The ULTRARIGHTDavid Magalhães, a professor of international relations at the Federal University of Uberlândia and coordinator of the Observatory of the Extreme Right, believes that although Lula (PT) was re-elected as president on Sunday, October 25, the family Bolsonaro, not conservative ideas, suffered a defeat.
"I don't see it as a defeat for the right-wing field. On the contrary. Lula, to be elected, had to accept some proposals from the right," the professor states, highlighting Lula's support for reducing the age of majority from 18 to 16 years for heinous crimes, an issue that divided allies in the final stretch of the campaign.
The strength of the right in Brazil is evident in the results of the legislative and state elections. The PL of the Bolsonaros elected six governors, 121 federal deputies, and 19 of the 54 seats up for grabs in the Senate. The party will be the largest in the Chamber for the next four years and will have 29 of the 81 senators.
A predominantly right-wing Congress with a significant presence of radical right will pose challenges to Lula's new term and is likely to force the president to concede to maintain governability, as in a potential impeachment of Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
"This is one of the possibilities, including to calm the far-right wing that expects to use this majority in the Senate to impeach ministers," analyzes Magalhães.
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But just as in the campaign that led to the historic turn in the second round, the president will continue to rely on the streets and social media to counter proposals that go against workers' interests and threaten basic rights.
"Lula has only one option, which is to continue energizing this popular base that emerged in the second round," he states.
Read the key excerpts from the interview:
You claim that the right won the majority of elections in Brazil over the past decade, and Lula's election in 2022 was an exception. Does Lula's new victory change this scenario, or does the advance of the right and far-right continue?
Without considering the executive, the advance of the right continues in all areas. Numerically, too. Compared to Jair in 2022, Flávio had almost 2 million more votes.
There were several campaign issues that led to this defeat. It was less tight than expected. However, I still believe that, in terms of culture and society, and this manifested in the legislative elections, both for the Chamber and the Senate, the advance of the right remains quite consistent.
Why were 2022 and 2026 exceptions?
This exception has a name and surname, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Otherwise, the indicators point to the right. A survey by the Ipsos Institute, which measures the level of conservatism in Brazilian society, shows [higher adherence] to all issues related to public security, such as the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility, the death penalty, and gun ownership, as well as [opposition] to moral issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. In all these indicators, we have seen a growth [in conservative positions].
A quite symptomatic fact is that, according to Datafolha, 70% of Lula's voters agree with reducing the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 years.
Lula is not a candidate who mobilized a progressive agenda. To become electorally viable, he flirted with part of the right-wing consensus that has been growing in the country.
So, is this not a defeat for the far-right, or just a victory for Lula? Do we have a Lula moving towards the center?
Undoubtedly. His current government is centered, with liberal traits in the economy. Despite financial sectors' protests, [former Minister of Finance Fernando] Haddad governed, from an economic policy perspective, with an orthodox bias.
Lula did not touch on agenda moral themes. He knows that if he enters that field, he will lose, especially due to the advancement of evangelical, Pentecostal, and neo-Pentecostal churches across Brazil and among more popular classes.
He did not take on some expensive fights for the progressive agenda in the areas of public security and morality. His campaign aimed to rescue the voter through a more economic and social discussion, not in the cultural sphere. Lula understood that the majority of the population is conservative.
Can we say that, in the second round, a portion of the population woke up to the risk of the far-right?
The PT, in a very comfortable and mistaken way, believed in victory in the first round. Some of the activism was anesthetized by a victory that research institutes gave as certain. This demobilized the progressive field. It was a very mild campaign, it did not occupy itself in exposing Flávio.
On the other hand, Flávio's campaign bet on hiding Flávio, who is, among Jair's children and heirs, the one with the most criminal record in every aspect.
As soon as the second round began, Lula's campaign stopped focusing on Flávio, which generated a great deal of fear. Not so much due to ideological differences, but because of his involvement with corruption, organized crime, and the most violent aspects of public security in Rio de Janeiro. As he was exposed, the fear of Flávio started to surpass the fear of Lula.
I repeat, I believe it's less about the defeat of the ultra-right and more about the defeat of a family. In Jair's case, if it weren't for the tragedy of his handling of the pandemic, he would probably have been elected in 2022.
This time, a figure was built around Flávio as someone who was a playboy, a daddy's boy, who spent his life in schemes, involving all sorts of things, corruption, violence. So, propaganda and online engagement led to an increased fear of Flávio.
I don't see it as a defeat for the right-wing camp. On the contrary. Lula had to accept some right-wing proposals to be elected. I see it much more as a defeat for the Bolsonaro family.
How do you assess the impact of Lula's victory in the international context, especially in Latin America?
I believe it has a massive impact. Nixon, when he met with Médici in 1970, said that wherever Brazil goes, the rest of Latin America follows. The example of this shift is already being discussed in progressive sectors of Argentina, which has elections next year, and Milei is already experiencing a decline in popularity.
And without a doubt, this mobilization, both online and on the streets, will influence other segments. Janones himself has said he has been called to talk to other countries and leaders, even here in South America. It's a case study on how to contain [extreme right-wing].
But to hold on, it is also necessary for there to be a popular monument, which is Lula. Can Argentina hold on? Hardly. Argentina does not have a figure like Lula. So it's not just Janones, it's him atop a figure with a mobilization capacity that has no parallel in Brazil's republican history.
Even regarding our future, for 2030, this is a question the left will have to start discussing right now, how to combat [the far right] in 2030.
