‘Save this country’: Brazil grapples with trust on heels of Lula victory

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Viviane Ramos joined hands with other protesters and began feverishly murmuring prayers outside a military building in Rio de Janeiro’s center.

“Lord, pray for us, pray for our nation,” Ms. Ramos, an evangelical Christian, called toward the skies on Nov. 2 as rain pelted her face and drenched the Brazilian flag draped over her shoulders. “Save this country.”

Along with thousands of others clad in yellow, she was there to protest the result of the Oct. 30 election, which leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known universally as Lula, won by a razor-thin margin. Underscoring a lack of trust in established politics and democratic institutions that has grown over the past four years among a large segment of the population, protesters are demanding that the military step in to keep far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in power.

“We won’t accept the results,” says Ms. Ramos, an administrative assistant. “I can’t prove it, but I know the vote wasn’t fair.” She worries a swing to the left would threaten family values, paving the way for legal drugs and abortion. “These are not my values. We can’t let our nation be destroyed.”

Following the announcement of Lula’s victory, a relatively small but powerful cohort of truck drivers and protesters set up hundreds of roadblocks – with little resistance from highway police – disrupting the transport of food, medicine, and fuel across Brazil. On Nov. 2, supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro took to the streets in dozens of cities, drawing a turnout of more than 100,000 people nationwide.

The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, quieting fears of a violent backlash from Mr. Bolsonaro’s more radicalized base. But, the demands of demonstrators have unnerved many here, where memories are still fresh of a brutal military dictatorship that governed between 1964 and 1985. Widespread mistrust in the electoral process, largely stoked by Mr. Bolsonaro himself, has posed tough questions about the integrity of Latin America’s largest democracy, and whether Lula will be able to overcome the challenges – or exacerbate them.

“Lula will clash with this radicalized segment at every turn over the next four years,” says Paulo Henrique Cassimiro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “The extreme right is not going to disappear just because Bolsonaro lost.”

“Own idea of democracy”

Following defeat Oct. 30, Mr. Bolsonaro remained silent for 45 hours, heightening worries that he would contest the result. When he finally spoke Tuesday evening, he didn’t claim fraud – but he didn’t recognize his loss. Instead, he begrudgingly agreed to a transfer of power while declaring protests are the fruit of “indignation and feelings of injustice in the electoral process.”

Many of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters took his vague language as encouragement, not a concession. “He didn’t recognize the result; he showed he is on the side of the people,” says Hudyson Perrut, a young evangelical pastor. “If Lula wasn’t a thief and had won legitimately, we wouldn’t be here.”

Demonstrators have rallied around a deep disdain for Lula, who has struggled to shake his own tainted past to win back the trust of millions of Brazilians. The former unionist oversaw a golden era of growth from 2003 to 2010, when sky-high commodity prices funded generous social programs that pulled millions out of poverty.

But Lula’s legacy was tarnished when a corruption scandal embroiled his leftist Workers’ Party (PT) and landed him in prison in 2018. Even though a judge scrapped his conviction, freeing him to run for a third term, many Brazilians can’t forgive and forget.

For Valéria das Graças, a child psychologist, the leftist’s past isn’t easy to overlook. “We can’t have a convict as president,” she shouts as firecrackers rip through the sky, leaving a yellow trace of smoke. “He belongs in jail. We want the armed forces to take over.”

Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has long attacked democratic institutions, referred to Brazil’s military dictatorship nostalgically, and suggested that the Supreme Court be dismantled. He has peddled baseless claims about fraud in Brazil’s electronic voting machines, saying they are rigged to favor the left.

He convinced Simone Alho. “We don’t trust the result. We don’t trust the electoral process,” says Ms. Alho, a banker wearing bright green-and-yellow eyeliner. 

These unfounded assertions of fraud, echoed and amplified on social media and messaging apps, have succeeded in mobilizing Mr. Bolsonaro’s base, bringing them from online to physically on the streets, says Letícia Cesarino, a professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina who researches far-right groups on the messaging app Telegram.

While most observers agree that a military coup is unlikely, the demands of protesters underscore the challenges ahead. Brazil’s brutal 21-year dictatorship was defined by censorship, torture, and repression. Since the transition to democracy, steps have been taken to keep the military firmly separate from politics, something observers say Mr. Bolsonaro took pains to chip away at during his time in office by handing out thousands of top government jobs to current and former military officers. In an unprecedented move, he asked the military to monitor and audit the elections. 

“There is a segment of the population that wants to essentially redraw the Constitution,” says Dr. Cesarino. “They clearly have their own idea of democracy. ... That’s really worrying.”

Democratic “danger zone”?

Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat doesn’t signify an end to the far-right’s reach in politics. Allies elected to congressional, senatorial, and gubernatorial posts have cemented the far-right as a powerful political force. When Lula is sworn in on Jan. 1, he will have to negotiate with a potentially hostile Congress bent on pushing Brazil further to the right.

Alliances with political opponents, which take time, energy, and political concessions to build, will be the only way to govern, observers say.

Lula will also have to win over evangelical Christians, a growing force now representing a third of the population. It’s considered a base loyal to Mr. Bolsonaro, who gained their trust by warning of a “leftist attack” on values, like bringing transgender bathrooms into public schools.

During the election, many misinformation campaigns centered around religion, including false claims that Lula planned to shut down churches. Lula has tried to reassure religious Brazilians that he represents no threat. Just weeks before the runoff vote, Lula issued a statement insisting he “does not have a pact” with the devil, after Mr. Bolsonaro’s campaign tried to link him to satanism, a move unthinkable in most modern elections around the globe.

Lula’s PT was once the party of choice for many of the poor, Black Brazilians that today fill evangelical pews. As the left shifted its attention to divisive issues like abortion and gay rights over the past decade, pastors began to urge their congregations to reject leftist candidates. During his campaign, Lula mostly stayed silent on divisive topics, and tried to build bridges with religious leaders. Since his victory, he has won the endorsement of powerful evangelicals like Silas Malafaia, who once cast him as the enemy, possibly opening up a path to earn the trust of more evangelical congregants.

And economics could ultimately trump religious fervor. Lula’s election comes at a crucial time for Brazil, when a punishing economic crisis has sent food and fuel prices surging. About 33 million people are now going hungry, reversing decades of social and economic progress.

“These voters are not just evangelicals – he doesn’t just have to talk to them about values,” says Dr. Cassimiro. “He can reach them on other issues too, especially by improving life for the poor.”

But more extreme segments of the far-right are likely to continue to move toward the fringes, fed in large part by the proliferation of disinformation on social media. Crackdowns on “fake news” during the election backfired, as Supreme Court judges and electoral authorities have come under attack for going too far in their efforts to curb the spread of misinformation. Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters say these institutions are censoring them, sowing further doubts in independent institutions key to a healthy democracy.

By Friday, most blockades around the country were cleared after Mr. Bolsonaro appealed to his supporters to lift the roadblocks to avoid economic turmoil. But, on messaging apps, his supporters are busy planning more protests, including demonstrations in front of military establishments that took place over the weekend. Their actions signal that voters unhappy with Lula’s victory aren’t ready to accept his win just yet, even as Mr. Bolsonaro stands down. 

“Bolsonaro’s defeat is like a sigh of relief for democracy,” says Dr. Cassimiro. “But that doesn’t mean it’s out of the danger zone.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect developments in the news.