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RIO DE JANEIRO – A far-right candidate who spoke fondly of Brazil's military dictatorship was on the verge of winning an outright victory in the country's presidential election on Sunday, as Brazilians expressed their disgust for politics as usual and approved an approach to the fight at the hand of iron crime and corruption.
Voters offered a first-round victory to Jair Bolsonaro, who knocked out the political establishment by rising to the top of a cluttered presidential system despite a long history of offensive remarks about women, blacks and gays .
With 96% of the votes counted, Mr. Bolsonaro had just under 47% of the votes; he needed 50% to avoid runoff. His nearest rival finished far behind with 28%.
While the presidency was in sight, Bolsonaro said Sunday night his intention to unite a nation "on the verge of chaos" and said, "Together, we will rebuild our Brazil."
The Brazilians will now vote in the second election on October 28 between Bolsonaro and Fernando Haddad, candidate of the left-wing labor party. The two men represent radically different visions for Brazil, the fourth largest democracy in the world, where leftists have won the presidency in every election since 2002.
Despite Bolsonaro's rigor on Sunday, he remains an extremely controversial figure who has alienated large segments of Brazil's highly diverse population during the campaign.
Political analysts, however, said Sunday night that Haddad faced a major challenge in the second round to rally the majority of Brazilians by his side.
Laura Carvalho, an economist at the University of São Paulo, said the best solution for the Labor Party candidate would be to focus on portfolio issues over the next three weeks. "Instead of focusing on racism and misogyny, which have not had much effect, they should focus on the economic agenda and the anti-worker aspect of the Bolsonaro's candidacy, "said Ms Carvalho.
While several of Brazil's neighbors have been politically right-wing in recent years, a victory by Bolsonaro, a populist conservative who joins an increasing number of world-wide anti-establishment leaders, would be a conservative seismic shift.
Bolsonaro's critics and political analysts watched his rise with concern, fearing that he would become an authoritarian leader in the mold of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey) and Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines).
Prior to running for president, Bolsonaro, a former army captain who did not have much to do for his seven congressional terms, was accused of hate speech by the government. for homophobic, misogynistic and racist comments. He also spoke with admiration and nostalgia for the Brazilian military dictatorship, during which 434 people were killed or disappeared and thousands were tortured from 1964 to 1985.
Rejected by the traditional parties, Mr. Bolsonaro had a hard time finding a vice-presidential candidate until early August, when he chose a recently retired general who was advocating Military intervention as a means of purging a corrupt ruling elite. He announced his intention to appoint other military leaders to central roles.
Mr. Bolsonaro's victory in the first round was all the more remarkable because he did not have the support of a large party and was campaigning on a tight budget, relying mainly on social media for build a base. In mid-September, the Bolsonaro campaign announced that it had spent approximately $ 235,000, a small fraction of the $ 6.3 million spent on the Haddad campaign.
The rise of Bolsonaro has been made possible by the political divisions that have torn the country in recent years.
Brazilians were outraged by the stagnation of traditional party leaders in an increasingly broad investigation into corruption that began in 2014 and was becoming increasingly depressing as the economy deteriorated. that unemployment increased and that crime increased.
Some voters remained loyal to the Workers' Party – which ruled from 2003 to 2016 – for its efforts to improve the living conditions of poor and hard-working Brazilians, but many have come to hold it responsible for the hardships and economic difficulties of these people. last years.
Today, millions of Brazilians enthusiastically embrace Bolsonaro's radical approach to policing – even if that means kill criminals or political enemies, who were frequent topics for the candidate.
Georgewlany Smith, a 61-year-old official in Rio de Janeiro, said the erosion of democratic standards and civil liberties was a price he was willing to pay for a safer and more prosperous Brazil.
"You have to consider what are the best moments for Brazil," Smith said shortly after voting for Bolsonaro in the upscale Barra de Tijuca neighborhood. "Unfortunately, it was dictatorship."
Mr. Bolsonaro drew on the anger and desire to destabilize the status quo that hit many Brazilians. And he became the face of a growing conservative movement in a country where evangelicals represent one in four electors and more than 90 federal lawmakers.
