fitblipper2 hours ago
I was seeing the reports from the first pass which said it was almost guaranteed that Lula would not win because of what the results of the first were. I wonder what caused that prediction to fail.
I am glad the son of a failed coup organizer and a trump puppet didn't get elected and am hopeful for Brazils ability to self govern. Breaking free of US financial monopolies (credit cards) gives me hope they'll continue to produce and innovative into a healthier and competitive world market, but I am also tired of Lula being at the helm and wish someone else could step up and take the reigns. When someone stays in power for so long in a democracy it makes me suspicious of the legitimacy of their power. Are they popular because they are good for the country or are they popular because they have the right people with power, influence, and money on their side.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
> are they popular because they have the right people with power, influence, and money on their side
They have the supreme court. That is all they really need.
EdwardDiego23 minutes ago
Hell of an allegation to make with no evidence provided. How do "they" "have" the supreme court, and why does that mean that they're popular and win elections?
matheusmoreira3 minutes ago
> How do "they" "have" the supreme court
By the end of the next four years, Lula will finish his term with 70% of the seats of the supreme court being filled directly by his party.
They also stacked the lesser courts with judges which support him. Including the electoral court. We had judges who openly declared their vote for him judging his electoral complaints this entire month. Any guess which way the judges leaned?
> and why does that mean that they're popular and win elections?
The supreme court literally engaged in unconstitutional censorship in order to get him elected in 2022. Judges also constantly barred Bolsonaro from doing things in 2022 that Lula was allowed to do this month, like lowering taxes at the gas pump.
There's a saying here: "judges = gods". Actual lawyer told me that. And Lula owns the judges. If you don't see how having literal judge-god-kings on your side can tilt elections, then I don't know what I can possibly argue to convince you.
The whole point of electing the right wing was to make those gods bleed. I'm going to go ahead and deflate my expectations now.
_blk10 minutes ago
No, it means they get an extra 2h of voting with no legislation backing that nor a precedent to go after.
khriss10 minutes ago
And of course, like always you will present no proof other than 'everyone knows'
khriss19 minutes ago
Really? Didn't the Bolsanaro campaign also request an extension of the voting deadline due to water logging and transportation problems in parts of the country?
ninjagoo2 hours ago
> I wonder what caused that prediction to fail.
A lot of media outlets have been fingering the outage of some data centers due to kinetic action for a worldwide decline in divisive rhetoric, potentially impacting democratic processes.
Bassiliskan hour ago
If that were true it would have diminished Lula "support" as Lula is strongly preferred by Russia due to his anti-US and anti-NATO stance.
dv_dtan hour ago
Im not sure the strategic calculation is as simplistic as that
senderistaan hour ago
This has been widely discredited.
atoav8 minutes ago
[delayed]
marcalcan hour ago
"son of a failed coup organizer" is an absolute false statement which only serves those in power to criminalize dissent and have been seen in many authoritarian regimes during their implementation.
whycomean hour ago
> "son of a failed coup organizer" is an absolute false statement
But, his dad:
> Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted by Brazil's Supreme Court for plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat
I don’t see how to read it any other way. Explain?
nlan hour ago
> "son of a failed coup organizer" is an absolute false statement
How so?
I don't really follow Brazilian politics, but Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty by the Brazilian Supreme Court of:
participation in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, attempted coup d'état, qualified damage, and deterioration of protected heritage property.[1]
Flávio Bolsonaro is Jair Bolsonaro's son. "attempted coup d'état" is a failed coup.
There don't seem to be any serious questions that the process was fair and that the Supreme Court was impartial (I mean there are always Trumpian accusations of bias, but I mean ones with any evidence at all).
The only part I could see possible disagreement with is organizer I suppose? But I must be missing something.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_for_the_2022%E2%80%93202...
matheusmoreira40 minutes ago
> There don't seem to be any serious questions that the process was fair and that the Supreme Court was impartial
This is the supreme court that in 2019 launched a perpetual "fake news" inquisition where they are themselves the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners of wildcard crimes against themselves with a jurisdiction covering the entire territory of Brazil.
Saying that Bolsonaro was convicted by this court carries less weight to me than saying he was banned by dang.
The whole point of electing a right wing senate and Bolsonaro's son was to impeach and hold accountable the judges of this court. Obviously, that's never going to happen now. Lula will put four additional judges in there, and will rule uncontested until the day that he dies. It's the Venezuela model.
EdwardDiego21 minutes ago
You're going to have to provide some citations mate, because right now you sound like a conspiracist.
georgemcbayan hour ago
> "son of a failed coup organizer" is an absolute false statement
Jair Bolsonaro was tried and convicted of organizing a coup.
Flavio Bolsonaro is his son.
Where's the false part?
buuyytpan hour ago
Bolsonaro attempted a coup pretty plainly. I think you are describing a conspiracy theory that Bolsonaro is innocent?
Pretty far fetched.
pestatijean hour ago
so are you saying he is not his son?
so-gala-masseyan hour ago
[flagged]
buuyytpan hour ago
That's a bad idea. That would be weaponized against minorities instantly.
dabinat35 minutes ago
Flavio promised to pardon his father, so the other effect of this is that Bolsonaro stays in jail. Although by jail I mean house arrest, which is something that rich, powerful people manage to get somehow and is barely a punishment.
bguberfain5 hours ago
This was the first time I saw a major mainstream media outlet prominently feature a statistical predictive model live during the vote count (and it was spot on): https://www.estadao.com.br/politica/eleicoes/em-tempo-real-p...
zorked4 hours ago
Indeed, Rodrigo Mahlmeister's model was absolutey impressive. It even predicted the inflection points incredibly well.
itubaj2 hours ago
It was anyway a lose-lose situation. I hope to see Brazil free from 'bolsopetismo'/'bolsolulismo' (as some of we call this disease to keep Bolsonaro and Lula or their parties on the presidential room) soon, but here we go for another 4 years...
dachrisan hour ago
On the same day, in Serbia, the long-term incumbent was defeated by a party/movement that has been founded only 2 years ago as a response to corruption issues. So change can happen.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
I agree with you. I wish we had better candidates. The right had Dr. Enéas Carneiro, who's dead. The left has PCO, which is awesome but is shunned by the rest of the left because they are bold enough to criticize Lula and PT. Neither ever had or will have any realistic chance of ever winning.
It's not going to end until Lula literally drops dead. This country proved that today.
fn-mote4 hours ago
As optimistic as I want to be, this is the fourth term for a president?? That cannot be good for democracy.
It can be better than the alternatives and still not good.
anonymous9082133 hours ago
The idea that you must fire your most competent employees after ~8 years on the job, in a exceedingly difficult job that requires on-the-job training, is in fact one of the most inane and damaging things to democracy.
mrtksn2 hours ago
They are most competent in getting elected, which often is not the same as being most competent in anything else.
Even with Germany it turned out that Angela Merkel did grave mistakes and Germans were able to find out about those only after she left office. Being continually in office gives you the ability to hide your trials. The longer you stay the easier it is for you to get elected.
That’s why it is very important to have a time limit in power.
dachrisan hour ago
It's even more important that time limit gives those in power a planned off-ramp.
The extreme case which you want to avoid is "politicians" (dictators) desperately clinging to power, because they did things that would get them killed if they ever lost their power, which is a vicious cycle.
anonymous908213an hour ago
> They are most competent in getting elected, which often is not the same as being most competent in anything else.
If it was not clear, I am not stating that anyone who is in office is automatically the most competent. However, the entire point of a democracy is that you have the option to fire bad candidates. And yet, with term limits, when you do get a competent candidate in office, you do not have the option to keep them in office.
wredcollan hour ago
The most commonly repeated pattern across literally all of human history is that power grows.
Being the chief executive in a system like brazil's results in a lot of power, for several perfectly good reasons, but it does mean you have to build in safe guards against that power growing.
Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.
anonymous90821333 minutes ago
> Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.
Term limits are not a solution either, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate. Clearly there is a need to check power, but perhaps the mechanisms that check power should not also ensure you will never have a truly excellent leader && increase instability from flipflopping policies && give more opportunities for people who will abuse power to take office and ignore the term limits because that's what people who abuse power do. A term limit is only effective against a mildly bad candidate who is not truly willing to abuse their power, because if they are willing to abuse their power they can just ignore it. In that way, you've created a system that caps upside but leaves downside uncapped in practice.
SoftTalker2 hours ago
Disagree. Presidency, like other elected positions, should not be a career. I want people who can serve with high dedication and then go back to private life. I'd like to see term limits on representatives and senators as well, and also an upper age limit.
anonymous9082132 hours ago
> Presidency, like other elected positions, should not be a career.
As stated, this is merely a truism, and you have not justified this belief. Would you care to? It seems very irrational to me. High office is one of the most difficult and most impactful jobs in the world. It's easy to do a terrible job and screw everyone over while enriching yourself, of course, but extremely challenging to do a good job. You are responsible for the fate of tens or hundreds of millions of people, and must exercise incredible judgment on the breadth of every macro problem society faces while simultaneously maneuvering both internal support and foreign relations. Why would we not want to make this most important of all jobs a job where people can actually grow into the role and demonstrate expertise in it? You are strictly only eliminating the electorate's options. There is already a corrective mechanism for voters to evict someone doing a bad job [whether they choose to exercise it is another matter, but that's literally democracy in action], but there should be no mechanism to sustain a job well done?
stickfigure2 hours ago
The skill to win elections and the skill to govern are not the same. And humans have biases against change. Term limits guarantee the downside is limited and they are healthy for a real democracy.
Also... too long in power makes it easier to dismantle the democratic process.
The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.
senderistaan hour ago
> The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.
Well how's that working out? There's a reason the rest of the developed democratic world hasn't adopted a strong executive.
anonymous908213an hour ago
> The skill to win elections and the skill to govern are not the same.
Then elect someone else next time. This, however, is a criticism of democracy more than it is a justification for term limits.
> The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.
How's that working out for you? You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits. The way I see it, your system has selected for the maximally damaging bad leadership possible.
jcranmer37 minutes ago
> You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits.
The US only enacted term limits in 1951. Before that time, only two presidents had attempted to seek third terms (another two attempted but failed to secure even a nomination by a political party), and only one was successful.
And, quite frankly, the only president since the 22nd amendment who I could see wanting to run for a third term is Trump, who does seem to be campaigning for one anyways despite being constitutionally barred from it.
flamedogean hour ago
hardly the worst leaderships. Would you rather have Mao/Stalin/Putin?
anonymous90821341 minutes ago
Can't much see a difference between Trump and Putin what with him baselessly invading Iran, Venezeula, the corruption, and wiping his ass with your constitution with his declared intent to defy the term limits anyways (something that is liable to happen when you rotate bad people into office instead of keeping good people - they actually just don't care about what limits you wrote on paper, meaning your restrictions only apply to your good employees).
gorgoileran hour ago
It’s a nice argument but there’s another axis: fatigue. Leading takes its toll. To be charitable it’s not plausible that you can run a country, with all the stress that entails, and out compete everyone not at the apex of the front line.
I check my brake pads every year. Eventually the incumbent pads lose out to some whipper-snapper from the new pads box. I might vote red again or I might switch to blue. It depends how muddy it is. Either way, it’s both a new/old choice as well as a red/blue choice.
Time-in-office is also a major contributor to corruption. Lukashenko has been winning the same election for 30+ years!
ookblah29 minutes ago
i feel like democracy isn't about the most competent but about the "least bad" option you could have. an effective dictator (lol) can cut thru the red tape but what people are worried about are the terrible ones. at least with a democracy you can rotate them out.
digitalPhonix3 hours ago
Why? If they’re democratically voted, what’s wrong with it?
Australia has no term limits and has famously had the longest serving prime minister (12 years) followed by extremely short terms. All seemed to represent the general will of the population.
perilunar3 hours ago
I wish Australia had term limits for all politicians, and not just for the PM. Term limits prevents people becoming career politicians, which i think would be a good thing.
shermantanktop3 hours ago
The argument against aggressive term limits that I’ve read: there are many people making a career in politics as a whole—lobbyists, influence groups, party committees, etc. They have a huge advantage over the term-limited elected politician.
I’m not a political junkie but that makes sense to me. The critters who get your vote are just part of the system that runs the place.
The_Blade31 minutes ago
Sheeeeeeeeeeit
rapnie34 minutes ago
Mark Rutte, Netherlands, 14 years prime minister, four terms in office. It is hard to say if he represented the general will of the population given that his party, the liberal-right VVD favors the more well-to-do part of the population. I think many voters voted for him as a trustworthy face and friendly, amicable man. Vote for the personality. He was also characterized as Mr Tefal for his ability to make nothing stick to him in terms of criticism, and utterly pragmatic, denouncing vision. As a result the big problems and areas where reform were most needed, were always pushed to the future.
You might say he introduced a kind of populism, where politicians only care about the next election round and their reputation, to the cost of important decision-making and long-term thinking. Unfortunately this is kind of a working strategy, a weakness of democracy, where the current centre-right government is struggling with all the aggravated problems not dealt with in the past, and the voters think "well, perhaps we have to vote VVD again where these problems didn't exist", or vote more right-wing by populism that makes immigration the cause of all problems.
mixologic4 hours ago
His first two terms were 2003-2011
surgical_fire4 hours ago
Not in a row.
Lula served two terms from 2002-2010, and came back in 2022 (now to serve until 2030, if he lives until then).
motionlessveloc4 hours ago
Plus he's 80 today and will be 84 by the time his term ends. Gerontocracy for the win.
cowlevel4 hours ago
It's very situationally dependent. Term limits stop bad politicians doing too much damage, they also stop good politicians getting too much momentum on their side.
bombcar4 hours ago
Term limits result in dynasties "behind the scenes" running things.
Long-term politicians result in "behind the scenes" doing the real work of running things.
Wait a minute ...
copperx2 hours ago
There's a limit of two consecutive terms.
so-gala-masseyan hour ago
Roosevelt has entered chat.
eluru2 hours ago
we dont have a lot of hoices in south america and he is top notch
trollbridge3 hours ago
It’s good for Putin. He and Lula are allies, and their friendship goes way back.
Daishiman2 hours ago
Let's do takes for the sake of takes.
nemomarx5 hours ago
This is probably a good support case for run-off elections being beneficial.
wraptile4 hours ago
Ranked voting and runoff systems seem to have nothing but positives yet adoption is still lacking for some reason.
Tiktaalik4 hours ago
No electoral method is perfect and there are problems with Instant runoff ranked ballots. Look up "Favourite Betrayal" as a problem where ranking your most favourite incorrectly can accidentally result in your least favourite winning.
Of course just because there are technically flaws, doesn't mean it's not an improvement over the status quo.
Instant Runoff Ranked ballots are particularly well suited for electing a single position like a Mayor or President. Given that it's still a majoritarian system like First Pass the Post, it's a much more questionable system to use for other things like electing a parliament.
cowlevel4 hours ago
I think IRV at least has fairly unpredictable failure cases, which means they can't be exploited.
I remember seeing a 2D chart representing voter preferences on the X and Y axis, coloured by who wins under those preferences (and some symmetry-breaking assumptions). Some systems showed clear biases towards certain outcomes. IRV had a pretty symmetric shape but with a splotch in the middle that was a random jumble of different colours - an unpredictable, chaotic outcome.
gs174 minutes ago
Might have been these charts: https://www.rangevoting.org/IEVS/Pictures.html
gs17an hour ago
> Of course just because there are technically flaws, doesn't mean it's not an improvement over the status quo.
