Brazil will be holding presidential elections on October 5, amid a current political situation and trend which indicates that it has already become a white-hot issue.

This is the first election since the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and is widely considered a window of opportunity for the country to restore political and economic stability.

The Lula case

On April 5, the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil (STF) rejected the habeas corpus presented by the country's former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's defense. Two days later, Lula turned himself in to begin serving a 12-year sentence, bringing an end to his two-year case against corruption charges which he has always denied.

Whether he would be allowed to run for president this year has been the biggest question of this electoral season, which he kicked off several months ago. Now his conviction comes as an answer, since under Brazilian electoral law, a candidate is banned from elected office for eight years if found guilty of a crime.

Although whether Lula can run for office still depends on the STF's final verdict, it is highly unlikely that it will be overturned considering the costs and risks involved. He also faces other corruption charges—which he also denies—but which aggravate the situation.

Since 1985, when a civilian government was restored after a 21-year-long military regime, Lula has been one of the most influential politicians in Brazil. Born into a poor farming family, Lula became a leader in the labor movement and the Workers' Party (PT) and first ran for president in 1989, losing then, but winning in 2002. During his presidency the country began an institutional anti-graft campaign, which targeted decades of corruption. His life's trajectory reflects the maturity and flexibility of Brazil's political system, along with the defects within the system.

Lula left office in 2011 with an impressive 83 percent approval rating. The case against him has reflected the determination of Brazil's top court to fight against corruption. However, in this current anti-corruption drive, many people in Brazil and beyond question whether there is political interference in jurisdiction. Political elites, including Brazil's current President Michel Temer, the presidents of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are still facing trial on corruption charges.

The coming election

According to opinion polls before he was sentenced to prison, Lula had the best chance of winning the second round of elections no matter whom he faced, with over 30 percent of support. Disqualifying him leads to an uncertain outcome.

The question of what his electoral supporters will do has become the most important factor in the elections. A poll that came out after Lula was jailed showed that abstention voters rose from 10 percent to 30 percent while swing voters increased considerably and the support rate for other major candidates all increased by about 2 percent. These results reflect that most of Lula's supporters are now taking a wait-and-see attitude, including 20 percent of them who showed intentions to vote for the candidate Lula explicitly endorses.

Lula's supporters can be divided into two groups. One is those who do not trust the traditional elite class in Brazil, especially right-wing parties. These voters are mainly from the middle- and working-class and live predominantly in north and northeast regions where economic development has lagged behind. The other group is those who strongly support Lula for his personal charisma and his performance during his terms in office.

Judged from the current trend, voters of the first group tend to choose political outsiders, such as environmentalist Marina Silva or possibly "Brazil's Donald Trump" Jair Bolsonaro. In the short run, the popularity ratings of these two candidates who have followed behind Lula, will rise and leave other candidates far behind.

Voters belonging to the second group are likely to shift to other left-wing candidates, especially those Lula supports, such as Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party or Manuela d'Ávila of the Communist Party of Brazil.

For now, the PT hasn't revealed a plan B since Lula's disqualification, but as the voting registration deadline approaches on August 15, it may nominate another candidate or align itself with another left-wing party. The latter seems more likely given that the PT doesn't have other competitive candidates at hand. It might consider cooperating with Gomes, who has a higher voter rate right now.

Nonetheless, if a left-wing candidate made it to the second round of voting, other left-wing parties would probably join in and form a strong force. There are now four competitive candidates: Silva; Bolsonaro; former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), representing the traditional elite class; and Gomes standing for the left-wing forces.

But it is hard to predict which two among them will advance into the second round because the current situation is completely different from previous elections that were dominated by two parties.

Moreover, the uncertainty of the election result is also evident in the upcoming anti-corruption drive, where, perhaps under pressure from public opinion, the STF is targeting the PSDB and the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). Alckmin, in particular, will face a corruption investigation since he lost judicial immunity after he resigned the governorship. If he is found guilty and disqualified, the election would become an outsiders' game.

What's more, current opinion polls are not of great reference value. On the one hand, Silva and Bolsonaro are both from minority parties with very little influence on a local level. They may not get much television promotion time, blocking them from gaining more support.

On the other hand, although candidates from the PSDB and the PMDB do not enjoy high popularity, these traditional parties still can count on a certain number of votes from state and municipal governments. In addition, they have more support in Congress, which ensures more TV campaign coverage. Thus the possibility exists that they will catch up from behind.

From an economic perspective, reforms introduced by the Temer administration did not gain wide acceptance from the public, but they turned out to be a boost to the markets as inflation came under control and interest rates were brought to a record low. Many international financial institutions have predicted an over 2 percent economic growth in the country, while the government seems even more optimistic.

However, the combined political and economic crisis of Brazil in recent years indicates that challenges are still ahead for the country's economic recovery and development. Stable economic growth requires a sound political environment and policy guidance. Brazil's parties are now in a drastic reshuffle. The presidential election may bring things into balance, but if an imbalance of power continues, it may intensify social contradictions. Against this backdrop, the key to Brazil's economic recovery is to ensure political stability.

The author is Secretary General of the Center for Brazilian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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