22:37

Could an alliance stop Bolsonaro?

Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro’s opponent in the pivotal second-round vote on 28 October, has mountain to climb if he is to scupper the right-wing populist’s dramatic political ascent.



Bolsonaro secured more than 49 million votes on Sunday – 46% of the total and just shy of the majority he needed for an outright win – while Haddad’s Workers’ party (PT) won just 29%, or 31 million votes.

Just to draw level with Bolsonaro, Haddad would need virtually every single one of the voters who opted for the third and fourth-placed candidates, Ciro Gomes and Geraldo Alckmin, to switch to his side. Those hoping Haddad can still win out, believe he must now position himself as a centrist champion of democracy who can prevent Brazil from lurching back towards the kind of murderous, authoritarian rule Bolsonaro has so often said he admires.

Heloísa Starling, a Brazilian historian, said she believed Haddad now needed to piece together “a great democratic coalition” if Brazil was to avoid being hurtled back towards “tyranny”.

“It can’t just be a left-wing coalition - it must include everyone who is prepared to defend democracy, whoever they may be,” Starling said.

Ciro Gomes, who came third with 12.5% of the vote and potentially has the most support to transfer to Haddad, said it was too earlier to say what he would do. But he ruled out support for Bolsonaro – “Not him, definitely!”

Winter, however, said he was doubtful that such an alliance would be enough: “Haddad is going to tack to the centre – a bit – he’s going to make an appeal for democracy,” Winter predicted. “But it’s not clear there is anybody left in the centre and democracy has become a bad word in Brazil. It’s a synonym for weakness and chaos and leniency with criminals and I just think those appeals for democracy are going to fall on mostly deaf ears.”