Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.
With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.
Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.
Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.
A couple of things to understand about Brazilian elections:
- Voting is mandatory for all citizens aged 18-70, though failing to vote nets you a 4 BRL fine (less than a dollar)[1]
- Every Brazilian citizen has an ID with photo (I’ve only recently learned that USA doesn’t have something like a nationwide ID);
- Election happens on a sunday and people who have to work on said day can ask to leave for 2 hours in order to vote;
- Voting is standardized and organized at a federal level, even for municipal voting. The electoral tribunals exist solely for dealing with elections;
- The majority of funds spent on campaigns come from the electoral fund, which is distributed to parties according to how many elected deputies, senators and governors they have (a great way to ensure big parties stay rich and well funded). Up until 2014, corporations could still donate to campaigns. After that, only citizens may donate and only up to 10% of their earnings.
- The electronic urns are audited before and after elections[2], they are completely offline and save votes to an internal disk. Since their inception, despite many claims, no fault or fraud has ever been found on the hardware or software. Even fucking bozo and his flunkies couldn’t find any security breach back in 2022, while he was in power.
- With how urns are distributed, it’s easy to account if the total amount of registered votes is equal to the amount of voters that showed up. This first verification is done once voting time is over by the 4 poll workers that care for each urn/section.
- Voters have to do both ID and biometric verification (fingerprint) before voting
- No cell phones or kids go in the booth with you (take a wild guess why “no kids”)
I understand people who would rather have it be non mandatory, but think about a criminal group ensuring only “their people” go out to vote. With optional voting, it gets easier for them to ensure victory. This would be a real situation in many cities in Brazil, where said criminal groups already do everything in their power to ensure “their guys” get elected. ↩︎
This isn’t a “we self audited ourselves” situation, in case you’re wondering. Universities, Federal Police, Army and several other entities, public and private, can take part in the audit ↩︎
81 year old? Can’t a generation just fucking die already?
I agree but still better than a Trump aligned person winning. Anyone in that pool is like voting for the end times. Basically authoritarian types, anything must be better than them, even an old dude.Ill add that I know almost nothing except who Trump wanted to win and they’re bitching about results, the Trump way, oh also think the loser vamoosed recently, to the well known sanctuary of the United States. Oh good job we know how much they enjoy immigrants…he has money? Oh pardon my faux pas.
Being a fascist is bad enough, being an incompetent fascist is more than bad enough.
Now being an incompetent fascist that get’s humiliated against someone as old as trump is downright sad.Should have seen him at the debate. He was running circles around Bolsonaro, at thirty years his junior.
Electronic voting is such a liability for exactly this reason, it gives bad actors plausible doubt to throw on an election result.
Pen/pencil and paper. Much more secure.
There was a saying in Brazil, up to the 90s, that “elections are won in the counting” - fraud was rampant, especially at municipal/state level and the electronic urns got rid of that.
Paper can only be considered more secure if you have special paper and special printing like money bills, otherwise they can be falsified much more easily.
Lost me on that. Pen and paper aren’t at all more secure than Brazilian voting machines.
They are essentially low spec linux computers without ports, internet acess or easy way in. The only thing they do it store results and print them on paper.
Even if one manages to crack open a machine and sneak something inside, there is security to prevent it to pass as genuineThe internal state of the machine is not observable and not auditable. Anything stored in a computer can be falsified and the voter cannot know that it recorded their vote correctly. Unless the printing you are referring to is that it prints a paper ballot for each voter that they can check and then drop in a ballot box, then there is a step in the process that scrutineers can’t have eyes on. Even if the software is open source and the scrutineers got to watch it being compiled and installed on the machines, there are so many unobservables. Computers are literally billions of times more complicated and harder to audit than pencil and paper.
The only electronic voting system I would even begin to entertain trusting is one that basically just fills the ballot out for you to make sure it is legible, and that you can validate the paper ballot. Such a system could then also keep its own count, giving a much quicker unofficial count before the paper ballots are counted, but I don’t really think it’s worth it. It is still an extremely complex machine that it would be easy to hide some sort of surveillance/wireless connection in, and anyone who can inspect the running total counts can also use that to determine how each person that goes through the booth voted.
There is value in the brutal simplicity of pencil and paper, folding your ballot, and putting it in a box. It’s a system anyone can understand and that the human eye can audit.
Electronic voting is such a liability for exactly this reason
Gotta go back to the old tried and true Butterfly Ballot system. That never fails.
Pen/pencil and paper. Much more secure.
Nothing in the election machinery prevents a candidate from claiming fraud.
Certainly, nothing about pen and paper ballots prevents disreputable agents from stuffing ballot boxes or just refusing to count opposition votes entirely.
this was literally the narrative to try and make them less secure by the bolsonaros when they were in power. the brazilian voting machine is actually state of the art and they know it.
Crazy how you can win by standing for something instead of twerking for fascists. Can’t relate due to being American.
How does a far-right nut job get that many votes? Lula isn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination from what I understand, but damn, man, when the choice is crazy dictatory 2.0, the choice is easy.
