Laura Carlsen

Tens of thousands of Brazilians marched in Sao Paulo Saturday in a final show of support for former president Lula da Silva before Sunday’s election. “March” is a far too military work to describe what was really a dance, a party, an explosion of hope.

For the soured mainstream media that has tried to depict this election as a choice between two evils, the enthusiasm belied the line that Lula’s supporters are simply voting against the current president, Jair Bolsonaro. Although the chant of JAIR OUT! repeated constantly on the route down the emblematic Avenida Paulista to the Roosevelt Plaza, just as often the crowd chanted, or rather sang, LU-LA, LU-LA and held up the thumbs and index fingers in the letter “L”.

All ages, colors and affiliations turned out for the march, favored with sunny skies until the end, when a downpour shortly after dark sent marchers into nearby bars and restaurants. Lula road on the top of a truck, with José Mujica at his side. He smiled, stretched out to shake hands with the crowd, signed baseball caps and t-shirts people tossed onto the truck and spoke briefly: Alongside him rode Fernando Hadad, candidate for SaoPaulo in a close race against the far right, and former Uruguayan president José Mujica—reminder that Lula the chance to see a consolidated second “pink Tide” this century, after progressives dominated South America in the early 2000s

Thousands of flags with LULA HADAD and other slogans waved against blue skies. In buildings along the route people gathered on balconies and leaned out of windows far above to dangle LULA banners and shout approval. Passing cars honked their horns and accepted campaign stickers and flags through open windows. A cheer rose when new spread of a new poll showing Lula pulling farther ahead of Bolsonaro at 54% to 46%.

Voting is obligatory in Brazil, but the fine is minimal – far less than the cost of transportation for Brazilians who live in remote areas or can barely scrape together the cost of a bus ticket. That’s a lot of people—a recent study by the Fundación Getulio Vargas, 23 million live in poverty—more than 7 million more than 2020. In the first round. The fight in the run-off has been for the large but now greatly narrowed number of undecideds and the 31% who did not vote. A larger turnout favors Lula, who is far more likely to have the support of those for whom voting is more difficult.

I can’t recall a more joyful campaign event—in any country. AMLO’s marches were huge and confident and in the spontaneous outpouring after Petro’s election on the streets from Suarez to Cali driving back on election night, Colombians danced and took over the streets. But here it’s still the day before the elections and already the passion of victory over a truly dangerous rival has taken over. Nothing is assured and the reports of vote buying, and other tactics from the far rights bag of dirty tricks have grown in recent days. But if current estimates hold, it’s an easy bet that we’ll see the largest public outpouring in the nation’s history after election results are in.

[Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas Program in Mexico City and advisor to Just Associates (JASS). Courtesy: CounterPunch.]

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And as we were going to the Press, the news came in from Progressive International:

It’s official: Lula has won. He has defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the next president of Brazil.

This election is the world’s most significant of 2022 — and it is hard to overstate how fraught with danger the process has been. Bolsonaro and his supporters were relentless in their assault on the right to vote, from voter suppression to outright violence.

Days before the elections, Roberto Jefferson, a former federal deputy and self-professed personal friend of Bolsonaro, threw grenades and open fired on police claiming that he would “not surrender” to the tyranny of Brazil’s Supreme Court. Congresswoman Carla Zambelli, also a Bolsonaro ally, pulled a gun in central São Paulo down the street from the Lula rally the day before polling day.

On election day, reports of federal highway police blocking roads and conducting unwarranted vehicle searches in Lula’s bases of support areas across Brazil were heard — yet the Chief Justice of Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court declined to take any substantive action.

It is no surprise then that some of Lula’s first words after the victory were, “We didn’t just defeat a candidate, we defeated the machinery of the Brazilian state.”

That is why the Progressive International was in Brazil. For more than a year, the world has been wary of a coup in Brazil as Bolsonaro repeatedly indicated that he would not accept a loss. With Brazilian democracy itself on the line, Brazil’s largest trade union federation and PI member, the CUT, invited the PI to bring the eyes of the world to the election and help defend democracy.

This victory is historic. This election result is a demonstration of the determination of progressive forces in Brazil to reclaim their democracy against all odds. And forces of the right world over — corporations, big polluters, and the imperialist interests that helped unseat Lula during his last presidency — should be afraid.

In his speech as president-elect, Lula immediately championed urgent action against the climate emergency, indigenous justice, and internationalism. “Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon; a standing tree is worth more than tons of illegally extracted timber, a river of clean water is worth more than all the gold extracted at the cost of mercury that kills the fauna and puts human life at risk…When an Indigenous child dies because of the greed of predators, a part of humanity dies with it.” And he spoke firmly against the New Cold War that is threatening humanity. “We will not accept a new Cold War between the United States and China. We will have relations with everyone,” he said.

By defeating the far right, the largest country the region has become the final piece in what some are calling a second Pink Tide — an alliance of progressive Latin American governments and the working classes to end poverty, combat climate change, deepen regional integration, and build a new, fairer economic order. Brazil has brought hope to all of us contending with monsters around the globe.

“We defeated authoritarianism and fascism in this country. Democracy is back in Brazil,” said Lula. Today, we congratulate our friends, allies, and comrades in Brazil and celebrate the founding of a new, internationalist Brazil.

(The Progressive International is an international organization uniting and mobilizing progressive left-wing activists and organizations.)