PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION BRAZIL. The first round of the presidential election in Brazil will take place on October 2, 2022 and if Lula is still in the lead even if the gap with Jair Bolsonaro is closing.
[Mis à jour le 16 septembre 2022 à 15h54] The first round of the presidential election in Brazil is approaching and the gap between the two main candidates is closing. Unsurprisingly Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, and Jaïr Bolsonaro have been leading the polls for several months and are still given as the favorites, three weeks before the ballot. Lula, candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) and former Brazilian head of state, retains first place in opinion polls but according to a study published on 15th September by Datafolha and commented by the director of the institute Luciana Chong, there are only ten points that separate him from the current president of the Federative Republic of Brazil. If the two men, one on the left and the other on the far right, share almost all the votes, it is also because they have monopolized the presidential campaign for several months. An omnipresence that they owe more to their notoriety than to their program or their proposals as shown by the last two debates where the offensive, the invectives or the softness got the better of the rest for the two contenders for the presidency.
Lula on the left and Bolsonaro on the right accommodate themselves to this configuration which places them in a duel despite the ten other candidates for the Brazilian presidential election. If the duel should prevail in the polls on October 2, it is already taking shape in the streets of Brazil with each political representation of one or the other. Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro have also mentioned on various occasions in September, in particular on Wednesday 7, the national holiday, their ability to take to the streets to impose their candidate and to protest in the event of the defeat of the outgoing president.
What are the polls for the 2022 presidential election in Brazil?
Throughout the campaign, Lula remained at the top of voting intentions in the polls and at times had a comfortable lead over Jair Bolsonaro. A few weeks before the election, the trends remain the same but the far-right candidate is catching up. According to the study published by Datafolha on September 15, 2022, Lula is credited with 45% of the voting intentions against 33% for Bolsonaro. The leftist dissident Ciro Gomes comes next but far behind with between 7 to 9% of the voting intentions while Simone Tebet painfully exceeds 5% and all the other candidates gravitate around 1%.
Who are the presidential candidates in Brazil?
A year before the presidential election in Brazil, the candidacies of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and of Jair Bolsonaro were in no doubt. The two politicians officially entered the electoral race in July and have been campaigning for several months. By running for the Brazilian presidential election, Lula is returning to politics after being imprisoned and therefore deprived of election in 2018. Freed from his conviction deemed biased by the Supreme Court, in 2021, Lula is seeking a third term and has chances to win thanks to its popularity with the working classes.
The other heavyweight in the Brazilian presidential election and the current head of state, Jaïr Bolsonaro, who hopes to be re-elected despite a mandate marked by revolts and criticism of his policy. The Brazilian president shows a decline in popularity among his supporters including right-wing voters, the army and big bosses but has regained the confidence of some during the campaign.
Nine other candidates have entered the race, including one who appears as the third man in the election: Ciro Gomes. This former center-left minister wants to be another voice for voters disappointed by Lula’s PT, but the Brazilian press does not rule out a possible rapprochement between the two left-wing candidates. Still on the left is the dissident candidate Vera Lucia Salgadothe communist Sofia Manzano and Leonardo Pericles of the popular union. right this time Simone Tebet and Soraya Thronicke are center-right candidates while Jose Maria Eymael is further to the right of the political spectrum. There is also the liberal-thinking candidate Felipe d’Avila.
When will the 2022 presidential election take place in Brazil?
The Brazilian presidential election is scheduled for Sundays October 2 and 30, 2022. The ballot to elect the head of state is held every four years and the last vote, which was held on October 28, 2018, was Sacred Jair Bolsonaro. This year the politician is a candidate for his succession for a second consecutive term. It should be noted that the 1988 Constitution limits the exercise of the function of President of the Federative Republic of Brazil to two consecutive terms but does not prevent later former heads of state from representing themselves, like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who governed the country from 2003 to 2010.
Once elected, the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil is in place for four years. But before settling at the head of the country it is necessary to win the majority vote in two rounds. A victory in the first round of the presidential election is possible if a candidate wins an absolute majority of the votes, ie 50% of the votes plus one vote. Otherwise, the two candidates in the lead are qualified for the second round and it is then the one who obtains the best score in the ballot box who is elected. Each candidate presents himself with a running mate who is a candidate for the vice-presidency. During the presidential election, Brazilians elect both the head of state and his right-hand man. He too is elected for a term of four.
On the suffrage side, the participation rate is generally high due to the compulsory vote imposed by the 1988 Constitution which obliges all citizens from 18 to 70 to participate in all the elections. An obligation from which Brazilians aged 16 to 18, those over 70, but also soldiers and illiterate people are exempt. This obligation does not prevent an increase in the abstention rate in recent years. In the 2018 presidential election, 21.3% of voters abstained.