I admit that I was convinced at first that I could win in the first round.
Brazilian President Lula may not have expected that the crucial battle for his fourth presidential term would take place in these last three weeks.
On October 4th, local time, the first round of voting for Brazil’s presidential election concluded. According to the official results released by the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Roberto Bolsonaro and a candidate from the Liberal Party, received 47.03% of valid votes, securing 56.1 million votes and placing first. Luiz Inácio Lula Jr., who is seeking a second term, received 45.16% of votes, totaling approximately 53.88 million votes. The difference between the two candidates is about 2.23 million votes, and a second round of voting will take place on October 25th.
This result exceeded the expectations of Lula’s camp, and caught many polling agencies off guard. One day before the vote, three surveys conducted by Datafolha, Quaest, and AtlasIntel showed that Lula was ahead of Flavio in terms of numbers of votes. Datafolha predicted that the effective vote share would be 45% for Lula and 42% for Flavio. In the end, Flavio not only surpassed Lula, but also received over 47% of the votes.
After losing the presidential election in 2022 to Lula, Jair Brossano was sentenced to 27 years in prison for allegedly planning a coup. He is also prohibited from running for office and is currently serving his sentence at home. Based on the results of this parliamentary and presidential election, Brossano's political influence among Brazilian right-wing voters has not disappeared. Reuters even described this election as a “victory for Brossano whose name did not appear on the ballots.”
The man who challenged Luiz, Flavio Bolsonaro, is 45 years old. He is the eldest son of Bolsonaro and a Brazilian federal senator. Unlike his father, who has a more confrontational political style, Flavio attempts to gain acceptance among the middle classes and business circles. However, politically, he still follows in his father’s footsteps. He even publicly stated that if he were elected, he would walk up the ramp to the presidential palace, the Palácio dos Bandeirantes, along with his father upon taking office.
Therefore, although this year's Brazilian elections are no longer a “Lula vs. Bosonaro” matchup in 2022, they have largely become a “Lula vs. Bosonaro’s son” contest. Flavio’s initial upset against Lula also shows that the right-wing political base left by old Bosonaro still has considerable mobilization capabilities. At the same time, other members of the Bosonaro family have also obtained public positions, increasing their Liberal Party’s seats in the Senate to 28.
On the night of the election, Lula openly acknowledged that the results were "unexpected", but he immediately announced: "Starting from tomorrow, we will begin a new campaign."
Now, this “new campaign” is taking shape rapidly.
On October 6 local time, Reuters reported that several people close to Lula's campaign team revealed that after the initial setback, Lula's camp has begun urgently adjusting their campaign communication strategy.
The team’s internal review concluded that previous campaign messaging did not adequately reach out to young people and female voters. Some Labour party members also blamed the campaign team for focusing too much on broader issues such as national sovereignty, critical minerals, and rare earths in the first round of campaigning. They even produced a whole television advertisement specifically discussing rare earths, but this did not address the more immediate concerns of ordinary voters sufficiently.
Brazilian CNN reports also reveal similar internal dissatisfaction. Some members of the Labor Party believe that Lula's first round of campaigning was rushed, and failed to address the public's concerns about real issues such as living costs.
The British newspaper The Guardian attributed Flávio's unexpected surge to several deeper factors: the pressure of living costs, urban violence, and concerns about security. Additionally, the strong grassroots mobilization capability of the Evangelical Church helped to expand the support for the right-wing party. During the campaign, Flávio emphasized tough security policies, while Lula failed to fully focus the election campaign on domestic issues that these ordinary voters are highly concerned about.
According to Christopher Sabatini, director of the Latin America program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the UK, who was interviewed by CNN, Flavió's focus is on tough crime measures—such as increasing prisons and strengthening law enforcement, even proposing cooperation with the United States to combat transnational crimes. Public safety issues are one of the key reasons for his support.
French newspaper Le Monde says that Lula paid a price for the dissatisfaction of voters in the first round.
In other words, one of the problems exposed in the first round was that the Lula camp talked about many ‘national matters’, but a significant portion of voters were more concerned about their wallets and the safety of the streets.
After the first round ended less than 48 hours later, adjustments have begun.
According to Reuters, Lula’s campaign team is preparing to intensify a strategy known internally as the ‘fear strategy’—focusing on reminding voters that if Bosonaro’s camp returns to power, Brazil’s existing social welfare policies could be at risk.
The Labour Party has launched new advertisements on social media. The images show pieces of paper with the government's social program names flying away from hands, accompanied by a warning that "some things lost cannot be retrieved."
However, Flavio has previously promised to maintain the Brazilian Bolsa Família program established by Lula. He also proposed that recipients could continue receiving benefits under certain conditions even if they found a formal job or started their own business. Therefore, the next step is likely to involve a direct confrontation over who can better support ordinary families.
The Brazilian newspaper ‘Santa Paulo Page’ revealed further details on October 6th. The Lula team intends to place social welfare and public security in a more prominent position. By emphasizing the risks that Bolsonaro’s camp may pose to existing social programs, they aim to increase Faviolo’s rejection rate among intermediate voters. At the same time, there are also within the Lula camp those who demand that the president provide a more strong response regarding public security issues.
The campaign team itself is also making adjustments. According to Reuters, Raul Rebelo, who is in charge of communications, will not leave for now, but Otavio Antunes, a more aggressive political marketing consultant, is expected to join the national campaign team.
Lula himself is also preparing to change his approach to exposure.
This 80-year-old president even doesn’t carry a mobile phone with him on a daily basis and often criticizes young people for being addicted to screens. However, in the second round of elections, he has promised to increase his “selfie”-style short videos and expand interviews on radio programs. Campaign coordinator Paul Okamoto revealed that the team will establish a communication network of left-wing online opinion leaders to strengthen social media efforts.
This could be the most tangible example of Lula’s “switching tactics” this time: an 80-year-old president who doesn’t use mobile phones, starting to regard short videos and internet dissemination as crucial weaknesses that must be addressed in the last three weeks.
On October 4th, Lula spoke to his supporters. Reuters