The candidate has presented little detailed policy roadmap, particularly with regard to the country's threatening economy. Answering questions, he suggested to Paulo Guedes, a pro-market economist, to appoint Finance Minister to limit the increased social spending under the Workers' Party.
Markets rebounded as he took the lead in polls – but Bolsonaro is not "the pro-market liberal he claims to be," warned Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian economist. who directs the Latin American Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University.
"It really stands out for its overly simplistic solutions to very complex problems, a feature that will certainly turn against us," she said.
Mr Bolsonaro 's victory will most likely be denounced by many members of the left as the undemocratic outcome of an election that has ruled out the dominant politician in Brazil' s recent history: l '. former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former and energetic former metallurgist and trade union leader. in the 1970s and 1980s opposed the military dictatorship.
Mr da Silva, who served two terms and left his post in 2011 with a record approval rate, has been the favorite for most of the past year and seemed well placed to return to the palace. presidential. But he became ineligible to run for office after a court of appeal earlier this year upheld a conviction for bribery and money laundering against him.
Mr. Haddad, aged 55, who appears to be a serious intellectual and who does not have the strongest charisma of Mr. da Silva, was unknown in most of the country and did not succeed in galvanize the main constituents of the Party of Workers who identified with the workers' roots of Mr. da Silva. and life story.
However, some voters remain fiercely loyal to Mr da Silva.
Anita Silva Lima, a 38-year-old waitress living in Rocinha, an underprivileged neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, said Sunday morning that she and her seven relatives had voted for the "Lula candidate", resisting the pressure of his boss. who urged her to support Mr. Bolsonaro.
"I do not want a dictatorship, many people died at that time," said Ms. Lima, from the north-east of the country, a stronghold of the Workers Party. "I do not care about this speech about corruption. Tell me the name of a politician who does not steal? Bolsonaro is flying too.
Others have lost confidence in the Workers Party and feel that the current race leaves them no good option.
"They are all the same," said Carlos Alberto da Silva, a 59-year-old driver based in Rio de Janeiro who had backed the Workers Party in 2014, stating that he intended to signal his frustration by canceling his vote this year.
Among the highlights of Sunday's election was the defeat of former Dilma Rousseff, the Workers' Party president, who was running in the Senate. Opinion polls had hinted that she would easily win a seat in her home country of Minas Gerais, but Ms. Rousseff ranked fourth.
Clara Araújo, a sociologist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said on Sunday that voters showed deep disdain for the dominant political factions.
"It seems to me that the discontent caused by the economic crisis has been channeled through a discourse on conservative morality," she said. Those who voted for Mr. Bolsonaro, she said, see it as "the option of some order, some stability, even if this notion is based on solutions of ease".
Bolsonaro warned voters that the return of the ruling Workers' Party would perpetuate a culture of corruption that has been brought to light in recent years and has tarnished all major political parties and many of the country's biggest corporations.
He also said that under the leftist regime, Brazil risked falling into an economic crisis like the one that caused a massive exodus to neighboring Venezuela.
Mr. Bolsonaro's appeal continued to grow after He was stabbed last month while he was being carried by supporters at a campaign rally in the state of Minas Gerais.
While most of his twelve rivals traveled across the country and participated in the debates, Bolsonaro was largely absent from the last month of the race, recovering in a hospital in São Paulo and later at home in Rio de Janeiro .
Over the past few days, he has recorded daily videos broadcast live on Facebook and weighing the news of the day. The unstable and fragile clips illustrate a campaign that had from the outset an impression of insurrection and improvisation.
While Bolsonaro's victory seemed more and more likely, fierce opponents protested online and in the streets under the slogan: # EleNão, or not him, warning that the democratic institutions of the country could be eroded.
But influential evangelical and agribusiness lobby groups rallied behind him in the home stretch, while investors and wealthy Brazilians supported him, saying Bolsonaro would cut social spending and implement pro-market reforms.
In front of Mr. Bolsonaro's seaside apartment in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night, supporters sang the national anthem and chanted "The Captain Has Arrived", as early results showed him largely winning.
"Getting rid of the P.T. alone is not a solution, but it is a first step towards repairing the country," said Barbara Laureano, a 25-year-old businesswoman, referring to the Workers Party. "It's not about him as a person, it's an idea," she said.
Lis Moriconi contributed to the reports.
