By Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden | 7 October 2026 (IDN) — Since its birth as a nation-state, “Brazil has been a paradise for some, an endless hell for others, and for the rest, a kind of purgatory on earth.” So write two Brazilian historians, Lilla Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling, in their massive volume on Brazil.
They continue: “Brazil’s development was born of ambivalence and contrast. On the one hand, it is a country with a high degree of social inequality and low literacy rates. In contrast, its electoral system is one of the most sophisticated and reliable in the world. Brazil has the second-highest number of Facebook users in the world.
“At the same time vast geographical regions lie abandoned, particularly in the north, where the chief means of transport is by rudimentary sailboats. Brazil has an advanced constitution which forbids any discrimination, yet, in reality, silent and perverse forms of prejudice are deeply ingrained and pervade everyday life. In Brazil the traditional and the cosmopolitan, the urban and the rural, the exotic and the civilised walk hand in hand. The archaic and the modern intermingle, the one questioning the other in a kind of ongoing interrogation.”
On Sunday, after a bitterly fought campaign, Brazilians went to the polls. A run-off is now in the works, scheduled for 25 October, between two presidential candidates, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro.
The challenge facing Brazil’s next president
What chance do they have of creating a government that can improve on these dichotomies? For starters, can the Brazilian electorate choose a president who can engineer their country’s rehabilitation from the degraded politics and economics of the last 4 years of Lula’s presidency, and return it to the days of the first Lula presidency (2003 to 2011), when real progress was made, for the country as a whole and for people with low incomes in particular
Can it rid itself of the now life-threatening disease of corruption? The increasingly independent judiciary (a relatively new development in Brazil) slapped behind bars many leading politicians and top business executives, including Lula himself (although I have to say I agree with his predecessor, the admirable and respected Fernando Cardoso, who says he thinks the evidence in his case was thin). However, the court is now caught up in its own corruption scandal.
Violence, inequality and land rights
Can Brazil get hold of its horrific crime problem? The number of murders last year was around 34,000. (However, under Lula it has fallen substantially). Violence has been part of Brazil’s history since the earliest years of colonisation, much of it rooted in the years of slavery. Today, racism and inequality are rooted deep in the culture. Torture is still practised in Juvenile Detention Centres by the police in some localities. During the term of office of Bolsonaro’s father, he publicly defended the use of torture.
Even under Lula, the authorities have only had limited success in driving back the aggressive attacks on the indigenous populations and their land rights. Millions of peasants farm a few hectares while some estate owners farm land the size of a city.
In the cities, unemployment and drug taking are so widespread that violence hangs in the air of every street.
Can Brazil recover its economic promise?
What chance does Brazil have of once again beginning to realise its massive economic potential? Lula made a few mistakes, the most serious being the creation of large fiscal imbalances, but did an immense amount of good, especially in his first term.
However, his handpicked successor, the non-corrupt Dilma Rousseff, led the economy into a free fall at the start of her second term. Brazil has long been the world’s tenth economic power, with a total economy smaller than Russia’s but larger than Canada’s. Still, it has the capacity to do so much better, as was shown at the time of the military government of the 1960s and 70s when annual growth topped 10% (but inflation was bad) and again under Lula at the time of his first term when it topped 7% (and inflation was low). Under Rousseff, it plunged into negative growth. Now under Lula, it is at a modest 1.9%.
As for the political parties, can they clean their stables? The Workers’ Party, which was a major participant in the return to democracy, is now tarnished by one corruption scandal after another. Bolsonaro’s party is badly tarnished by his attempted coup after his defeat in the last election.
Brazil is at another major turning point today. An adman might write, “A wonderful future beckons”. It should, but alas, it probably won’t. As the cynic adds, “And it always will.”
The Brazilians like to say, “God is a Brazilian”. He is not. (IDN-InDepthNews)
Copyright: Jonathan Power.