It is only about two kilometers as the crow flies from the residence of the Brazilian ambassador in London to Westminster Hall in the British Parliament. On Sunday, Queen Elizabeth II was still there in her coffin when Brazil’s head of state Jair Bolsonaro stepped onto a balcony of the ambassador’s residence. Followers had gathered in the street below. “Mito, mito,” they shouted: myth, an admiring nickname his fans gave to the right-wing head of state. Bolsonaro said he had deep respect for the royal family and the people of the United Kingdom. But they are here for something else: “We have a moment ahead that will decide the future of our nation.” Brazil is on the right track, the country is a shining example for the world. “Our motto is God, home, family and freedom,” said Bolsonaro. “It can’t be otherwise: We’ll win in the first round!”
In less than two weeks, Brazil will vote on a new president. South America’s largest democracy is facing a choice of direction: Officially, almost a dozen candidates are running for the highest office in the state. However, it is already clear that October 2 will be primarily about two men: Brazil’s current right-wing Prime Minister Jair Bolsonaro and the left-wing ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
All polls are currently predicting a clear victory for the challenger: Lula is said to be more than ten percentage points ahead of Jair Bolsonaro in the first ballot, and if you believe the projections, more than half of Brazilians want to vote for the left-wing candidate in a runoff.
But many voters are still undecided, and Jair Bolsonaro has been making up ground in recent weeks. Victory is still possible, observers say, and even inevitable in the eyes of President Bolsonaro and his supporters. As proof, they cite large mass demonstrations in recent weeks, which are intended to show that many Brazilians are behind the president. And the head of state has repeatedly sowed doubts about the electoral system in the past. “If we don’t win in the first round, something is wrong,” Bolsonaro said in an interview published on Sunday.
33,000 fires in the Amazon region: Farmers and cattle breeders want to create facts
Brazil’s head of state has been touring the country tirelessly in recent weeks. He’s been to rodeo events and evangelical services. Observers see the fact that he has traveled to the Queen’s funeral, in the middle of the election campaign, as an attempt to demonstrate to voters at home that his government enjoys support abroad.
But there was criticism from the Brazilian press. “Dude, this is a funeral”, wrote Vera Magalhães, one of the most famous Brazilian journalists, on Twitter. A few weeks earlier, she had been personally attacked by the head of state during a TV debate. Bolsonaro’s challenger Lula da Silva also criticized the president on Twitter: “It is commendable that Bolsonaro is going to the Queen’s funeral. But it would have been even better if he had visited relatives and orphans of victims of the Covid 19 pandemic.” Brazil’s right-wing president had always downplayed the dangers of the pathogen and warned of the supposedly negative consequences of vaccinations.
As the election approaches, the mood heats up. In London, police officers had to protect counter-demonstrators because of arguments and probably also physical violence. In Brazil, meanwhile, there are already injuries and also deaths: just the week before last, a Bolsonaro supporter killed a work colleague after he had attacked him with a knife in a dispute about politics.
At the same time, more fires are burning in the Amazon region than they have been in years. In August alone, 33,000 sources of fire were registered by the State Institute for Space Research. It uses satellite images to monitor the region. And already in the first week of September there were more fires than in the entire month of last year.
It is assumed that farmers and cattle breeders want to create facts before the elections: illegally occupied areas are being deforested to make room for cattle and fields. Under President Jair Bolsonaro, protective mechanisms for the rainforest were deliberately weakened and environmental crimes were hardly prosecuted or punished. The left candidate, Lula da Silva, has already announced that he wants to campaign for greater protection of nature and the Amazon rainforest. During his tenure from 2003 to 2010, the initially enormous deforestation figures fell sharply.