'Polarised Brazil': Lula remains a ‘strong candidate’ despite the challenges of incumbency

François Picard is pleased to welcome Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, Director of King’s Brazil Institute at the School of Global Affairs, King’s College London and Associate Professor in Brazil and Latin American Studies. According to Aruska, Brazil’s approaching elections can be viewed through the following prism: macroeconomic performance and political confidence are moving on different tracks. While headline indicators may suggest an economy performing relatively well, she argues that many Brazilians experience a much harsher reality shaped by the cost of living and a volatile job market. That gap between statistical performance and lived experience could prove more politically consequential than the actual numbers themselves. Just over the past month alone, a Quaest poll shows the second round of the presidential race tightening into a statistical tie: Lula has slightly dipped from 43 to 42 percent while Bolsonaro has edged upward 40 to 41 percent. The current controversy surrounding the Supreme Court is at the heart of Brazil’s deeper crisis of institutional mistrust. In a highly polarised political environment, disputes involving judges rapidly spill over into the great Lula-Bolsonaro divide, potentially reopening the anti-establishment terrain that helped Bolsonaro rise in the first place. The electorate's trust in national institutions could play a crucial role. Aruska cautions against assuming that pressure from Washington will necessarily strengthen Brazil’s Trump-aligned right. Foreign intervention can activate powerful narratives of sovereignty and nationalism and may therefore produce precisely the opposite political effect. Ultimately, her argument suggests that Brazil’s election may not necessarily be decided by the strength of the economy, but by how people perceive it in their daily life experiences; Effective campaign messaging via both social and traditional media could also prove decisive in this razor-thin contest.