The Brazil election holds lessons for Nigeria
President Lula da Silva of Workers Party last Sunday defeated his challenger, Flavio Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential run-off election. In a dramatic political fightback, Lula secured 51.8 per cent of the votes to win, while his right-wing challenger and son of former President Jaír Bolsonaro, garnered 48.2 per cent. Although Bolsonaro, who has fled to the United States, insists the election was rigged and has refused to concede defeat, his party has acknowledged the results of the presidential election, recognising the victory of the incumbent.
What makes the outcome quite remarkable is that in the first round of voting on 4 October, Lula came second with 45 per cent, behind Bolsonaro, who received 47 per cent and a 2.2 million vote advantage. But in the run-off, Lula won by a margin of 4.4 million in an election in which 124 million people voted. Between the two rounds of voting, Lula also went from second place to first place in 211 municipalities, including in two state capitals: Rio de Janeiro and Macapá. His remarkable recovery is credited to an intensive mobilisation of voters through the use of social media with one WhatsApp group dubbed as ‘Lula’s army’ recording nearly 11 million followers in the days preceding the election.
The outcome of the presidential election in Brazil is important for wider reasons. The clash between a liberal politician and a Trumpian conservative populist symbolised by Lula and Bolsonaro respectively is fast becoming an increasingly global pattern. But while the tribe of extremist leaders may be growing across the world, it is also important to properly appreciate the electoral value of people-oriented social programmes in the politics of emerging market democracies. Lula’s electoral victory in Brazil for a fourth time on the basis of socially beneficial legacies speaks to this.
It is noteworthy that in 2010, Lula was convicted on charges of corruption and money laundering after a controversial trial, and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. But he fought his case to the country’s Supreme Court where he was acquitted. Apparently because he left demonstrably beneficial social and economic legacies during his tenure as president, he remained a folk hero to millions of Brazilians and that reflected in his election four years ago and the current revalidation of that mandate.
Elections in Brazil are conducted by the Electoral Court (EC) at the municipal, state, and federal level. At its apex is the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) recognised as one of the most credible election management bodies in the world with the transparency of its processes. As Nigeria prepares for the 2027 general election, there are lessons to imbibe from the Brazilian election. The first lesson is that a democracy matures when the will of the people prevails no matter how thin the margins of victory. At the end, a statistical deadlock necessitated a run-off poll. The people waited and cast the second decisive ballot which returned a final outcome that may have been different from the earlier one because of an intensive campaign.
Two, the outcome of the Brazil election reveals that even the most enlightened scientific poll projections can fail. Before the election, the popular prediction was that Bolsonaro would win. But he lost, and the result is generally adjudged to be credible. Three, that the electorate accepted that the man who won the first round could lose the run-off poll without resorting to violence indicates a high level of confidence in the electoral process. It also says something about what a functioning democracy is all about.
Finally, democracy matures when the outcomes of elections do not lead to interminable litigations and compromised verdicts by a handful of judges who had nothing to do with the elections. That is in sharp contrast to what obtains in Nigeria where weeks before the 2027 general election, many of the parties are still waiting for the courts to decide who their real candidates are. But perhaps most importantly, while the presidential election outcome may have polarised the Brazilian society, the choice before the electorate was primarily policy-defined and not ethnic, regional or religious. Nigerians must learn from that.