How do you evaluate the fact that Flávio still hasn't acknowledged the defeat, nor has Milei made a statement so far?
They expected a much tighter result, but since that didn't happen, it greatly reduces the issue of [alleging] fraud. There is little chance that will stick. I've even seen segments of the right saying to forget about trying to annul the elections and instead focus on impeaching Lula.
Nicolas and Flávio are pushing this [annulment] discourse, but there isn't much backing. There are 60 million votes for Flávio, but only a third, 20 million people, actually believe there was fraud and it should be annulled. But I believe that given the overwhelming result, with a difference of more than 4 million votes, this election will slowly lose its steam.
On social media, it seems there was a wave from the progressive camp against the right, although this is the arena of the far right. How do you evaluate it?
This was the biggest novelty of the election, along with the left's return to the streets. It was even pedagogical for much of the left, which didn't know simple things, like "don't comment on Nicolas' posts, because that engages, forget what they're doing." In a way, Janones promoted literacy, for a large segment of the progressive camp, on how the whole engineering and algorithms work and how they reach people, what the mechanisms are for bursting the bubble.
For example, in the Revelando episode by MC Cabelinho, when Neymar comments on the post saying "That said, it's 22," he bursts the bubble because it was circulating a lot within left-wing profiles. But the comment reached many more people outside the bubble.
I attribute to Janones a crucial role in this victory, one of the most important in this election. Even to get so many people onto the streets, this online mobilization was necessary. The streets were strong, but many people were there, connected and mobilized online.
There is a perception that the analog world is not responsible for the recent electoral victories. Following the 2018 Bolsonaro victory, the progressive camp began to organize. There is a very interesting study by Marcos Nobre, a professor at Unicamp, on the "Digital Bolsonarist Party," which shows how this structure operates internally. He stated that a digital left party could not emerge from the PT and its leaders. This even sparked a certain jealousy among PT segments [regarding Janones].
There is an interview with one of the founders of the PT in Folha, where he calls the term "Lula's soldiers" pathetic, and that all this militaristic verbiage would be a disgrace to the victims of dictatorship. But they are completely in a world that no longer exists. And a part of PT activism has returned to criticizing Janones, but he was a shock, causing perplexity not only in the right-wing field but in the traditional analog left field, inviting us to reflect on how elections have been conducted lately.
We live in a moment when family and friends have difficulty talking about politics when two people have differing views. Is this a result of the rise of the ultra-right, or is it not necessarily related?
I don't think so. I don't attribute this blame specifically to the ultra-right. I think it's more related to the online environment, because we each insert ourselves into our echo chambers, which are digital bubbles, and they offer little porosity to what is happening on the other side. This makes it difficult for one side to know the other, to understand what the other is thinking or believing. This leads to positions becoming more tribalized, more sectarian, preventing dialogue.
This is a characteristic of polarization not only in Brazilian society, but in other countries. Political polarization in the context of social media and algorithms has produced these bubbles with little porosity between them.
But there are some figures on the right, and perhaps Renan Santos is the most prominent, saying it is possible to build a more rational right, that dialogues with the left and reduces this polarization. It may be that this Bolsonaro family defeat could offer an opportunity for a right that defends conservative values, without necessarily having hatred and wanting to usurp all the principles of the democratic rule of law.
The invitation from Janones to talk to someone who thinks differently within his family is a very difficult invitation for most progressive segments, because they were there lost in their respective bubbles. It wasn't easy.
How do you see the actions of the ultra-right in Congress and their relationship with the government in the next four years?
There is every chance that this will be a very difficult government for Lula, and this is due to what has been happening in the Brazilian political system. Some analysts, like Cláudio Couto from FGV, talk about how Brazil is slowly moving from a presidential coalition system to a system where Congress is increasingly powerful.
In the last decade, especially after the impeachment, Congress has been an extremely important actor and has often constrained the Executive. Now we have a Congress largely dominated by the right, and particularly by radical right. This will present Lula with a series of problems.
Lula has only one option, which is to continue energizing this popular base that emerged in the second round. Lula will need the streets to try to mobilize action against any bill that the ultra-right wants to pass. In this sense, Lula has a new tool, which is this mobilization. However, in the post-election period, it is natural for this activism to atrophy and for the progressive camp to demobilize.
It will be a challenge. Janones even commented in his group that it will be very important to keep this base hot and energized to confront any measures that go against the interests of workers in Congress.
And what about the Judiciary?
The scenario that presented itself with Flávio's victory made a Flávio government even more authoritarian, with the possibility of three nominations to the Supreme Court and the potential for impeachments. This would weaken the court responsible for constitutional oversight, making it very weak, I would say even docile.
The progressive might have much to celebrate from Lula's victory in this regard. But look, Lula won't be able to restore the STF's credibility overnight. That's up to the ministers themselves. But Lula is a skilled politician and I believe he can negotiate some heads there [at the STF], including that of Alexandre de Moraes. I think that's one of the possibilities, even to calm the far-right's part that envisages using this majority in the Senate to impeach ministers.
Lula will have to really push for a judiciary reform, as there is a popular demand for it, not just from the right. It will be a challenge. He managed to position himself in the second round as a president and a candidate against the system, against Big Techs, against the bets, against Trump. Hardly will he maintain that identity now in office, but he will have to carry out a series of reforms, especially the judiciary one, to achieve a minimum of governability.
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