Even your impression of “He isn’t a saint”, assuming you don’t mean it in the most generic sense that would apply to literally anybody, shows the power of rightwing propaganda.
I haven’t gotten any information about Lula from right wing propaganda. I get it from my friend who lives in Brazil and tells me what he is doing in the country. I don’t live in Brazil, so why would I read about Brazilian politics? Lol
It’s because the far-right nut jobs friends control the digital media landscape.
Also apolitical people being controlled by big tech
IDK how did Trump get elected? Oh I know propaganda and a solid chunk of humans being dumber than my stupidest cat, who I should note almost died as a baby due to not even recognizing wet food as food and to this day only eats dry food because that’s what I trained him to eat I have shoved chicken in his mouth and he spat it out.
That’s literally all he will eat, not complaining though since it keeps him from being an ass while I’m eating.
Well, how did a known child-rapist and convicted felon get (re)elected? Also was an easy choice, but I guess a black woman was too far, they’d rather have the child fucker.
Things I think helped Trump in 2016, and to an extent 2020:
- Be a celebrity on television.
- Be a billionaire, run in one of the parties, attack all the others running in the primaries, and imply that if you don’t get the nomination, you’ll run as an independent. I think Trump would rather Clinton have won than any other Republican running for President. The GOP didn’t want another 1992, so they gave into him.
- Pick the low-hanging fruit. Attack Muslims when Islamic State were committing atrocities, SJWs, and corrupt Democrats (of which there were/are plenty). Exploit weaknesses.
- America Uber Alles. Americans don’t need the world.
- Luck is a factor.
Its almost like putting a former DA as the candidate for left leaning electorate was a bad choice.
I think the cover-up of Biden’s decline was more of a factor.
Had he resigned in very early 2024 (maybe become a President-emeritus-of-sorts), she acts as President for a few months and shows her stuff, and have real primaries (which she probably would have won if she was half-competent as acting President), she wouldn’t have gotten 1.5% of the popular vote less than Trump, but probably more.
Also maybe go on Joe Rogan, and maybe be more aggressive in the debate. “Donald Trump, you are such a liar! Please stop lying! You can’t stop lying! Stop lying!” Maybe not even bother debating him.
Agree. Ultimately she was a bad choice and a bad candidate who benefited because tRump is such a piece of shit. The Democtartic elite have no respect for the constituents.
Nah the Blue MAGA people would rather infantalize her and point to her race and gender as her reason for losing. Bill Maher would be so proud.
You Americans better fucking vote like the Brazilians. Congrats Lula and carry on exporting and filling the massive holes the MAGA fucknuts opened for you.
You Americans better fucking vote like the Brazilians.
Brazilian voting is mandatory.
And their mandatory voting system has routinely produced far right governments.
It isn’t really mandatory in practice. If you don’t vote you have to either justify it or pay a fine.
The fine is less than 3 dollars currently. Not a lot for an American, not a lot for a Brazilian. It does vary, but doesn’t go into the double digits.
Being outside your designed voting place is a valid justification, being sick is a valid justification - the system really isn’t so strict.
Would say it’s symbolically mandatory
Unfortunately the majority of deputies and senators are from Bolsonaro’s party. Lula’s win was a huge victory, but we still have a lot to fight for here in Brazil.
The good thing is that Lula’s party learned how to comunicate through social media, this helped him TREMENDOUSLY in his victory.
more like the people took it to their own hands, came and showed it to him on a silver platter. lula’s campaign was slow and cold until that.
things look up if that willingness to fight for the country continues. after both a historic election and the end of the 6x1, i figure there’s great potential hiding there.
Good things democrats are running ads throwing trans people into the meat grinder for no reason. When they don’t even have to talk about trans people when they should be talking about the fact that Donald Trump has raped children and has ducked the ENTIRE economy. But Dems are going to do there best to try and shit brain themselves out of a sure fire victory.
Edit: Also congratulations to Brazil from an embattled American.
The DNC are essentially the controlled party outside of 2 people aoc and bernie, none in the DNC are willing to vote for something else, they want to still be apart of the grift of what the GOP has, Donor money.
My big worry is that since Dick Cheney passed away, who are the the Dems going to parade around on the campaign trail with and receive glowing endorsements from? Henry Kissinger and Adolf Hitler are also dead. Maybe they can get one of Trump’s kids to endorse them but that seems like a bit of a stretch.
What ads? All I’ve seen are R attack ads spouting nonsense and transgender people.
Here’s a playbook of the Rights response to this.
- Say he cheated. Over and over and over and over again.
- Be completely unwilling to accept actual evidence that proves there was no cheating.
- Act outraged and suggest or imply that physical violence is an acceptable response.
- Never ever, ever admit you were and are wrong.
🇧🇷 🇧🇷 🇧🇷
brasil campeão porra
🇧🇷
I’d prefer it if someone other than Lula could keep the fascists out of power. Still, it bought Brazil a few more years.