The problem IMO is when there's better options but it's hard to get people to care enough to switch systems again. I'm hoping Ranked Robin can catch on so at least places that went to IRV can switch to a better system without new ballots.
xvedejas4 hours ago
Depends on which ranked system. IRV has a lot of issues that other systems (like STAR, my personal preference in voting system, or Condorcet methods for instance) address much better. Non-monotonicity in particular seems like a bad property of a voting system, so I'm confused that IRV is so popular recently.
gs17an hour ago
> Non-monotonicity in particular seems like a bad property of a voting system, so I'm confused that IRV is so popular recently.
Same here. The idea of lobbying for a voting system where your vote for a candidate might hurt them, or where you might be better off not voting at all than expressing your honest preference is bizarre to me. If IRV was the only alternative, sure, but we have multiple other systems which don't have as bad tradeoffs. STAR or Ranked Robin would be so much better, but the Equal Vote Coalition doesn't seem to have the power behind it that FairVote does.
creataan hour ago
One reason IRV is popular is that it has extensive use in other countries (Australia, Ireland). It's not revolutionary but it's an improvement and nothing terrible has happened.
STAR has been used approximately nowhere. STAR is also one of the few seriously advocated-for voting methods in which it's possible for the first choice of a majority to lose, although that isn't likely to happen in practice.
lotsofpulp4 hours ago
First past the post is beneficial for establishment parties.
perilunar3 hours ago
Indeed. It tends to reinforce a two-party system. Anyone who votes third-party gets accused of 'wasting' their vote.
Preferential/ranked choice voting allows people to vote third-party while still expressing a preference for one of the majors.
shrubby4 minutes ago
Nice to see this despite the tech fascist effort.
soneca5 hours ago
I have a learning a bit more related to tech from this election. Centrally organized, cohesive, persistent online engagement wins elections.
It won for Bolsonaro whose campaign nailed it in 2018. It didn’t win in 2022 because he was completely bad in dealing with pandemics (mocking people dying and saying he had nothing to do with it being president).
Now, Lula’s campaign was absolutely dead during the whole time. Until it lost in the legislative by a mile and in the President run had a partial loss in the first round. Then the campaign lit up after the partial upset.
Janones, an energetic young guy elected to legislative with good online presence led the campaign. He achieved creating a WhatsApp group with 11 million people called “Lula’s army”. He would give the directions and the people would obey almost blindly.
The interwebs (basically WhatsApp + Instagram) got flooded with this top to bottom Lula’s campaign.
The first round results made Bolsonaro very favorite. Lula victory was a huge upset. I put the merit in this incessant social media campaign.
The thing is: “centrally planned cohesive campaign” looks a lot like a cult. The point of the campaign is not critical thought or argumentation, it is incessant messaging. Think fandoms.
Bolsonaro voters pejorative nickname from past campaigns was they were all “cattle”. Because that is how they behaved online. Ironically, what worked for Lula voters this year was they behaving like “cattle”. Just reposting and following this central orders on what to post, what to say, what to dress.
The thing is, it works. Cult-like fandoms work in elections. The right won a few elections like this in the world. In Brazil, the left just learned how to do it was well.
The more mindless posters a politician has following their campaign HQ orders, the more votes they have.
rraghur3 hours ago
In India, we have a name for for blind supporters of the current Hindu right ruling party.. The BJP... They're called andh bhakts... Translated 'the faithful blind'... Even incontrovertible proof of wrong doing does not change their mindset
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
Lula's been involved in over a dozen corruption scandals by now. It doesn't matter to anyone. It's been completely normalized.
marcosdumay2 hours ago
Flavio seems to be a mob leader, why anybody would care that Lula was caught stealing things?
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
Your cause and effect are inverted. It's precisely because of Lula's corruption that nobody cares anymore.
He was arrested for the biggest corruption scandal this country ever had. People ratted him out. He was the guy at the top.
Then the supreme court cited some technicality like "his initial judgement took place in the wrong court" and just undid the entire thing. They did it because nobody else could take out Bolsonaro.
Then he ran against Bolsonaro and took him out in 2022. And he just did it again.
It's Brazil. Crime pays. Lula's existence is proof. This country will never truly change.
marcosdumay2 hours ago
So... people react by voting on one of the leaders of the fucking Rio mob? (the "nice family you have, it would be a shame if something happened to them" kind of mob?)
Besides, Jair Bolsonaro won when Lula was still in jail.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
The "mob" accusations are just that: accusations. Lula was actually held guilty by multiple independent judges based on evidence and testimony.
And you're right, Lula's imprisonment changed everything. It was a moment of hope for many of us, and the reason why Bolsonaro even had a chance to begin with. Surely you can understand why the supreme court breaking the guy out of jail and putting him in the presidential race again while censoring everything Bolsonaro said and did would cause people to stop believing in justice?
tonnydouradoa few seconds ago
> multiple independent judges
The first instance judge colluded with the prosecution, and when the supreme court was about to rule on a habeas corpus, a general tweeted a thinly veiled threat of military coup if the sentence wasn't confirmed. And the evidence was scant to begin with. Hardly surprising that the conviction was eventually overturned.
Bolsonaro's condemnation, on the other hand, was backed by much more comprehensive evidence, and resulted from a heavily scrutinized process.
khriss17 minutes ago
And how many of those 'independent' judges were appointed by Bolsanaro after openly and explicitly promising to 'end' Lula?
Daishiman2 hours ago
Matheus in this forum you're literally the only person who believes this and who feels that this is worse than Bolsonaro having literally planned a coup.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
What's your point?
khriss12 minutes ago
The point is, you really need to sit down, examine your life and get help. You have spent years repeating and amplifying debunked Brazilian right wing propaganda here. You refuse to see and accept evidence when it's presented to you and turn round and accuse others of bias.
At some point, you cross over from being misguided to an embarrassment to yourself.
WelkinFolkan hour ago
> Even incontrovertible proof of wrong doing does not change their mindset
You could argue that about pretty much every politician and their supporters in India. The right wing keeps winning because the left refuses to address the fears of a majority of the Indian population. Even if those fears are unwarranted - dismissing them as "uneducated" and "blind sheep" alienates people even more.
gsky35 minutes ago
Opposition is full of corrupt dynasties who ruled India for 65years with iron fist. Indians want dynasties out.
brazukadev5 hours ago
Absolutely. Janones won this election. Let's see if he will be part of the government or will be sidelined again.
gverrilla3 hours ago
Janones was not leading a cult, this is just absurd. He was not telling people what to believe or how to behave AT ALL - he was just giving directions on what to do on social media to win the elections. Bolsonarism on the other hand is 100% a cult, from the beginning.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
> It didn’t win in 2022 because he was completely bad in dealing with pandemics
And also because the entire state apparatus was engaged in unconstitutional censorship of his "centrally organized, cohesive, persistent online engagement" machine, which is what wins elections, as you noted.
And now that Janones set up his own "Lula's Army", Brazilian institutions did not manifest even a fraction of the energy they had shown while persecuting Bolsonaro.
Lula was allowed to do everything Bolsonaro was persecuted for in 2022. He even lowered taxes on fuels, and got away with it. The tax cut ends tomorrow.
eviks2 hours ago
Are humans still involved in summarizing? Why is "What you need to know" missing the vote count even though the title is about votes?
motionlessvelocan hour ago
AFAIK the final numbers are not out yet, the electoral commission called it because Lula's margin is sufficiently large that Bolsonaro mathematically cannot win.
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zapataband12 hours ago
An area of Amazon forest roughly the size of the US state of New Jersey has remained standing due to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s leadership of Brazil, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-lula-presidency-saved-a...
for those partying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vL--PrvsJ0
thimabi5 hours ago
Once again, a clear anti-Bolsonaro vote from the majority of the electorate. Lula won because he got last-minute support from the moderates and even some right-wingers. It certainly does not feel like a victory of the left.
