the World Social Forum was held.

Like Boulos in São Paulo, Manuela is the target of the dirty war orchestrated by Bolsonarism on social media, and is usually directly attacked by Bolsonaro himself.

In any case, we cannot exclude the hypothesis that this Sunday evening the president will celebrate certain results which contradict the experts in demoscopy.

This could happen if, at the last minute, there was a wave of shameful voters hiding from pollsters their preference for pro-government candidates. Or if there was a strong abstention due to the coronavirus pandemic, which, if it did, would hurt the opposition since the Bolsonarist electorate is the one that least respects isolation.

What is more concrete is that this comes at a delicate political moment. He was defeated in the North American election on November 3, defeated by the Democrat Joe biden Who, until this Saturday noon, had not recognized, in addition to challenging him with the use of “gunpowder” (read war) if the American troops attack the Amazon.

Such nonsense has led the president to be compared in media and social media to Vittorio Gassman of “The Brancaleone Armada” and that he received criticism from the army commander, active General Edson Pujol, and the vice-president, a retired general, Hamilton Mourao. In addition to being interviewed by several right-wing leaders who, in their time, were allies or sympathized with the regime.

In other words: the military party has taken some distance – he has not broken, far from it – a leader who seems threatened by growing isolation internally and externally. And it can be exacerbated if this Sunday he experienced weight loss.