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Comment by thimabi | Hacker News Reader

Once again, a clear anti-Bolsonaro vote from the majority of the electorate. Lula won because he got last-minute support from the moderates and even some right-wingers. It certainly does not feel like a victory of the left.

Now he will face a much bigger opposition in Congress and therefore will have to find a middle ground.

I expect his policies to move even further to the right. This might pave the way for his vice-president Alckmin, a historical right-winger, to run in the 2030 elections — likely against São Paulo’s governor Tarcísio de Freitas, also a right-winger and considered more moderate than the Bolsonaros despite being associated with them.

(reposting my own comment from a related thread)

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i don't know why you were downvoted. any turn to the moderation/center seems good news to me. those crazy swings between extremes left or right are just bad. i have never voted for both bolsonaro neither lula and crave for something closer to the center.

lula is a little less crazy (compared to bolsonaro), likely not anti-science, preserves the amazon, seems to care about keeping the same constituition and so on, but he heaves his hand when it comes to (mostly populist) spending, like there's no tomorrow.

he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term. so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest. people that likes him usually say they don't like milei, but his incredible debt build up is actually a future-milei magnet.

also, after so much terms and "custo brazil" ("Brazilian (Business) Cost Burden"?) still prohibitive, the country never goes up from its terrible positions in making business rankings. one can just not hope he does anything better now after so much terms. his spending is too demand biased.

> he heaves his hand when it comes to (mostly populist) spending, like there's no tomorrow

This is key to his reelection. He literally ran on a "Bolsonaro will end Bolsa Família" campaign.

It's unfortunate. Lula inherited a post-Washington consensus neoliberal Brazil. He had nearly 20 years to undo all that and reindustrialize the country, thereby putting us on China's path.

I would have voted for him regardless of ideology if he had done it, but he didn't. It's just easier to just anesthetize the population and put them on paliative care with free money.

> he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term.

This "short term" is unbearably long... But I do see signs that the system is reaching its limits. Government was already having trouble paying pensions before Vorcaro.

> so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest.

Bankers love Lula for a reason. Record profits.

Big issue is that there are no swings between crazy left and crazy right.

There is crazy right and significantly more normal left. And if you want the center to win, you need to ackwnowledge that. Anything else helps the more crazy side.

The margin is a little close, so is the Senate expected to be deadlocked? Or is there a coalition that can form between moderates and the left?

I wouldn’t say deadlocked but the coalition between moderates and the left isn’t a given. There are many centrist parties who will likely alternate between supporting and opposing the government depending on the issue.

Senate is very right wing.

Legislative branch in Brazil never deadlocks. Coalitions are a very natural part of our democracy.

Yeah, they will just make deals. Seriously doubt there will be a deadlock. Hope they at least manage to impeach the supreme court justices, which is what we elected them for.

I would call this a defensive victory. The left’s best chance was a 0-0 draw, so they put everyone in defense and managed to prevent the right from scoring a victory goal.

moving to the right would be a trap. (cf. Dem party vs Trump) The left must instead build an anti-right wing narrative. People vote on material benefits so delivering more of those should be top priority—I think Trumps slump in the US proves that.

Nobody wants to see them cut taxes from the rich or reduce employers rights. The popular "right" in Brazil wants taxes to be easier to pay, judges not to decide based on who is asking, and clear rules on what you can or can't do.

Also, nobody can beat Dilma on cutting taxes from the rich.

But there's also a religious fundamentalist faction, no? Which I recently learned was fomented by the CIA years ago under Reagan (when the Catholic church was moving left and the "US" was afraid of Brazil moving to the left as well)

https://smalands.org/en/the-cold-wars-unholy-war-how-the-cia...

That exists, yes.

Those, the "we must kill all the criminals!!", the actual nazis and all the other people that identify with the Bolsonaro family add up to about 15% of the country.

Delivering material benefits requires fiscal health, something Brazil lacks: https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/government-debt-to-gdp

No it doesn't. And you citing a government debt stat doesn't prove it. As a counter-example, the UK set up the NHS in 1948 when their public debt was over 200% of GDP.

https://uk-debt.info/timeline

You are ignoring the fact that NHS started compromised to allow the payment of UK's debt. And consider that Brazil's interest rates are already high.

So you're saying it's possible?

No, I'm saying UK already had to compromise, and Brazil doesn't have the same economic advantages as the UK did. In all, while I haven't stated it's 100% impossible, I haven't stated it's possible, even less so preferable.

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