Now he will face a much bigger opposition in Congress and therefore will have to find a middle ground.
I expect his policies to move even further to the right. This might pave the way for his vice-president Alckmin, a historical right-winger, to run in the 2030 elections — likely against São Paulo’s governor Tarcísio de Freitas, also a right-winger and considered more moderate than the Bolsonaros despite being associated with them.
(reposting my own comment from a related thread)
nemomarx5 hours ago
The margin is a little close, so is the Senate expected to be deadlocked? Or is there a coalition that can form between moderates and the left?
thimabi4 hours ago
I wouldn’t say deadlocked but the coalition between moderates and the left isn’t a given. There are many centrist parties who will likely alternate between supporting and opposing the government depending on the issue.
senorrib3 hours ago
Legislative branch in Brazil never deadlocks. Coalitions are a very natural part of our democracy.
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
Yeah, they will just make deals. Seriously doubt there will be a deadlock. Hope they at least manage to impeach the supreme court justices, which is what we elected them for.
ufo4 hours ago
Senate is very right wing.
brunoff2 hours ago
i don't know why you were downvoted. any turn to the moderation/center seems good news to me. those crazy swings between extremes left or right are just bad. i have never voted for both bolsonaro neither lula and crave for something closer to the center.
lula is a little less crazy (compared to bolsonaro), likely not anti-science, preserves the amazon, seems to care about keeping the same constituition and so on, but he heaves his hand when it comes to (mostly populist) spending, like there's no tomorrow.
he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term. so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest. people that likes him usually say they don't like milei, but his incredible debt build up is actually a future-milei magnet.
also, after so much terms and "custo brazil" ("Brazilian (Business) Cost Burden"?) still prohibitive, the country never goes up from its terrible positions in making business rankings. one can just not hope he does anything better now after so much terms. his spending is too demand biased.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
> he heaves his hand when it comes to (mostly populist) spending, like there's no tomorrow
This is key to his reelection. He literally ran on a "Bolsonaro will end Bolsa Família" campaign.
It's unfortunate. Lula inherited a post-Washington consensus neoliberal Brazil. He had nearly 20 years to undo all that and reindustrialize the country, thereby putting us on China's path.
I would have voted for him regardless of ideology if he had done it, but he didn't. It's just easier to just anesthetize the population and put them on paliative care with free money.
> he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term.
This "short term" is unbearably long... But I do see signs that the system is reaching its limits. Government was already having trouble paying pensions before Vorcaro.
> so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest.
Bankers love Lula for a reason. Record profits.
runarberg5 hours ago
I would call this a defensive victory. The left’s best chance was a 0-0 draw, so they put everyone in defense and managed to prevent the right from scoring a victory goal.
nielsbot5 hours ago
moving to the right would be a trap. (cf. Dem party vs Trump) The left must instead build an anti-right wing narrative. People vote on material benefits so delivering more of those should be top priority—I think Trumps slump in the US proves that.
marcosdumay2 hours ago
Nobody wants to see them cut taxes from the rich or reduce employers rights. The popular "right" in Brazil wants taxes to be easier to pay, judges not to decide based on who is asking, and clear rules on what you can or can't do.
Also, nobody can beat Dilma on cutting taxes from the rich.
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abdelhousni5 hours ago
Fascism loses, maybe there is hope for the rest of the world.
hellgas004 hours ago
"Lula's re-election will strengthen Brazil's ties with Russia, Brazilian Workers Party congressman Reimont Otoni told TASS"
The world is more complex than "fascist" vs "communist"
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
Bolsonaro was also friendly towards Russia. Any president will be. Brazil depends on their fertilizers.
senorrib3 hours ago
So what?! Nobody is saying otherwise. But PT vastly misrepresents how close it is to fascists and dictators. Love them, but hate to publicize them.
Daishiman2 hours ago
Why is it that this a concern to you but it's not a concern when the US and European powers align themselves with Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
I agree with you.
dietr1ch4 hours ago
I get that BRICS is world-domination wise scary to the US, but I don't really think the rest of the world fears that sans the US's warmongering.
hellgas004 hours ago
Tbh don’t really care which side is right (some of Lula's politics I like and other not). I’m just pointing out the mental gymnastics HN goes through to paint one group as “fascist,” while completely ignoring the grey areas that don’t fit their cleancut worldview.
tensor2 hours ago
None of the things you mentioned have anything to do with whether or not a candidate is fascist. No “mental gymnastics” are needed.
cowlevel4 hours ago
I don't know enough about their available options to know how bad this is.
free_bip4 hours ago
Are you taking this single congressman's word as fact?
hellgas004 hours ago
https://www.barrons.com/news/lula-calls-to-strengthen-strate...
Literally Lula said as much
"We are interested in discussing the defence area, the space area, the scientific and technological area, the education area, and especially, the energy issue area," Lula said.
collinmcnulty3 hours ago
Only if you beat the fascists. Otherwise it gets real black-and-white real fast
medellin5 hours ago
Lol, you this dumb? Lula is insanely corrupt as well. Can you define fascism or is it just what your feed is telling you to say now days just like everyone libs disagreed with before was a pdf file until it lost its meaning. Then we were racists until that lost its meaning.. now onto fascism. Until that also loses its meaning.
O no downvotes waaaaa the libs are picking on me i am going to cryyyyyy
TheWrongGuy5 hours ago
Who is we? Bolsonaro supporters?
johntitor235 hours ago
Can you define fascism?
declan_roberts5 hours ago
Anything not left wing is fascism. What I don't like is fascism. Not being a heckin decent human being is fascism. Loving the government too much is fascism but so is hating it too much.
cwnyth4 hours ago
platevoltage4 hours ago
declan_roberts4 hours ago
So the anti-fascist USSR and the Nazis overlapped by about 80-90%.
cowlevel3 hours ago
It's almost like the USSR was, in fact, fascist.
runarberg3 hours ago
Fails criteria 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. So that is 7 out of 14 = 50%.
USSR was famously anti-religion (criteria 8) and pro labor (criteria 9 and 10) so thinking USSR shared 80-90% with Nazis is kind of laughable.
declan_roberts3 hours ago
Pro labor is when the government makes it illegal for you to switch jobs or quit.
hinow5 hours ago
Parabéns Lula! Uffaaaaaa
subdude5 hours ago
Heartening after all the interference the US and its oligarchs threw at this election.
jonifico5 hours ago
I am not from Brazil, nor am I closely following its politics, but I would like to pose a genuine question: in a modern liberal democracy, doesn’t a four-term presidency represent too much power concentrated in one person?
itubaj2 hours ago
Yes.
pilgrim030 minutes ago
no. as presidency is not a dictatorship
supjeff5 hours ago
The one good thing about the current system is that shitheads like musk can spend half-a-billion to buy elections, but the people still have the final say.
tialaramex3 hours ago
Interestingly the current "lets stop corporations from spending money on elections" that's popular in several states - wouldn't directly touch Musk because he can just spend the money directly.
I don't think "Oooh. Scary muslims!" works any less well if it's required to say "Elon Musk" rather than "American Apple Pie Goodness PAC" or whatever.
It might make a difference for smaller donors, especially if they're more sensitive about their personal PR.
verdverm3 hours ago
The US is going to need a constitutional amendment to undo the Citizens United decision. Unlimited money in politics is anything but free speech.
