Counting the Votes

“It’s not the votes that count, but who counts the votes” ~Joseph Stalin

Palhaçada. (Pah-lyah-SAH-dah)

That’s the Brazilian slang for “clown show,” a helpful noun for those trying to make sense of the election shenanigans in South America’s largest economy this past week.

To briefly recap: Three weeks ago, Flavio Bolsonaro’s conservative (PL) party pulled off a surprise win over Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s incumbent socialist (PT) party at the polls. The conservatives won both the house and the senate, in which they maintain strong majorities... for the moment.

But neither presidential candidate crossed the requisite 50% mark to secure victory outright, thus sending voters back to the polls to choose between the two leading candidates this past weekend.

Bolsonaro and his voters were understandably optimistic, having won with 56.1 million votes to Lula’s 53.9 million. Plus, most of the independent candidates (who were eliminated in the first round), were “right” or “center-right” leaning, and threw in against Lula, a career socialist. They carried around 9 million votes between them, most of which were expected to fall to Bolsonaro... or simply stay home.

Betting markets, like Polymarket, had Bolsonaro Jr. the favorite to win by as much as 95-5%.

Then came election day.

He Who Counts

Midway through Sunday’s vote, Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Cristiano Zanin granted Lula’s request for a two-hour extension. Zanin, readers will be shocked (shocked!) to learn, served as Lula’s longtime personal defense lawyer.

The final count:

• Lula: 64.1 million votes (+10.2M)
• Bolsonaro: 59.8 million votes (+3.7M)

In other words, Lula apparently found – somewhere beneath the country’s couch cushions, no doubt – over a million more votes than every single independent candidate received in the first round... combined.

Skeptical?

According to an analysis by Paris Group published by Folha:

Flávio Bolsonaro received zero votes in 106 precincts where Lula garnered 14,860. Furthermore, in 3,042 precincts, Flávio reached a maximum of 10 votes, while Lula reached 400,000. Polling experts consider it “statistically impossible.”

After Lula’s unlikely – some would argue, legitimately impossible – victory, Bolsonaro, was ordered to surrender his passports to the federal police.

The order, handed down by Lula’s henchman Alexandre de Moraes, came just seven (7) minutes after the results of the election were officially called, and seemed to make good on a thinly-veiled threat Lula made during a televised debate just days before the event.

“You think you’ve already won the election?” Lula turned to his opponent, before looking directly into the camera to address the viewers. “You prepare. You prepare because on the 25th [election day], you’ll lose your immunity. You’d better prepare yourself. You’ll lose your immunity and you’re going to be in trouble.”

Flight to Safety

Flavio must have felt like it was déjà vu all over again. His father, Jair, had his passports confiscated after he lost to Lula in the last election. He is now serving a 27-year sentence for “plotting a coup to remain in power after losing Brazil's 2022 presidential election to Lula.”

South American politics as usual, in other words…

That said, having one’s travel documents seized without even being charged (never mind convicted) of a crime does appear somewhat at odds with the kind of basic political freedoms for which many in the west still hold a candle.

None too keen on sharing his father’s fate, Bolsonaro skipped over the land border to neighboring Argentina, where he boarded a plane bound for the United States. He disembarked in Miami, with his family, yesterday morning.

Back in the Amazon of Democracy, meanwhile, Lula’s lackeys wasted no time going after his political opponents, rallying the federales and issuing more threats. Here’s PT congressman Jilmar Tatto, saying the quiet part out loud on the House floor yesterday.

“I have information from the Federal Police that they’re going to arrest many Bolsonaro supporters.”

And right on cue, federal deputy-elect Pedro Rousseff (great-nephew of former president and card-carrying Lula apparatchik, Dilma Rousseff), has called for the detention of Congressman Nikolas Ferreira’s passport, citing “an alleged insult against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), in July 2024.”

Comrades-in-Arms

Now, how might you expect such actions to be met by our brave democracy defenders around the world, those ardent champions of voter’s rights and a political process free and fair of corruption and intimidation? Might they have a “tut-tut” in their windy bag of remonstrations, a “tsk-tsk” for their naughty comrade-in-arms? Don’t hold your breath…

Apparently, the authoritarian is not the one in charge of the nation’s security forces, its jails and police, its kangaroo courts, its electoral system, and the state-subsidized media...

It’s not the one whose former personal lawyer changes the rules of the election on the day... or who orders travel bans on his political opponents minutes after the election results are declared...

It’s the guy fleeing the country... his father under lock and key... their party members, who stand to get it in the neck next... and the voters themselves, who are already facing calls for mass media censorship to combat the age-old nemesis of actual authoritarians everywhere: “Misinformation.”

For those vanishing few voters around the world still blissfully unaccustomed to election fraud, intimidation tactics, lawfare, retributive justice, etc. the events of the past few days may come as a shock.

For the rest of us, it’s politics as usual.

Editor’s note: Find more of Joel’s writing at his Substack.