Array
Brazil’s presidential election will be decided by tens of millions of poor people, and they look set to eject incumbent Jair Bolsonaro from office — either in Sunday’s first round or in a runoff..
The far-right leader is reminding them of his pandemic welfare program that morphed into a monthly handout equal to $112. The race’s frontrunner, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is rekindling memories of his 2003-2010 presidency, when many poor Brazilians could suddenly afford beer and barbecue on the weekends. In 2014, the U.N. removed Latin America’s biggest country from its Hunger Map.
Since then, Brazil’s economy fell into the dumps, rose to the doldrums and then fell back. This year, the economy started recovering again and unemployment is at its lowest since 2015, but many remain doing informal, occasional jobs, and rampant inflation put even sufficient basic food out of their reach.
Thirty-three million Brazilians were going hungry in the six months through April, according to a study by several nonprofit organizations, including Oxfam.
Both Bolsonaro and da Silva promise to boost government spending on the poor if they win, which would mean either skirting or scrapping a constitutional cap on expenses. Many Brazilians are leery, particularly regarding the incumbent, whose 2023 budget proposal didn’t include extension of the welfare program at the same level.
“They seem to associate the continuity of those policies with a change (of administration),” said Mario Sérgio Lima, a senior Brazil analyst for Medley Global Advisors.
Even in Brazil’s wealthiest state, the poor are giving a boost to da Silva, who has only carried Sao Paulo once in his five prior runs. In the hardscrabble community of Jardim Angela, local leader Regina Paixão said many who voted for Bolsonaro have turned against him because of hardship. Some “haven’t eaten beef for ages” and hold him responsible, she said.
Another community member, Paula Araújo, who sometimes works as a housekeeper, experienced hunger for the first time during the pandemic. She couldn’t afford gas to keep the stove running beneath the leaky roof of her tiny home, so she has used an electric iron to heat her pots.