Daz9124 hours ago
As demonstrated in 2024 with democrat billionaires trying and failing to buy the election :)
7622364 hours ago
[flagged]
colordrops5 hours ago
That's assuming no gerrymandering and funny business at the polls.
andersonpico4 hours ago
gerrymandering is not possible with Brasil electoral system
dietr1ch4 hours ago
Right, but he's right to try to account for legal, as in currently allowed, cheating or misrepresentation of the people in a democracy.
xoa4 hours ago
>gerrymandering
I don't know the specifics of Brazil's system, but at least in the US gerrymandering has nothing to do with the Presidency or Senate, only the House. It's also not without risk. Gerrymandering is bad, but it doesn't change the totals of votes; it attempts to reapportion "excess" votes yielding a large win margin in one area to give winning, but necessarily smaller, margins in more areas. Amongst other challenges though that smaller margin means if there is a wave then a gerrymander can turn into a "dummymander" where previously safe districts get flipped.
>funny business
This is actually pretty dang hard in anything but a total sham, and even then is at least obvious it happened. Some timy fiddling at the margins may be possible to sneak through, and yeah some elections that might make the difference. But that can't counter any serious victory. The more common technique seems to be trying to suppress the vote. But as well as also not being trivial it also too risks backfiring by motivating people much harder. There is a lot of human psychology around "loss", people often absolutely hate things being taken from them even if they were complacent about having them.
brunoborges4 hours ago
Brazilian here. President wins by popular vote. Period.
Must win by 50% plus 1 of all valid votes on Round 1. If not, 1st and 2nd most voted go for Round 2 a few weeks later. Then, 50%+1 again of all valid votes.
Dwedit4 hours ago
While gerrymandering technically "only" involves the house, it can demotivate people who would otherwise turn out.
saturn86014 hours ago
Gerrymandering is the most benign of the tricks, and both sides play that trick. What's more concerning is we don't really have a true paper record of the votes. So many of these swing states have machines that produce digital only voting records. So how do we even know that the vote is accurate? Even if there was a paper record, most states don't even bother re-checking unless it's very close. After 2016, a lot of activism across the country has forced states to switch to a paper + digital record, which allows quick tallies, but then also paper backup and opens the door to two way verification. Unfortunately, this is not enough. There needs to be validation done after the election to confirm. But again, the worst part is that the states that really matter have been the ones least incentivized to actually switch over. So who knows? While its conspiracy thinking that Trump didn't actually win in 2024, do we really know for sure?
Everything else you mentioned also matters. I can't tell you the amount of times that the state of Georgia, suddenly out of the blue, invalidated a lot of registered voters. And if people don't check, like my friend in a minority town outside of Atlanta, they won't realize until election day. Red states are more likely to play this trick. Your conclusion is something I disagree with, though. Voters have lost so much over the last decade, and they don't fight back until it really starts to affect them personally. I think the surge that we might see this election is only due to economics. If the economics were good, it's not out of the question that Trump would be doing fairly decent this election cycle. This is why Iran is playing things very well to try to enact maximum economic pain in the days before the election. But it's all about economics, and that shows you that people truly don't really care.
p-e-w5 hours ago
Gerrymandering doesn’t change the fact that the voters decide the results. Most electoral systems already give unequal weight to different votes based on district sizes etc., so gerrymandering is only a change of degree and intention, not of how democracy fundamentally works.
afavour5 hours ago
> Gerrymandering doesn’t change the fact that the voters decide the results.
Well it does change which voters decide the results. A lot of electoral systems seek to constantly redress imbalance by having impartial bodies redraw district lines as populations shift. It is a shame the US does not. Gerrymandering is fundamentally undemocratic.
cowlevel4 hours ago
I'm not sure you could find, or make, an impartial body in the US.
sergiotapia5 hours ago
https://x.com/AlexanderSoros/status/2114508265643983067
Need I say more?
cowlevel4 hours ago
Yes, please say more, I have no idea what you're saying.
platevoltage4 hours ago
Wait, what did he do besides be happy that a fascist isn't in charge of the future of the Amazon?
sergiotapia4 hours ago
There's a near infinite amount of ways to try to understand why right wing people deeply disagree with the soros family and the way they destroy countries. Try to find out for yourself.
I try to understand why communists love lula the same way.
digitaltrees4 hours ago
OK. So name some of the infinite ways.
sergiotapia4 hours ago
HN isn't the place for this kind of stuff. But, clear as day Alex Soros loves Lula and his positions and mission. Go from there.
cowlevel4 hours ago
What would be the next step in understanding?
MattDamonSpace4 hours ago
So can we stop panicking about money in elections or
mahmoudhossam4 hours ago
No.
georgemcbay4 hours ago
No, this much money in politics is still very dangerous.
A major reason it isn't working for now is because Donald Trump is, in addition to being a corrupt autocrat, incredibly incompetent. We shouldn't have to rely on that next time.
dylan6044 hours ago
Trump's time is ending, but Musk's is not. That's pretty scary
Telaneo4 hours ago
Absolutely the fuck not.
johnnyanmac4 hours ago
Nope. Money still buys votes. It's just that Musk is so opaquely unpopular outside of the US that it negates his riches. Which really says something.
verdverm3 hours ago
He's also very unpopular in the US
johnnyanmac3 hours ago
Not unpopular enough to tank Tesla sales (like in other countries) or not be pubic enemy #1 after literally stealing America's government data.
He did screw up Twitter/X enough that a new competitor managed to make a blip on the map, though. So that leads some credence.
verdverm2 hours ago
EV sales are not a great metric to judge musk sentiments, consider the Tesla drivers who put various bumper stickers on
Tesla is the only EV company in the US making a good product. People also like the techieness. Foreign manufactures like Hyundai (what I drive, preferred less tech and real buttons) have tariffs and such applied to them. BYD would wreck them all if allowed.
Ygg24 hours ago
Not really. A biased coin doesn't need to be biased 99% (to 1%) for it to matter.
dvdyzag5 hours ago
wasn't musk heavily quoted in physics and tech books until his politics became center stage?
ryan_n5 hours ago
Serious question: why would he be "heavily" quoted in physics books? I didn't think he was a physicist, is he?
epihelix4 hours ago
It's not limited to textbooks or academic publications, or based on any context whatsoever, but an ngram search actually suggests there's a much larger musk stain on recent published literature than I'd ever thought possible:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Elon+Musk%2CAl...
Make of that what you will.
cowlevel4 hours ago
I don't understand how to filter this to physics books
epihelix21 minutes ago
I wasn't trying to imply that, simply noting that there was a surprising amount of literary chatter about Musk, at high levels compared to commonly cited physicists. It's not the most useful comparison.
It could easily be people writing fanfic about him (ugh) or criticising the pants off him, and may not be related at all. But I'd guess a lot of this was field-adjacent to at least his business interests.
so-gala-massey4 hours ago
I guess some people still like to troll? Or are so dumb they’ve obviously never even cracked a physic text? I’m hoping it’s just old fashioned trolling.
jeffbee5 hours ago
We need to get to the bottom of why people believe stuff like that, and fix it.
beloch4 hours ago
It's money.
If you have a lot of money and you've managed to stay out of prison, people are generally ready to believe good things about you and want to be in your good graces. If you pay people to continually say good things about you and manage your media appearances for you, there will generally be a lot of impact to that. You're just telling people what they're primed to believe. A lot of people will fluff up your image for free just because they're hoping for patronage.
Musk has a BA in physics that was awarded a couple years after he says he says he completed his studies. Unlike CPSC, leaving a physics program early robs you of some pretty crucial stuff. You generally don't see a lot of rockstar physicists leaving university early to join startups. Despite Musk posing as a rocket scientist, engineering guru, etc., there's no evidence he's one of the scientific or engineering minds behind Tesla or SpaceX's work. He's just a money guy.
The general rule for money guys is that the closer you are to the money, the more of it you can get. This is why CEO's are paid outrageous sums. Musk is the closest guy to the money at his companies, and his one true gift seems to be "getting close" to politicians in order to get the public's money, which Tesla and SpaceX have received gob-smacking amounts of.
