Election Reflections

I recently returned from my annual visit to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. My trip was bookended by the Brazilian Presidential run-off election which took place the day after I arrived, and the US mid-term elections which had just been completed on my return.

In Rio, the day before the election there was a parade for Lula in Cococabana and when we arrived at our Airbnb post-parade the streets were still full of red-shirted Lula supporters. News clips showed the 81-year-old jumping up and down on his float like a 20-year-old.

In Brazil, if election results are too close a run-off is required, and in this year’s election challenger, Flavio Bolsonaro, led incumbent Lula da Silva by a couple of percentage points, but in a dramatic turnaround Lula was triumphant in the re-run.

The Bolsonaros are allies of Donald Trump and when Flavio’s father Jair Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election to Lula, his supporters staged a Trump-style invasion of capital buildings. It was unsuccessful and Jair Bolsonaro is now serving a 25-year sentence for attempting to overthrow the election results, albeit under house arrest due to bad health claims.

Like his father Flavio also contested election results, but, currently under investigation for corruption, he fled the country after officials threatened to confiscate his passport. Where did he go? To the US of course, always a safe haven for Trumpers.

It would seem then that Democracy may be working better in Brazil than in the US where someone who attempted to overthrow the election results is now in jail. The guy who attempted that here suffered no consequences and was re-elected President.

Democracy is working better in Brazil, a country where voting is mandatory, perhaps because they cherish it more, having earned it only 50 years ago after years of repressive dictatorship. In the US, democracy has been taken for granted…until now, with a President who wants to act, if not like a Dictator, then definitely an authoritarian with no regard for Congress.

Back home the US was still buzzing from the blue tsunami that swept the country. Voters have apparently returned to their senses, realizing they have been repeatedly lied too. In the recent elections the will of the people was emphatically reasserted and perhaps most refreshing, all the Republican money that was poured into the mid-terms made no difference. The people spoke, rejecting a Ruler in favor of a government.

So, it was Lula’s red wave that swept through Brazil and the blue wave in the US, both Democratic. The Brazilian election bucked a South American right-wing trend; in another recent election in Serbia last month Serbia’s Student List, a youth-backed opposition movement, won parliamentary elections ending 14 years of repressive rule. And we know what happened to authoritarian Victor Orban in Hungary earlier this year. Perhaps there is hope for Democracy after all.