The election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil in the run-off on October 30 was a foregone conclusion. Equally certain, after Lula failed to defeat incumbent Jair Bolsanaro in the first round on October 2, was that it would be a cliffhanger although Lula was the odds-on favourite. In the past, too, it is in the run-off that Lula had won two terms. Therefore, it is no surprise that Lula’s margin was less than two per cent.
More surprising, and significant, than the election outcome is that in such a closely fought, high-stakes presidential battle, the voter turnout was 79 per cent. In Brazil, where voting is mandatory and non-compliance punishable with a fine, nearly 5.7 million (roughly 5 per cent) cast votes that were either blank or null; which precludes their being fined. Obviously, the prospect of a fine was not a deterrent for the 32 million (20.60 per cent) who abstained from voting.
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The second significant aspect is that Lula’s victory seems to have been welcomed in most world capitals, including by leaders known to be averse, if not hostile, to the left, especially in South America. Perhaps, the red tide sweeping the continent is far too powerful for any modern-day Canute to want it rolled back; and, reality requires even the world’s anti-left leaders such as US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron to accept the inevitable when the forces of regressive nationalism are on the rise in large parts of the world.
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The leftward shift in South America began in 2020 in Bolivia; gained momentum in 2021 with right-wing politicians being worsted in presidential elections in Peru, Chile, Honduras and Nicaragua; and, continues on its winning trajectory. The first to score in 2022 was Colombia and now it is Brazil rooting for Lula and his pro-poor policies which are opposed to the ecological degradation that was rampant under Bolsanaro.
Lula’s victory is far more important than that of the left in that region. Brazil’s population, the size of its economy and its place in international bodies and multilateral forums invest the political outcome with a significance that should resonate far beyond South America.
Conventional, and dominant narratives, have presented that course of democracy as moving from the West to the rest of the world. (This “West” excludes South America). Less known and taught are that South American countries experienced their first democratic impulses in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The revival of truly inclusive and representative democracies in South America striving for equity, justice and accountability and founded on a new political language may now shape new accounts of the history of democracy.
Anachronistic accounts of history that flog the theme of the best of democracy flowing only from the West to the rest may be in for revision. At a time when the US, Europe and Asia are witnesses to the rise of backward nationalism, violent majoritarianism and neo-fascist forces, election outcomes in South America are cause for hope.
There is a message in these mandates that the ‘advanced’ West would do well to heed.
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