If you want a laugh, go look up the episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History addendum where he brought Musk on. Carlin typically interviews authors of history books, so why Musk? Why indeed! During this episode, it comes out that Musk used to have models of WWII planes but clearly knows absolutely nothing about history. Despite this, he makes every effort to sound like he does. This is the sort of exposure $$$ gets you but, sometimes, you miss the mark.
hackyhacky5 hours ago
You're fighting a losing war against human laziness and gullibility.
lazide5 hours ago
Reality distortion field. Same reason Jobs is held up as an amazing visionary.
p-e-w5 hours ago
That assumption has certainly been vindicated, considering what happened to Apple after he was gone.
datsci_est_20154 hours ago
A 5 trillion dollar company?
cowlevel4 hours ago
That produces the blandest corporate safe slop.
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georgemcbay5 hours ago
Somewhat Related:
ceejayoz5 hours ago
You’re making the claim. Back it up.
[deleted]4 hours agocollapsed
coeneedell5 hours ago
Not really. He had a really good PR person that made people think this, but most technologists are focused on, y’know, actual technology
Thrymr5 hours ago
no
i_love_retros4 hours ago
[flagged]
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medellin5 hours ago
In this thread.. people whose context on the election ranges from “i saw it on my feed a week ago and have a really valid opinion” to “that one guy is a total fascist”. HN you are full on retarded
swingandamiss4 hours ago
I truly hate what HN has become. It has all the expected comments about Musk, fascism, etc. This is exactly why I stopped going to reddit.
aliasxneo4 hours ago
Just a friendly gesture that there's still independents/non-partisan's here. We're a dying breed, but it seems to the the inevitable outcome when politics becomes a religion.
i_love_retros4 hours ago
In current times only cowards and deadbeats are non partisan.
aliasxneo4 hours ago
Non-partisan doesn't mean lack of engagement or action. Maybe that's why there's so much confusion here.
torlok4 hours ago
Buddy, ICE is chasing down and killing US citizens. Musk is openly supporting European neo-Nazis. The US tech sector is supporting the genocide of Palestinians, and interfering with foreign elections.
aliasxneo4 hours ago
See, the problem is that each side has moved so far to the extreme that any middle of the road comment is perceived as supporting the other side. But thanks for the demonstration, I guess.
cowlevel4 hours ago
A middle of the road comment would be "we need taxes, but not too high" or "children shouldn't be going hungry, but very sadly we can't afford to feed them from the city budget". What's actually being responded to above is the complete lack of a comment.
torlok4 hours ago
Swing and a miss buddy. The point is that big tech is political by its own choice, and you have to be extremely ignorant to look past that.
aliasxneo4 hours ago
No, you just blatantly assumed none of those things mattered to me. You do realize you can have morals and opinions but also be non-partisan, right? Of course big tech is political, I completely agree. But you never asked me that question. Which again, really just keeps driving my point home. It's rabid.
cowlevel3 hours ago
The parties have morals and opinions which are quite diametrically opposed. If you have any at all, then you necessarily align with one or the other - being in the exact middle is an extreme rarity (and also quite a stupid position, because it implies you can't decide whether it's better to have free healthcare or to torture immigrants). Most people who claim to be in the exact middle are in fact not.
aliasxneo2 hours ago
Being non-partisan or independent has nothing to do with being in the "exact middle." I don't even think that's a real thing, nor did I ever imply it was. A better example is that, given an election ballot, I might split party lines rather than toe it unconditionally. I register as neither party because I generally disagree enough I don't wish to be affiliated with their policies. It doesn't mean I don't agree with some. Perhaps one election cycle I swing more left than right and the next I swing more right than left. It doesn't mean one cycle I identify as a Democrat and the other a Republican.
Since you keep baiting me with your straw man, I'll address the example: I neither want to torture immigrants nor do I want to give free healthcare to non-taxpayers. So, given your straw man, that would posit I'm in neither party's camp.
cowlevel4 hours ago
The left: we need free healthcare and less market capture.
The right: we need to torture immigrants and more market capture.
The center: I can't decide between these two equally appealing, equally moral options.
verdverm3 hours ago
This is a naive perspective. Both extremes are losing people to independents for a reason. What we want is less of this and more of civil discourse. Most people are not tuned into the details, are focusing on their family, and vote based on how their wallet feels and the things they hear 2-3 weeks before the election.
Perhaps if the far left and hard right didn't dominate primaries (many reasons for this), we could have less extreme candidates in November. But it is what it is until we start having civil conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and community. We could be having conversations about how we improve our democracy.
You comment lends to being part of the problem. Please stop demeaning everyone with blanket statements.
As an independent volunteering with Indivisible, my main effort has been to moderate the members on the far left.
aliasxneo2 hours ago
This person seem content with summarizing the entire choice of a political party into a single point of torturing immigrants. It's no wonder we're in the state we are.
Refreeze522443 minutes ago
> until we start having civil conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and community. We could be having conversations about how we improve our democracy.
You don't have much idea what some of our family, friends, and neighbors are like do you? I have nothing to say to fascists, Nazis, and anyone who advocates for the things MAGA advocates for. Spare us the "oh we should just talk it out" BS. The time for discourse ended when people started advocating for racist fascism. And if you're unable to spot the racist fascism, then you likely support it.
cowlevel2 hours ago
I have heard of precisely three people in American politics who are left at all, much less far left. Those are AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. The left is certainly not dominating any primaries.
verdverm2 hours ago
They are democratic socialists, the far left is a much bigger camp.
The rule of thumb I use is, do they say things like "win at all costs" or talk about how they want to dominate others, forcing their views on all Americans.
roshannarma4 hours ago
Yeah it's a really bad echo chamber, hard to find any system that is not built around group thinking
newsy-combi4 hours ago
True.
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i_love_retros4 hours ago
So you're not against fascism?
draxen2 hours ago
Anglo-American media spend the 2000s and 2010s accusing Denmark of being fascist.
The word is absolutely meaningless now.
georgemcbay3 hours ago
A shocking number of people aren't against fascism, as long as you don't use the actual word to describe what they support.
And when you correctly use the word to describe what they are supporting, you are inciting violence.
cowlevel2 hours ago
Example?
howunfortunate3 hours ago
O'Sullivan's First Law: "Any organization not explicitly right-wing will eventually become left-wing"
cowlevel2 hours ago
Usually laws are based on some kind of observable reality.
howunfortunatean hour ago
Here are a couple examples of initially neutral or moderate organizations that became left wing bastions:
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
Writers Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
National Education Association
American Federation of Teachers
American Psychological Association
American Sociological Association
Modern Language Association
American Historical Association
Association of American Universities
Columbia University
Harvard University
Yale University
University of California, Berkeley
Oberlin College
Reed College
NPR
PBS
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Guardian
Human Rights Campaign
GLAAD
Good luck finding examples of the opposite direction.
tmnvix16 minutes ago
The New York Times and The Washington Post left wing bastions?
Either your list is way out of date or the Overton Window is so far to the right in the US that this statement is somehow possible.
There are many more institutions on that list that are explicitly not left wing by non-US standards.
lioetersan hour ago
The "left" has a well-known reality bias.
logicchains18 minutes ago
The "left" ignores the vast amount of statistical evidence that differences in outcomes among ethnicities are due to differences in mean IQ scores, and instead assumes there's some big societal conspiracy to suppress black and Hispanic people, and privilege Whites, East Asians, Jews and Indians.
lioeters5 minutes ago
You're a great representative of whatever side you're on. What an embarrassment. Grow up and join the 21st century.
brazukadev5 hours ago
Really unexpected.
Polymarket was like 80% Bolsonaro Jr to 20% Lula 7pm, 7:15 it changed to 60% Lula. There were multiple reports in the news websites about it favoring Bolsonaro which itself probably made some people vote for him.
