How the streets and social media drove Lula to a historic comeback in Brazil

Após a primeira fase da eleição presidencial brasileira há três semanas, o presidente de esquerda Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva teria dito a aliados que não conseguia entender como terminou em segundo lugar depois de um governo que considerava o melhor de seus três mandatos.

A mood of dismay swept Brazil’s left, and because 9 million voters for the other candidates, all of them on the right, were expected to mostly transfer to senator Flávio Bolsonaro, analysts widely saw the far-right senator’s victory as certain.

Então, na noite seguinte à eleição, estudantes da Universidade Federal Fluminense tomaram as ruas de Niterói, cidade de 480. 000 habitantes, do outro lado da Baía de Guanabara, em relação ao Rio de Janeiro, para protestar contra o retorno ao poder de um membro da família Bolsonaro, cujo patriarca, o ex‑presidente Jair Bolsonaro, pai de Flávio, está em prisão domiciliar por tentativa de golpe.

Two days later, another student protest took over downtown Rio and, in the days that followed, similar ones spread across the country in organic demonstrations that analysts and Lula himself agree gave new life to his campaign and played a decisive role in his historic comeback in the runoff.

Read more“I want to thank the generosity of Brazil’s young people who took to the streets to defend democracy,” Lula said in his victory speech on Sunday night after defeating Bolsonaro.

Political scientist Fábio Vasconcellos said Lula’s victory, in which for the first time in Brazil’s democratic history a second-placed candidate overturned a first-round defeat in the runoff, could be explained by a combination of the streets, social media and the machinery of government – in recent weeks, Lula approved a “package of benefits” at the limits of what electoral law allows, including increasing and bringing forward payments from the main cash-transfer programme for poor families.

The channel had 60,000 followers by the end of its first day and, by election Sunday, more than 10 million, and Lula’s digital reach overtook Bolsonaro’s.

Lula’s campaign also overhauled his online communications, and the incumbent, who turns 81 on Tuesday, began recording selfie videos despite not owning a mobile phone.

Na noite de domingo, ele disse que lhe haviam dado um telefone e que “de agora em diante vou falar muito com o povo brasileiro, muitas vezes ao dia, diretamente”.

Com as ruas e as redes sociais, “o clima de derrota foi gradualmente substituído por esperanças de um retorno ao longo dessas três semanas”, disse Vasconcellos.

Camila Rocha, a political scientist who studies Brazil’s new right, said Lula’s comeback also represented “a broad rejection of the Bolsonarista project for Brazil”.

Read moreShe has been interviewing undecided voters since May and said “the fear voters had, workers had, of losing rights and also of a possible concentration of power in Bolsonaro’s hands was very clear”, which meant that even people who did not like Lula voted for him this time.

Bolsonaro had won 56. 1m votes in the first round and received 3. 7 million more in the runoff. Lula, by contrast, went from 53. 9m to 64. 2m. The more than 10m-vote increase came both from persuading voters to turn out after historically high abstention in the first round and from convincing voters from other candidates, including Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro was also embroiled in several controversies recently, including saying he would use the new, even more conservative congress to change the constitution and “re-democratise” Brazil, as well as the two federal police inquiries in which he is under investigation over alleged corruption and money laundering.

Muitos analistas também apontaram para o peso de Lula em si. “Se fosse outro candidato, Bolsonaro já teria vencido na primeira volta,” disse a cientista política Helcimara de Souza Telles.

Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, Lula’s campaign manager, answered without hesitation when asked what explained the historic election fightback: “President Lula. We have a great statesman on our team.

Temos um jogador estrela. Foi isso que realmente fez a diferença. Não tenho a menor dúvida sobre isso.

The question already occupying the minds of Brazil’s left is what happens next, given that Lula has said this was his last election.

Vasconcellos believes Lula’s re-election campaign, “from what we saw on the streets, offered the Brazilian left an opportunity for renewal”.