Welcome back to the second edition of the new series for Voices for a Free Future: Liberty Around the World. Each month, FFF Associate Luke Lucas will examine how liberty is developing across all corners of the globe and report to us on areas of hope, even from some unexpected places!
Last month I warned that we should not mistake recent electoral trends in South America for a continental shift to the political right as each government differs significantly in its approach to individual liberty. After all, liberty does not come in a small and tidy package.
In most Latin American countries, the most important divide is increasingly between states in which institutions constrain political power and those in which political power has learned to constrain institutions.
However, this is not the case in Brazil which is currently holding a closely contested presidential election between a far-left and far-right candidate. After the first round of voting on the 4th of October, Flávio Bolsonaro (not to be confused with his father, the currently imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro) is narrowly ahead with a promise of major fiscal reform similar to that seen in Argentina. Despite this, Reuters has reported investor scepticism about either candidate’s ability to reverse Brazil’s rising debt trajectory, offering a useful distinction between ideological policies and practical outcomes.
Throughout recent decades Brazil has been marred by countless corruption and money laundering scandals, with the far-left candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”), having served 19 months in prison from 2018-19 on corruption and money laundering charges. All convictions were however, later annulled by the Supreme Federal Court. The far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro is also currently under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.
Because of this, corruption is a major concern in this election. It has become no longer about left or right in either the traditional or modern sense. By this, I mean the traditional sense of economic activity being dominated by the state or by the market, and the modern sense of nationalist versus cosmopolitan ideology.
However, corruption has alienated voters. Whilst a 79% turnout in the first round of the presidential election may not seem low to us in Britain, Brazil maintains strong mandatory voting laws where abstainers are fined. This is therefore the lowest first-round turnout since 1998. This has generally been attributed to the corruption surrounding both candidates leading to over 20% of voters preferring to risk being fined instead of giving their vote to any candidate.
But what does that mean? After the first round, Bolsonaro has 47.03% of the vote to Lula’s 45.16%, representing a gap of just 2.2m votes. With 9.32m votes cast for other candidates and 33.47m abstaining, the outcome of the election remains uncertain.
Aside from corruption, education is a major matter for voters. Just this year, the National Education Plan was announced which commits raising government expenditure on education to 7.5% of GDP by 2033, with an increase to 10% in 2036. This is a significantly large increase in spending commitment especially when taken into consideration with UNESCO’s global benchmark of 4-6% of GDP.
This reinforces the idea that unlike other South American countries, Brazil faces an entirely different election. Whatever the result of the Brazilian election, it will tell us little about the transformation of voters’ economic and political beliefs, that have been observed elsewhere in South America. Instead, it will only tell us of their attitude towards corruption, insecurity, and established political elites.
We are therefore unable to answer the question of whether Brazil is turning towards liberty. With voters disillusioned by years of corruption and scandal, a change in leadership does not necessarily represent a change in ideology. Ultimately, Brazil’s election may reveal less about the direction of its political future and more about the growing frustration of voters who have lost faith in those elected to shape it.
Luke Lucas is a Fighting for a Free Future Associate. He runs Voices for a Free Future’s column, What is Happening in Argentina!, and Principles for a Free Society series.