I'm quite happy with the result tho. Let's see how the far right opposition will take this loss. I'm already expecting the worse.
mulderc5 hours ago
Maybe these prediction markets are less useful than has been claimed.
furyofantares5 hours ago
20% happens about 1 in 5 times. I know that's snarky wording but 20% shots come though constantly in daily life.
I think as humans we are really bad at intuition about probabilities, and it being an election only makes it much worse. I don't think anyone is consciously conflating these with poll numbers but percentages of voters are the numbers we see a lot more than prediction markets, and 80% is idunno an 80% chance of getting between 50% and 54% of the vote or something.
alpha_squared5 hours ago
It's not a 'prediction market', it's a gambling market. It's far more accurate to say 80% of gamblers were convinced Bolsanaro would win than to say there's an 80% likelihood he would win. It's not measuring likelihood as it's untethered from things that impact the actual results. Obscuring it basic gambling with the word 'prediction' doesn't change the fact that's naked gambling at the end of the day.
furyofantares3 hours ago
It's extremely inaccurate to say 80% of the gamblers were convinced because that's not how it works at all. Each bet has someone on the other side of it - 50% of the people bet on Bolsanaro and 50% against.
If you bet on 20% chances and they happen 30% of the time you make money. The payoffs are such that you win by being a better predictor than the market. I'm fine criticizing it as a gambling blight (not to mention a corruption payoff) but it is also a prediction market.
quirino4 hours ago
The 80% is not the proportion of people who think he would win, that's not how these things work.
Every single factor was pointing towards Bolsonaro, Polymarket was just consistent with that.
He unexpectedly won the first round of the election. His lead was expected to grow since he'd likely get most of the votes of the other candidates. 17 out of 18 polls favored Bolsonaro. Market movements indicated a strong expectation of him winning. The Brazilian Real futures are already down 10% in the last couple hours.
But that's how democracy works, I think this election will be studied many times in the future.
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
> The Brazilian Real futures are already down 10% in the last couple hours.
Brutal.
smuhakg5 hours ago
If he has an 80% chance to win that means Polymarket will be "wrong" 20% of the time. And 80% seems fair given he was leading in the polls by a razor thin but consistent margin.
jeffbee5 hours ago
Polymarket isn't binary so you are understating how wrong they were. Polymaket gives outcomes as percentage odds and less than 12 hours ago they had Bolsonaro by 5-to-1.
cowlevel4 hours ago
They resolve as binary. Until they resolve it's a percentage chance of the eventual resolution.
augusto-moura5 hours ago
They were never useful for the results, just for market expectation, which is never the same as real chances of something happening
axus5 hours ago
Maybe it's useful for people spending money to present the odds they wish for?
medellin5 hours ago
They are good at some markets but they don’t understand latam and especially Brazilian politics in the least so whatever makes it into the US news drives the market although it is normally wrong
verdverm3 hours ago
and more manipulated for intended public influence than realized
this kind of gambling ought be made illegal along with the explicit in-pocket gambling
want to gamble, go to a physical place,
constant, easy access apps are already showing harm
bryanlarsen5 hours ago
A 20% chance of Lula winning is still a real chance of winning. A standard rule of thumb would require 2 standard deviations aka 5% aka p<0.05 for relative certainty.
estebank5 hours ago
If you think this result with those odds is unexpected, you must have never played X-Com :)
platevoltage5 hours ago
We saw how they took it last time.
medellin5 hours ago
Not really. If you follow anyone who has been covering latam for a long time they had odds of this election at a coinflip.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
If the new right wing senate manages to at least impeach some supreme court judges, I'll still call it a major win.
Surprising to see Bolsonaro lose at this point, but the real upset of this election was caused by the senate. The whole point of electing the right wing was to impeach the judges. So long as that happens, I will be satisfied.
The next four years were going to seriously suck for Flávio. Now the economic bomb is going to explode in Lula's hands. I was tempted to vote for Lula myself just to make that happen. It's the supreme court issue that stopped me.
Lula's barely fit for his position as president too. He might resign and let the vice-president deal with it. Also an acceptable outcome.
cowlevel4 hours ago
What do you get out of posting on HN that you want to destroy your country?
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
It's the only place where I feel safe enough to discuss Brazilian politics.
Impeachment of the supreme court is precisely what will save this country. They have been ruling monocratically since they launched the "fake news" inquisition in 2019. People can stomach a Lula win, even I have points where I intersect with the guy. The thing is not a single Brazilian voted for those judges.
Unfortunately, Flávio's loss will only embolden them now. Remains to be seen whether the senators will do what we elected them to do.
willmadden2 hours ago
Lula used a justice he appointed to order polling stations to stay open past the agreed upon deadline without consulting the courts that are supposed to rule on election matters. That's election interference. I'm not convinced the population is going to see him as legitimate after that stunt.
dkgaan hour ago
Brazilian here. It was unprecedented but not unreasonable, given problems with availability of public transportation in a number of locations. Both sides asked for extensions, although in different places that would favour their own bases. A nationwide extension was the best option, even if it was semi-botched due to the time it was decided. Also, the vote difference between Lula and Bolsonaro was much larger than any additional voting would have delivered.
mbStavolaan hour ago
Bolsonaro also sought extra voting time as well. He wanted it done only in certain states but it was granted nationwide. He was very involved in this process and is now crying foul because it wasn't done in a matter exclusively favorable to him!
motionlessvelocan hour ago
Heaven forbid more voters get to chance to cast their vote!
And FWIW Bolsonaro was also asking the polling stations to stay open longer.
gorgoileran hour ago
It’s a tough position to fight for: “Lula only won because too many people voted for him!”.
I think you are equivocating. Denying people their vote indeed counts as election tampering but that doesn’t mean giving more people the vote is also bad.
gverrillaan hour ago
Flavio asked for the same thing. Stop spreading fake news.
willmaddenan hour ago
What I wrote happened. It's not "fake news". What remains to be seen is which polling stations remained open and which did not. This election may need to be annulled.
cesarb44 minutes ago
> What remains to be seen is which polling stations remained open and which did not.
You can check it yourself, the output and log files for each ballot box are already available. I can see that mine opened and closed at the expected time.
[deleted]29 minutes agocollapsed
samplian hour ago
[flagged]
leandrod3 hours ago
An opaque, illegal system. Brazilian law states votes must be counted publicly.
matheusmoreira3 hours ago
And now, any hopes of a paper trail have been permanently laid to rest.
matheusmoreira5 hours ago
Deeply unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. Lula was allowed to do every "electoral crime" they barred Bolsonaro from doing in 2022. They even extended voting time, a move that directly benefiting him, and also ruled illegal back in 2022.
Gotta look on the bright side. Bolsonaro was closer to US interests than I'd like. If the elected right wing senate manages to at least impeach some supreme court justices next year, I'm going to be OK with this.
I submitted the news too and it got flagged:
johntitor235 hours ago
Please don't share half the context.
Many cities had their mayor cancelling free public transportation and stopping people from going voting. Extending the time is a reaction, not a first action. Furthermore, the ask didn't come just from Lula's party, it came from both candidates [1].
2022 Brazil had the Federal Police Director actively interfering with transportation as well.
[1] - https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/eleicoes/o-que-diz-o-codigo-ele...
matheusmoreira5 hours ago
Busses with a Lula insignia on it? That's an electoral crime, and probably why they were stopped from circulating. Just yet another one to the list.
They called for extension back in 2022 too, and it was ruled illegal. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.
lukan5 hours ago
"They even extended voting time, a move that directly benefiting him"
Both candidates supported that decision.
bakies5 hours ago
Both sides asked to extend the hours. The court took the action. I don't really know brazillian politics and what happened in the past but thought I'd point that out.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Abstainees were thought to be the biggest source of new votes for Lula in the 2nd round of elections. I think such a move benefited Lula far more than it did Flávio.
It's also inconsistent with the court's own precedent. Extending voting hours was deemed illegal back in 2022. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.
