RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Citizen interest in presidential elections has a concrete form of measurement, analyzed in the context of recent history: it is the evolution of the number of people who decide to abstain plus those who vote blank, as a percentage of the total registered voters.
The last elections in Brazil, which gave the victory to Jair Bolsonaro a little less than four years ago, reveal, compared to previous elections, a strong tendency to abstention.
Those who decided to abstain rose from 17% in 2006 to 22% in October 2018. And the number of those who opted for the blank vote rose from 7 to almost 10 percent.
For many specialists, 2022 may register a similar phenomenon. Absenteeism and annulment of the same order should not be surprising, given that these elections are very polarized between former president Lula da Silva, in a position to win in the first round, and the current head of state, Jair Bolsonaro, who is seeking a second term.
It so happens that given the large amount of support that both maintain, the third way, so insistently sought by the productive and financial establishment, has disappeared. And this has, according to consultants, an effect on expectations: a sector of society may not feel represented. They are those who could bet on other candidates, especially from the center.
It is not by chance that the southernmost region of Brazil, which includes Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná, appears to be the most abulic in the face of the challenge ahead: two candidates, “most admired” by the population of those states, defected before becoming effective as candidates.
One of the cases is the former judge and Minister of Justice Sergio Moro, a leading figure in the “Lava Jato” scandal. He had to give up when he saw that, at the national level, his figure could not raise more than 7% of favoritism.
Less known, but with some youthful qualities and image, the former social-democratic governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, followed the same path as Moro shortly after.
Both were abandoned by their own parties perhaps early on, as they were considered “politically dead”. Of what was left of the aspirants to govern, there is only one personality left with some level that allows him to compete without blushing: Ciro Gomes of the Labor party, who still has 6%.
Of course, the lack of interest of the most centrist segment of the population is related to the loss of prestige that the political world has experienced and still suffers. And the maximum expression of this is the growing discredit of Congress.
Nara Pavón, from the National University of Pernambuco, understands that there is a decline in the hopes for democracy, a phenomenon that does not occur only in Brazil.
“Here, there was great enthusiasm when we came out of the dictatorship (1985) when everyone thought that democracy would automatically solve the problems. Of course, the various governments that succeeded each other often frustrated the illusions”.
The political scientist pointed out it explains “the existence of weak parties and the rise of anti-politics movements”.
However, it is not simple to compare the current electoral process with that of 2018. At that time, just 40 days before the elections, former president Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party – PT) had 39% of the preferences, and Bolsonaro had much less: 19%.
When it became evident that the PT leader could not participate in this race, as he remained in prison in Curitiba for corruption, Da Silva had to leave his place on the presidential ticket of the Workers’ Party to the philosopher and political scientist Fernando Haddad.
At that moment, a big change occurred: a former Army captain and then deputy, Jair Bolsonaro, took the lead.
The disenchantment of the electorate is most noticeable in the legislative arena. It is there where the anti-political party discourse held the strongest, justifiably or not.
“The corruption scandals were very decisive on people’s conscience,” said the director of the Votorantim Institute’s survey on the notorious drop in citizens’ interest in the electoral processes.
The document with the results was published last Tuesday under the title: “Electoral Alienation in Democratic Brazil”. It was based on the results of the various elections from 1985 onwards.
The study reveals, among other things, the high proportion of Brazilians who refuse to elect senators and deputies. In 2018, 26.4% of voters left that box blank; for the Senate, abstention was 37%.
With information from El Diario AR