Elections without choice

03.10.2016

Brazil hosted the first round of municipal elections, the outcome of which will largely determine the further development of the situation in Brazil after the coming to power of a non-legitimate Mason-liberal, Michel Temer.

Details

It is expected that during the vote 5586 mayors and vice-mayors will be chosen, and according to preliminary polls, the majority of them will be from the opposition to the current government structures. Currently in Brazil, a huge number of parties operate which creates a variety of alliances and coalitions, and out of 32 parties nominating their candidates in these elections, 28 have parliamentary representation. Due to this excessive fragmentation of the political system, Brazil is facing regular criticism.

At the same time for experts, it is quite difficult to make any assumptions, because political alliances in Brazil sometimes unfold in unpredictable ways. However, the major and irreconcilable forces are the pro-American liberals of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, holding the current government, in second place behind its main opponents is the Workers' Party.

Background

Elections are held against a background of many thousands of incessant strikes and protests. Demonstrators protest against the unpopular measures undertaken by Temer and are demanding early elections.

Oil industry workers who are not satisfied with the future privatization of Petrobras recently went on strike. Petrobras is the largest oil and gas company, whose leadership, in turn, has been accused by former President Lula da Silva of trying to influence the results of the Workers' Party in the election through corruption and media influence.

In addition, the banking sector workers have gone on strike, trade unions and civil society organizations - millions of Brazilian citizens - have supported these actions. President Temer avoids appearances and especially public speeches. His speech at the opening of the Olympic Games was reduced to one minute, and the music was made louder, and even so, he was booed and did not escape the shame.

Brazilian protests were heard around the world, the main slogan of the demonstrators - "Fora, Temer" became a recognizable assertion. So, during the summit of G20 in China, one of the Asian businessmen greeted the new Brazilian president, "Hello, Mr. Fora," which in Portuguese means "go away".

Factors of criminality

This election campaign, the first after the unfair dismissal of President Rousseff, is characterized by an unprecedented level of crime. More than a dozen attacks on candidates were made, several of them were killed. On Wednesday a favorite in the race in the municipality of Itumbiara was killed, acting mayor Gomez de Rocha. Prior to that, a candidate for the municipal council of the city of Itaborai from the Christian Workers' Party, Jose Ricardo Gimaraes, was also killed.

Brazilian media reported that the criminals require candidates to pay a "tax for the election campaign", after payment of which the applicant is not attacked. However, it is interesting that all the dead were from parties opposed to the pro-American regime of Temer.

In addition, in several polling stations were attempts to disrupt the elections. Criminals, coordinated by the inmates in prison, burned seventeen buses and five schools, where the elections should be held. This was said by the regional government security minister, Jefferson Portela, adding that "they have set themselves the task of disrupting the elections. We can not yet answer the question of why they did it."

However, all attempts to disrupt the elections occurred in the state of Maranhão, traditionally different from the rest of Brazil. Not only that, now it is the poorest state in the course of Brazil's history, there was an active struggle against the Portuguese conquerors, and most of the time was under French control. Until now, in this state, there was no expression of support for any political party.

Results

It is already known that the candidates from the Temer's group lost the strategic cities - Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The votes in several other major cities such as Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre have not been counted, but there is a high probability that the same opposition candidates will win a victory.

In this case, there is a possibility that the elected mayors would boycott the ongoing reforms of Temer, which is why Brazil will not get the promised IMF economic recovery at the end of 2017. According to the IMF statement, there is a chance that economic growth may begin in 2017, but in any case it will not exceed half a percent. But for this you need to undertake even more stringent measures than those existing, which is unlikely in places where mayors are members of Workers' party.

Therefore, in any case, the unrest and chaos will continue in Brazil for quite some time according to many analysts, until the next presidential elections, scheduled for 2017.

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Elections without choice

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