AND Weekly Editorial – Election of disorder

Editorial Staff of AND

11 October 2022

Weekly Editorial – Election of disorder

Illustration The Old State in ruins. Photo: AND Database

The results of the first round of voting confirmed two truths: one, the complete demoralization of the electoral farce with its false polarization, where those who vote do so for the reason of not allowing the other candidate to win. The other is that the actions of the parties of the factions of the ruling classes, divided by the general crisis of the country, have dragged the country into the division of playing masses against masses. The result shows that the division of voters is not by classes, but vertical, from top to bottom of society. This is in addition to the rejection of a third who boycott. So serious is this that the heralds of the old democracy have rushed to make unprecedented research, to proclaim that “81% of the electorate” voted for the candidate because they consider him the best and that only 15% voted for one so that the other would not win. Prognoses as correct as those for the 2nd round of voting, in which they predicted victory for Luiz Inácio in the first round.

In the runoff, frustrated Luiz Inácio is trying not to give a receipt for his partial defeat, aggravated by Bolsonaro’s improvement in the first polls after October 2. Behind the scenes of the PT campaign, controversies are already emerging. Some believe that one should insist on blackmailing the electorate with the binary “it’s Lula or fascist”, while others insist that the PT candidate should present more concretely his proposals on how to “return to the past”.

It is clear that Bolsonaro’s performance above what was expected by the opinion polls (which, it should be said in passing, have unashamedly frauded public opinion) is a strong message: a vast segment of the masses repudiate the petista opportunism so much that they don’t care if they vote for a madman presented as “the opposite” of the PT, even if this is boasted as a threat to that so-called empty word, “democracy”. At what point did the poor masses get to experience it, after all? Was it during the daily police operations in the metropolises, or in the slaughters in the countryside? In the exorbitant interest rates practiced in the country, or in the immense concentration of land by the large landowners, all, respectively, as a social and economic policy of all successive governments? Not to mention the massive abstention, the null and blank votes, which express a huge picture of masses so disillusioned that they repudiate both the electoral farce and the false polarisation as a whole (almost 50 million).

Luiz Inácio believes that his trump card is in neutralising the hostility of the Armed Forces High Command (ACFA), principally, since he fears that it will prevent him from being sworn in, once he has been elected with a small margin, or from governing, even if he is sworn in. For this reason, he is also increasingly seeking to broaden his range of alliances to the right, as a nod to the generals, on the one hand, and to compose a future governing base in Congress, on the other. He has recently presented his programme for Defence, with petting, pampering and apologising to the reactionary FA. This is only the beginning.

To make itself even more palatable, the PT dedicates itself with extraordinary zeal to not allowing the slightest mobilisation of the popular movements that it heads, regardless of how draconian Bolsonaro’s measures are for the country’s workers and students. The recent contingency report on education (already revoked), which threatened to paralyse the functioning of the federal universities, did not even merit criticism, albeit demagogic, from the petista leader, who only mentioned it in a speech. In short, PT and Lula, like an obedient dog fearful of its master’s mood, plays dead.

Bolsonaro, on the other hand, we always insist, has ceased living since 2018, but he is not dead. With his blackmails and threats, he expands the list of unconstitutional measures to win the election – such as expansion of benefits, which will have new momentum before the second round – without any of the institutions of the Judiciary and Legislature, even less the cowardice of the demobilizing opportunism of the popular masses, daring to bar him, at the risk of confirming his “accusations” that the PT is being favored. If re-elected, Bolsonaro will have four years to implement his coup by creating situations which force the ACFA to surrender to his actions – for which he has already guaranteed very fertile ground, since both the serious crisis and the state of mind of the masses promise that they will be the most tormenting in the last 60 years.

With the electoral defeat of Bolsonaro, the ACFA, on the other hand, will increase its actions to influence the new government and deepen its preventive counterrevolutionary offensive with the centralisation of power in the Executive, as absolutely as possible, by changing the legal order, without openly denying it. The composition of the new Congress and the strengthening of the so-called “Bolsonarist” bench in the Senate will be used by the generals to push forward the process of restricting the other constitutional powers and their subjection to the Executive, which they will guard with shorter reins. The statements of the newly elected senator, Hamilton Mourão, to tariff the reform of the judiciary, are quite elucidative.

The key to the current political situation is that, even if defeated, Bolsonaro and the far right would walk away with a victory. There are two reasons.

First, by his performance in the first round, Bolsonaro has shown he has a public opinion base that guarantees he will, at the very least, not be arrested now. For the cowardice shown so far, no one, within the pigsties that are these institutions, will take the risk of advancing against him, endangering the stability of the old order. The ACFA itself would not allow it, for the same reason. Secondly, because its line of action, like that of all extreme right-wingers, will focus on causing disturbances, which will only add fuel to the fire of crisis and destabilisation of the old decaying order.

The political climate of suspicion towards the next government, whoever it may be, both in the decision-making circles of the divided ruling classes, and among the dissatisfied masses, and with the explicit split that they have led the country into, will take care of spreading disorder. On the one hand, attacks and provocations by the extreme right will inevitably grow, either to wear down the Lulista government, if Bolsonaro is defeated, or to support the coup attempts by the captain-elect. This is what will produce that cowardly motto “bar fascism at the ballot box”. On the other hand, and also inevitably, the masses will rise up against the whole state of things created: this is the slogan of the people to stop the counter-revolutionary offensive with the revolution.

In synthesis, both candidates receive, for the most part, votes of rejection of the opponent, and not of effective support, not to mention about a third who reject all by boycotting the electoral farce. The next government is already illegitimate, whatever the outcome. This is the ultrasound of the unborn foetus in the womb of the crisis of the old democracy. The elections will necessarily bring about great disorder.