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…