What a save!
Why is it always the right wingers that are the worst losers?
It’s the other way around. Right wing politics and especially fascism are simply an extension of whining and stomping feet. Once you notice the links between the two they are impossible to unsee.
I like to imagine the reaction of different people being told “no.” Like someone who is trying to rob you versus someone who is trying to help you. It’s fury versus disappointment.
Right wing philosophy is at it’s core a lie. Any validity in the process threatens their ability to accumulate and consolidate power. So they must seek to make the process seem invalid at every turn.
Right wing philosophy boils down to “obey me or else”.
The origin of the words left and right in a political context comes from the French Revolution. Specifically from the events of the Estates General, and the writing of the failed constitution of 1789.
The first vote, “Should the Monarch have an absolute veto over laws passed?” was determined by seating. Those in favor (the nobility and clergy from the richer areas) sat to the right of the speaker’s podium, those opposed (people who wanted democracy, which included the some of the country nobles, country clergy, and the near entirety of the third estate) sat to the left.
This pattern repeated on most questions, those who supported monarchy sat to the right, democracy to the left. The newspapers, which were recently completely freed of censorship, started using left and right as shorthand for the two sides.
The philosophers then stepped in. Tomas Paine and Edmund Burke for two English language examples. Paine actually traveled to France and served in the legislature, despite not speaking French. Edmund Burke stayed in England and wrote about how the masses needed to be controlled by their betters, who should be selected not by birth, but by wealth. Burke was not a noble, but he was rich.
Edmund Burke is the father of Conservatism. He was somewhat explicit that the thing he wanted to conserve, was power over others. Later writers have obfuscated things a bit, but if you look, the message is the same.
So, when a right-winger loses, it’s someone who really wants unchecked control over others being told to fuck off.
Left and right thinking derive from religious context dating back even before Judaism. Left represents living with free will as professed in esoteric ideologies while right represents ideologies professing living under ethical codes. Even within the occult ideologies there is left-hand path and right-hand path. Although, in that context left-hand path represents the worst of all evil.
Yeah, a lot of the ancient occult wisdom was made up in the last couple of centuries. Con artists saturate that space, or rather, they created that space.
But Left and Right in a political context is directly traceable to the French Revolution and the events of 1789, and is well documented because of the removal of censorship on newspapers that I had mentioned.
Such condescension and misrepresentation of my message.
Left and right handed in context of spirituality dates to tantric origins. Vāmācāra and Dakṣiṇācāra are Sanskrit defining those very terms. I happen to know this based on my years of studies. While it was later reused by occultists in the late 1800s it appears the same is true during the late 1700s as well.
When researching maybe learn to invest your time in research rather than performing a 60 second internet search only to wind up on Wikipedia. Better to actually educate yourself, and others, on scholarly works rather than take the easy path of a charlatan to appear intelligent on a forum.
If they possessed the ability to be mature they wouldn’t be right wingers in the first place.
I believe there was cheating; the whole business about the late closing of polling station, along with so many other things, was highly suspicious. Lula also proved to be a piece of shit during his previous terms; on top of that, he’s pro-China, pro-North Korea, pro-Russia, and pro-Chavismo, just a total disaster.
But Bolsonaro should never, ever be (re)elected. His term from 2019 to 2023 was abysmal, and his handling of Covid was like a horror movie. The most sensible thing would have been to choose a third, more rational, sensible and nuanced option, but damn, it seems people just don’t know how to vote, whether here in Latin America or pretty much anywhere else in the world.
Lol both candidates asked for the polls to be opened longer. One was a little shit about it afterwards and demanded annullment.
The cheating happened with Meta favouring Bolsonaro campaign, and local polititians actively trying to stop people from voting by cutting public transportation on voting day. Bolsonaro accused Lula of corruption, so Lula opened his bank and telephone accounts publicly while Bolsonaro refused to do the same to prove himself clean. Bolsonaro carved his rejection rate himself among anyone with open eyes.
and local polititians actively trying to stop people from voting by cutting public transportation on voting day
Also, both candidates asked for the time extension.
Do you have any reason to believe there was cheating other than “I don’t like the guy”?
But Bolsonaro should never, ever be (re)elected. His term from 2019 to 2023 was abysmal, and his handling of Covid was like a horror movie.
You always get the most informed takes from the most knowledgable people. In this case, he doesn’t know that these are two different Bolsonaros. Jair Bolsanaro was the previous president. Flavio Bolsonaro is his son and the person that just lost.
Oh, sorry, I just had a shortcircuit.
Still, Flavio shouldn’t never, EVER, be elected too. Being son of Jair and defending (and being defended by) Trump is not a good presentation card.
Thanks for the catch!
Bolsonaro still has a backup plan that he has been crafting for a long time.
spoiler
A ligature made of napkins that’s strong enough to support his bodyweight.
Brazil and Serbia. Good on them. America, you’re up. I would include Israel but even the best possible government there fucking sucks balls.
if only we got some of this in Hong Kong…
Good lol
