The Irish Times view on the Brazilian election: a question of democracy

After an indecisive first round earlier this month, Brazilian voters will elect a new leader on Sunday when far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro faces former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a run-off. The extra four weeks of campaigning have only further deepened concerns about the quality of the election in Latin America’s largest democracy.

Neither candidate has spent much of the remaining available time explaining how they would tackle the daunting challenges facing a society left crippled by another decade lost to economic stagnation. Instead the race has degenerated into a series of personal attacks that have only deepened fissures in an already dangerously polarised society.

Lula is less culpable on this charge. But his campaign has been poor. Turning 77 this week, it seems that the energy which made him such a formidable political force in the past has dimmed. Incredibly, he has not prepared a ready defence for the most obvious line of attack he faces – questions about the endemic corruption that occurred during his Workers’ Party’s 13 years in power.

He is also too reliant on appealing to memories of his two successful terms between 2003 and 2010, of which many young voters have no recollection. To the frustration of financial markets he has been noticeably vague about how he will govern if he wins.

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In part this reticence is that of a front-runner, playing defence when polls predict he will win. But Lula’s lacklustre campaign has left the race tighter than it should have been against an incumbent who is coarse, cruel, incompetent, and a live authoritarian threat to the country’s democracy.

Given his contempt for democratic and civic norms it is no surprise that President Bolsonaro has polluted the election with an unprecedented deluge of lies, fake news and threats not to respect the result should he lose.

That last factor alone should see voters restrict him to one term in office. The academic literature shows would-be dictators who pose as democrats are emboldened in their authoritarian ambitions by re-election.

On the campaign trail Bolsonaro has already hinted that in a second term he might pack the supreme court, one of the last centres of opposition to his assault on Brazil’s institutions.

For all his flaws Lula is a genuine democrat. His long track record in public life proves this. Bolsonaro’s does not. Instead he has spoken of his affinity with authoritarian leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

If Brazilian voters care about their democracy and the social values it protects they will eject him from power. But it is nonetheless alarming there is a chance that they might not do so.