After Lula lost in the 1st round, suddenly it became legal again. The irony is not lost on me. That's the pattern with the leftist judges in the courts. The supreme court judge who decided it used to be Lula's own lawyer.
idontwantthis21 minutes ago
How are you posting so fast? I usually get blocked after five in an hour.
ImPostingOnHNan hour ago
If it was illegal, then why did Bolsonaro ask for it to be done in this election?
If Bolsonaro did not want it done in this election, then why did Bolsonaro ask for it to be done in this election?
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
Bolsonaro's father asked for an extension last election. Don't remember why. Denied, illegal. "Everybody had the opportunity to vote".
Bolsonaro's son asked for an extension this election due to heavy rains in the south. As far as I can tell, it was also denied.
Lula asks for an extension this election due to busses being grounded because Lula-aligned syndicates slapped Lula insignias on them which is an electoral crime. Lula's former lawyer turned supreme court judge approves it.
It is obvious that the Brazilian institutions, and these judges in particular, wanted Lula to win. They were going to be impeached otherwise.
armchairhacker5 hours ago
What are the other crimes? Extending time would rarely be bad, and it seems both candidates approved it.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Back in 2022, Lula's party used to be against Bolsonaro's "digital militias". They engaged everybody they had in the superior and supreme courts in order to censor it all. It was disgusting.
This time around, some guy in Lula's party created "Lula's Army", a channel with millions of people in it. Suddenly, it was fine.
They used to cry about "fake news" and call for censorship at every opportunity, and they'd get it because they own the courts. Now they were the ones spreading "fake news" of all sorts. Did they get censored? Nah.
Censorship in Brazil is unconstitutional, by the way. Political censorship is doubly so. It doesn't matter, because they own the supreme court.
There are no laws in Brazil, there is only what the supreme court wants. Whatever they write on a piece of paper becomes law, and police obeys it. They are the true seat of power in this country.
cowlevel4 hours ago
It sounds like they have tried a tactic, discovered that it does not work, and switched to a different tactic which works. Isn't that exactly what they should do?
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Absolutely. Do you have nothing to say about the obvious censorship, though? Consistency demands that they too be censored, since Bolsonaro was censored back in 2022. Censoring the right and letting the left run free is precisely what led to January 8th.
cowlevel3 hours ago
Is censorship good or bad?
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
I don't condone any form of censorship, for any reason. Brazilian constitution is also clear and unambiguous: censorship is unconstitutional, and political censorship doubly so.
The selective application of unconstitutional "fake news" rules, which were made up on the spot by the supreme court judges aligned with the left: is it good or bad?
Lula and his party spread a truly absurd amount of "fake news" between the 1st round and 2nd round of presidential elections. Why are they allowed to do it while the right was censored?
gtirloni5 hours ago
> submitted the news too and it got flagged
Please review the HN guidelines:
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
I was just linking it for completeness. My submission was flagged, but this one wasn't. Guidelines don't explain the difference.
spolitry5 hours ago
This is a very confusing comment. Most on this side don't know the insider informing the Brazilian elections, and we only know the public news
Can you explain?
You are right winger but don't like the Brazilian right wing aligning with the US right wing, but do like the politicians who are aligned with the US right wing?
matheusmoreira5 hours ago
I'm kinda trying to move past left/right labels. I'll try to explain.
Bolsonaro generally supports privatizing Brazilian state companies and selling them off to foreigners. I don't want that. Especially not to the US and Israel.
Lula on the other hand is better aligned with China, which is also what I want.
Lula and myself are aligned on these two points. So this outcome is not entirely bad for me.
The problem I have with Lula is his party's obnoxious taxation, lack of a real plan for reindustrialization, continuous defense of criminals, and most importantly, his total domination of the supreme court. I voted for the right specifically to see those judges impeached and imprisoned, because I absolutely oppose everything they did in 2022, far more than I ever opposed Lula himself. I'm of the opinion that presidents and elections barely matter anymore, because it's the supreme court that runs the country. It's the Venezuela governance model: president appoints god-like supreme court judges and rules monocratically through them.
The 1st round this month was such an upset not because of Bolsonaro but because of the senate. They are the ones who can impeach supreme court judges, and when Brazil unexpectedly elected a right wing majority in the senate, it struck true fear into the court. This was our chance to completely wipe out that court and forever change the history of this country, like Bukele did for El Salvador.
While in the end the necessary victory didn't materialize, Brazilian senate is still absolute majority right wing now, and they could still impeach those judges. I'm not going to hold out hope for that anymore, but if I see at least one judge bite the dust I'll still call it a major win.
epolanski5 hours ago
Why unfortunate?
thatsnogood1235 hours ago
Bolsonaro-aligned mayors deliberately blocked busses from running that would take people to the polls in Lula-supporting neighborhoods. Emergency legal decisions allowed voting times to extend as a response to this. By the margin of votes, it wouldn't have mattered.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Busses with a Lula insignia on it, which is an electoral crime.
tomcam5 hours ago
> Lula was allowed to do every "electoral crime" they barred Bolsonaro from doing in 2022. They even extended voting time, a move that directly benefiting him, and also ruled illegal back in 2022.
spolitry5 hours ago
Letting cirixes vote in elections is bad?
subw00f5 hours ago
Closer to US interests? What a joke. Better luck next time, I guess.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
I don't get it. Are you agreeing with me?
diego_moita4 hours ago
Lula and Bolsonaro are two sides of the same coin: a stupid tribalism were each side feeds on the hatred for the other.
Both will lead the country to pork-barrel, corruption and government paralysis by debt. Both are "unfortunate".
There are 2 solutions for all Brazilian problems: Guarulhos and Galeão. The rest is just circus.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Yeah, I agree completely. I didn't vote for any of these candidates, I voted to impeach the supreme court.
There is exactly one politician that once upon a time represented me: Dr. Enéas Carneiro. Ironically, his ideas were closest to the Chinese Communist Party. He's dead now.
The left wing has PCO, a real left wing party, and I agree with them on a daily basis. They're shunned by everyone, and were even persecuted by the supreme court along with the right wing.
I'm increasingly resigned to the idea that immigration is the only option by now.
free_bip5 hours ago
The amount of mental gymnastics people will do to support fascist dictator wannabes is truly insane. For your sake I hope you find reality.
MrBuddyCasino5 hours ago
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Telaneo5 hours ago
Saying HN is leftist is an insult to anyone with actual leftist beliefs.
subdude5 hours ago
You guys always make moderate to center left politicians sound so much cooler than they really are.
l-mdev4 hours ago
[dead]
platevoltage5 hours ago
Oh no, not the hammer and sickle! Cover your children's eyes!
7622364 hours ago
[flagged]
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
[flagged]
lenkite5 hours ago
It was extremely amusing. Brazilian election law generally sets 5 p.m. Brasília time as the deadline for closing polls. The judge who made the emergency ruling to pause counting and extend voting hours by 2 hours was Cristiano Zanin Martins - Lula's former personal attorney. The same guy who Lula nominated to the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil in June 2023.
anderber5 hours ago
Both candidates agreed to it. Please stop.
canadiantim5 hours ago
Yeah it’s alarming how much HN users are willing to support corruption so long as it’s their preferred candidate doing it. Really is all just tribalism to most posters in this thread so far
cowlevel4 hours ago
How is letting more people vote corruption? I'd say it's corruption whenever anyone can't vote.
matheusmoreira4 hours ago
Everyone had more than enough time to vote. The courts said that verbatim back in 2022. Why change opinion now?
cowlevel3 hours ago
Last week my mom said we didn't have any orange juice. This week she said we have orange juice. Why the change?
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
You think a supreme court judge, who was once the candidate's lawyer, ignoring his own court's precedents, to try and help said candidate, is in the same conceptual space as your mom being confused?