Brazil, Sapelli: "Bolsonaro is neither Trump nor Salvini, but Haddad will win"

Brazil is getting ready on Sunday to experience the most confused and uncertain elections in its young democratic history, in a country as never before torn apart by poverty, crime, unemployment (the unemployed are back to over 13 million), by drug cartels they have resumed facing each other with blows of murders. A country of 147 million voters that comes from 13 consecutive years of left-wing government, with the Workers' Party that led first Lula and then Dilma Rousseff to the presidency (and the centrist Temer, after his impeachment), and which was creator first of the economic miracle and then of the great crisis following the Lava Jato scandal. Voting will take place on Sunday 7 October and, thanks to electronic voting, the results will already be available on the Brazilian evening, i.e. on the Italian night: first round favourites (but it will almost certainly go to the ballot, with a French-style electoral system) I am Lula's henchman – incandidable as he was sentenced to 12 years for passive corruption and money laundering – Fernando Haddad and Jair Bolsonaro, former army captain, phenomenon on social media (he has over 7 million followers on Facebook alone) through which he alternates nostalgia for the old military dictatorship with openly homophobic and misogynistic intentions. Bolsonaro should not reach the necessary majority to win in the first round, but he is present at the polls frontrunner, especially after the stabbing suffered a few weeks before the elections, which led him to exceed 30% in the polls. “But don't compare him to Trump or Salvini,” he explains to FIRSTonline Giulio Sapelli, economist and great expert on Latin America. “Bolsonaro is not a new face in politics and his eventual election would not displease the markets. In the end, however, Haddad will win, even if the South American left has lost a great opportunity in recent years".

Professor Sapelli, on Sunday 7 October there are presidential elections in Brazil. It will almost certainly go to the ballot, but the favorite in the first round is the candidate of the ultra-right Jair Bolsonaro. Does it remind you more of Trump or Salvini?

"Neither. The Brazilian political history is completely different, the fact of being a far-right candidate does not imply the possibility of comparisons with Western leaders. Bolsonaro is a former soldier, which neither Trump nor Salvini are, he does not come from finance like Trump and unlike the tycoon he has sat in the Brazilian Parliament for 30 years, so he is not even a new figure. It is linked to the military right close to the dictatorship of the early 80s, a military right that is different from those of other South American countries, such as Bolivia and Venezuela, where the army dictatorships have in fact become leftist”.

So it cannot even be said that, if he wins, Bolsonaro could become the new Maduro.

“Absolutely not, because Maduro's dictatorship stems from that of Chavez which has a completely different imprint. Furthermore, Bolsonaro would not even be so disliked by the markets, on the contrary he could become a friend of the markets (in recent days, with Bolsonaro rising in the polls, the share of Borsa Bovespa has actually gained a lot of ground, after months of decline, ed). The markets are investors with different orientations: the more interventionist funds would not mind a figure like that of the far-right leader".

In your opinion, how does a man who claims a bloody dictatorship and who expresses openly homophobic and racist intentions get such a broad consensus? In the polls Bolsonaro is even in the lead with 35%, even if he would probably lose in the second round.

"It is supported by an important part of the press, in particular by the O Globo editorial group, and by the business world, which hopes that the Lava Jato issue, the judicial scandal that has engulfed an entire class, will be resolved once and for all by the right executive and which was piloted by the US and the CIA, as happened in Italy with Mani Pulite, to dismantle Lula's Workers' Party and to privatize large public companies such as Petrobras. Plus, there was the staged stabbing of him, which earned him further acclaim."

A consensus that also comes from the middle class, from a historically more moderate electorate. Is he also counting on the Five Star League effect?

"I repeat, the two things have nothing to do and in my opinion it is wrong to force this kind of comparisons".

The attempt to get rid of Lula and his party, to which you alluded just now, has failed, however. Lula was still leading the polls before his exclusion by the Supreme Court and his henchman Fernando Haddad is in the running to win in the second round.

“Already Dilma Rousseff, despite the impeachment, came out clean. The same goes for Lula, whose conviction is based on very weak charges. Haddad is a clean face, he is a university professor and has already been minister of education and mayor of a complicated city like São Paulo. Despite everything, the PT was the largest political revolution in all of South America, and the only one of the great historical parties to still be popular: Haddad represents its moderate wing, compared to Lula he is more institutional having been an administrator and not trade unionist, and was good at reaching an agreement with the Brazilian Communist Party, which historically has more moderate positions than Lula's”.

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So you think Haddad can do it?

“Yes, because the Brazilian left is very fragmented but it will converge in the second round. For example, he will receive the votes of Marina Silva and Ciro Gomes, outsiders of Sunday's vote but who will hardly access the ballot. Bolsonaro has a smaller pool to draw from: in the second round he will not recover many more votes than his electorate ”.

If Bolsonaro could be the man the markets like, who would benefit from Haddad's victory?

“The markets, as I said, are different from each other. For institutional funds, for the big US banks, a figure like that of the candidate of the PT is preferable. Of course, they would then be in theoretical conflict with the US establishment which has mounted the Lava Jato case to kill that part of the political class. However, Haddad may have the merit of bringing Brazil back to political normality after a very difficult season. Even his party may have a more mature turn, but not towards the centre. The centrist turn had already been attempted by Dilma, without success. He will try to propose a moderate socialism ”.

Which is what all of South America would need, whose political and economic golden age seems a distant memory.

“South America was a great missed opportunity. After the successful season of the early 2000s, it has been affected by international confrontation and the increasingly confused position of the United States, which no longer exercises the same kind of power over the region. Particularly in international politics, some countries have taken the longest step. Think, for example, of Brazil, which negotiated alone with Iran and Russia. The ruling classes have not been able to keep up with the point, they had to create neo-Bolivarianism, i.e. a new reformist socialist season, instead they followed the Cuban model".

Above all Venezuela, which is ending up as we see it.

“In Venezuela the situation is dramatic, Maduro is implementing a ruthless military dictatorship. But even in Argentina, which has a completely different model, the situation isn't much better. President Mauricio Macri has seen all his political ideas fail, he no longer has consensus in Parliament, he has gone against the unions. He was incompetent: he thought he could win Peronism without politics, he thought it was enough to bring investments back to Argentina. But is not so. The greatest tragedy for Argentina is the disappearance of Alfonsìn's Radical Party, today there is a great need for that type of policy”.

Returning to Brazil: in addition to a complicated political situation, the former South American locomotive is also experiencing a profound economic crisis, with the GDP now starting to recover after having sunk in recent years. What would be the right recipe to relaunch?

“Brazil needs to create internal demand and support the development of small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises, which represent the Brazilian productive fabric. However, multinationals are a resource, it was a mistake to push them away, as Temer's moderate right has also done in the last few years ".