Goodbye Bolsonaro!

Time to pop the champagne — or, in my case (and Lula’s), drink some cachaça.

Bolsonaro lost. I don’t know if he will leave the government peacefully, after all, he has spent years threatening a coup and now that he has lost he must be more desperate than ever because he could go to jail along with his family for his countless crimes.

But one thing is a fact, Bolsonaro’s vote was immense. There was fraud, electoral crimes, use of the Federal Highway Police (PRF) and Military Police (PM) to intimidate voters, etc., but even so, millions voted for a corrupt and fascist who is responsible for the deahts of thousands of people during the pandemic and in the Amazon region.

It will be years, decades, to recover the country, to take it back. And the congress will be difficult to control, with a strong Bolsonarist base and a Centrão stronger than ever (for a more detailed analysis, I wrote this article for Al Jazeera https://is.gd/wG2E0P and interviewed experts for The Globe and Mail https://is.gd/MZNbch).

Lula has no room for error. The left can’t go on like a zombie repeating identitarian nonsense and adopting discourses coming straight from student unions — it is necessary to rebuild from the base, it is necessary not to be subservient to the Workers’ Party (PT), but to be the guide, to pressure, to direct the PT government. The left must, once again, be able to breath, to think, to plan, to be alive.

Will we succeed? I don’t know, but we have to try. The far-right is still strong, stronger than ever, and the country is absolutely divided.

Even with thousands of dead in the pandemic, even with all the corruption, with all the threats and real violence, all the boorishness and hate speech, Bolsonaro won more than 58 million votes. It is worrisome, frightening.

It will be difficult years, but at least there is some hope, Bolsonaro will no longer be president and democracy is (hopefully) safe. Bolsonaro has to give up power on 1 January 2023, but he has yet to concede