Brazil’s Election Goes Beyond A Battle Between Left And Right. Democracy Is Also On The Ballot

TPM Article Topics
1

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1433773
1 Like
2

Lula is going to win the election. And Brazil’s institutions are going to be strong enough to run Bolsonaro out of the presidency when he tries his “election fraud” nonsense. When push comes to shove, nobody is going to be willing to die to keep the loser in power.

5 Likes
3

High hopes is an understatement

5 Likes
4

This article is partly balderdash. Seriously, America does not want leftists in power in South America:
After Morales won the Bolivian election, American interests called the election a fraud. After Morales was declared the loser due to a “rigged” election, Musk tweeted: “We’ll coup who we want to”.
Excerpt:

Recall that then-President Evo Morales won the Bolivian election last year, facing off against far-right forces backed by the American government. In that election, however, US-backed watchdog groups intentionally cast doubt over his victory to try to instill uncertainty in the democratic process and undermine his party’s claim to power, something that should seem familiar to Americans now that Trump is poised to do the same. The elite media consensus that the election was “rigged” was also aided by the propaganda campaign waged by a US Army veteran who created a vast botnet on Twitter that sent out huge numbers of tweets trying to push the narrative that Morales’ opponent won fair and square.

Bolivia has a lot of lithium. That’s why American wanted a Bolivian leader that was friendly towards American interests.
And Brazil has oil, nickel and iron ore. Not sure America wants Lula in office. Lula has stuck up for Putin and will embrace China and Russia when he’s president. And his conviction was overturned on procedural grounds, the evidence against Lula was not refuted. Lula was convicted twice in two separate trials. Corruption was rampant under Both Lula and Rousseff. They were either incompetent or corrupt. Dilma was just plain incompetent, not corrupt. Her policy of making Petrobras sell fuel at loss made Petrobras incur over 40 billion in debt, much more when interest is factored in.She nearly killed the company and drove it into bankruptcy. I was a shareholder from 2013 and on.
I still trade in and out and hold a core position in a separate account that I bought very cheaply after Dilma nearly killed the company.

5

Corruption isn’t rampant under Bolsonaro?

1 Like
6

You tell me where any corruption is obvious. There’s no evidence of it and Petrobras is run on the up now. Granted, Bolsonaro is even dumber than Trump. October 2 won’t be the end of the election. If Lula does not get over 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff election on October 30th. That’s when they will hit Lula with everything under the sun. The wealthy control the media in Brazil.
Dilma should not have been impeached, the case against her was normal government budgetary procedures. But she should have paid some price for nearly killing Petrobras with open corruption and making them sell fuel at a loss to gain political favor with the population. In the end, it didn’t help her one little bit. She was extremely unpopular. And she had a degree in economics. :rofl:

7

John Oliver did a pretty good takedown of Bolsonaro last week. He is amazingly, even more repellent than the Defeated Former President. I am continually gobsmacked by those who vote for these obvious dictator wannabes.