How might Jair Bolsonaro win Brazil’s election?
The maths still favour Lula, but the economy and hard campaigning will help the incumbent
FOR MOST of this year Brazil’s presidential election looked as though it would be won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist who was president between 2003 and 2011. Polls had put Lula, as he is commonly known, ahead of Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing incumbent, by double digits for months. Yet the first round on October 2nd turned out to be far closer than pollsters and many commentators had expected. Mr Bolsonaro took 43.2% to Lula’s 48.4%. That is a difference of around 6m votes in an electorate of 156m people. Ahead of the run-off on October 30th, The Economist’s poll tracker shows Lula and Mr Bolsonaro at 52% and 48%, respectively. That is a technical tie given the margin of error. How might Mr Bolsonaro win?
This article appeared in the The Economist explains section of the print edition under the headline “How might Jair Bolsonaro win Brazil’s election?”
From the October 29th 2022 edition
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