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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we approach the midterm elections here in the United States, really, they're underway with early voting in 46 of the 50 states, we're taking some time this morning to discuss the results of another election. Last night, Brazil concluded that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, defeated the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election there.

Now, like in the United States, if you haven't been following Brazil, the competition for power between the right and the left has grown dark, putting stress on the foundations of democracy in that country. Bolsonaro actively stoked misinformation on election fraud, sound familiar? and seemed unwilling to accept defeat, going so far before the election as to say he will either be killed, imprisoned, or remain president. As of now, last I saw, he still hasn't commented on his loss after the election.

With us now to discuss what is in store for Brazil and what we can learn from their election, we have, for a few minutes in this fast-moving news day Brazil, Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times, and joining him is Miguel Lago, political scientist, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Policy Studies, that's a Brazil-based think tank on health systems. He's also a lecturer on International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Professor Lago and Jack Nicas from The New York Times, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC today.

Jack Nicas: Thanks for having me.

Miguel Lago: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, let me go down to you first, live from Brazil. What's happening right now? Has Bolsonaro accepted defeat?

Jack Nicas: Well, the country is on edge because it is waiting for the president of Brazil to comment now more than 16 hours after the race was called and showing that he was defeated. We have not heard a word from him nor his three politician sons, who really act as surrogates, and even many of his top advisors. We know that he has left the presidential palace this morning, went to the Planalto, which is the effective White House here in Brazil, but we have not heard anything more.

It is all very concerning because, as you noted, President Bolsonaro has, really, for years, cast doubt on the election system here in Brazil. In the run-up to this election, he had suggested, on and off, that he may not accept the results.

Brian Lehrer: How much is he taking a cue from Donald Trump in this respect and preparing to spread lies? If you can document as a reporter based in Brazil for The New York Times, that the election results are valid, how much is he planning to spread lies about the election because he sees how much it has worked for Donald Trump?

Jack Nicas: Well, you might be surprised as President Bolsonaro was questioning the election system here before Donald Trump was running for office. This has been a trend for more than eight years for President Bolsonaro. There was a very close election here in 2014, not as close as the one last night, in which the center-right candidate disputed the results and demanded an audit, and since then, Bolsonaro, he was a congressman at the time, he's basically been questioning the election system here.

The election system here is unique. It's the only country in the world to use a fully digital system with paper backups. That is what Bolsonaro has really seized upon as a key vulnerability, but the reality is, he has never presented any credible evidence, nor his allies, of fraud. We've done extensive reporting on the system this year, and while it is not 100% perfect like any digital system, there are layers and layers of security to prevent fraud or errors. There was no indication, despite a lot of checks, that they have any fraud whatsoever.

At this point, it does appear to be a lot of falsehoods peddled by the president and his allies about potential fraud. We're going to see what he says, hopefully, today.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners with ties to Brazil, we want your reactions on the election results and what might come next. (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692, or tweet @brianlehrer. Miguel Lago, you're in Brazil, too. Where in Brazil are you? What's the scene? Does it seem tense on this day after the election?

Miguel Lago: I'm based in Rio de Janeiro. I agree with what Jack just mentioned. We need to see how Bolsonaro will react, but let's say that all the institutions have already recognized Lula's victory, and it seems like Bolsonaro is a little bit isolated in any attempt to question the results of the election. One thing that I think is interesting is to see that he didn't-- There's a tradition in Brazil to thank for all your supporters and voters. Bolsonaro got more than 57 million people voting for him, and yet he did not thank those people after 16 hours.

I think there's a reason why he didn't thank his supporters. It's because, since he was questioning the election all the time, it's very complicated for him to address his constituency and not give a clear message of what should they do, if they should resist, if they should accept the results. I think that he's planning on something. I'm not sure what he's doing, but he seems more isolated than one-two weeks ago.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, I know you have to go in two minutes. Give us your quick reporter's take on why Lula won.

Jack Nicas: I can stay for another 5 or 10 minutes. Honestly, it was an extremely close race. It was the narrowest margin of victory in the history of Brazil's modern democracy, which is about 34 years old. Lula ran on a campaign to bring the nation together after four years of turmoil under Bolsonaro. Obviously, I think about half the country clearly rejected that and feel like Bolsonaro was a good president.

Lula also, which has been his political identity throughout his political career, which is now spanning four decades, he talks a lot about the working class and the poor. He really ran a campaign that talked about taking care of the people who were forgotten in the Bolsonaro administration. He pitched to voters an expanded social welfare program, feeding the poor, housing the poor, and also big infrastructure projects to try to jumpstart the economy.

Now, his plans were pretty vague, and he's going to face a lot of challenges, including a very divided country, as he comes into office. Bolsonaro's political party also did very well in the polls and actually now has both seats in Congress. There's going to be a lot of struggle ahead, but I think, at the end of the day, to answer your question, obviously majority of the country were tired of the turmoil of the past four years of the Bolsonaro administration and wanted to go back to a politician who, in his first presidency in the first decade of this century, were some of the best years Brazil has ever seen.

Brian Lehrer: We're getting a call from Rio, so let me take it. Brock in Rio, hello from New York. You're on WNYC.

Brock: Hey. Hi. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Just moved to Rio. Actually, I lived in Rio for the first time-- this was in 2002 when Lula was first elected. We just moved a couple months ago. I live in Rio, in [unintelligible 00:09:18], which is a very Bolsonaro neighborhood. All the buildings have Brazilian flags on their windows, which is the symbol of Bolsonaro and the party. On our WhatsApp thread for the building, everybody is saying terrible things, they hope that he dies of a heart attack, or that they're concerned that [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: That Lula dies of a heart attack, right?

Brock: Yes. Obviously, everybody's very upset, and they're just saying pretty terrible things. They're concerned that they're going to take Brazil and turn it into Venezuela [unintelligible 00:09:54]. One thing that I saw last night was that-- I personally am very happy that Bolsonaro lost and Lula won. We have a neighbor who is for Lula and who hung a flag for Lula from the window and was getting jeered, of course, by everybody. He started to wave a Brazilian flag and chant how he wanted to take back the flag for all Brazilians, that this wasn't just for Bolsonaro. I thought it was very moving. Actually, I talked to him this morning about it.

Brian Lehrer: Brock, let me ask you a follow-up question. If there was a trend in Brazil, as I've read that's similar to the United States, the Bolsonaro supporters, Trump supporters, in this country tended to be more rural and the Lula supporters tended to be more in cities. What is this Bolsonaro stronghold of Rio that you live in? Why are a lot of your neighbors Bolsonaro supporters?

Brock: What I see, at least here in Rio, and I'm certainly no expert, I'm just an outsider, but I see a lot of people that-- it's fairly new, nice condo buildings, people live pretty comfortable lives in these buildings and they're, for the most part, hard-working professionals, doctors, lawyers, people with their own companies. I don't know. This seems to be they're all Bolsonaro supporters. Maybe your guests could talk more to that.

Brian Lehrer: Brock, thank you very much for your call. We really appreciate it. Our lines are open for other people with ties to Brazil on anything about the election and implications for the United States for that matter, which we will get to. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Miguel Lago in Brazil, for you as a political scientist, what do you think about what Brock was just telling us about his neighbors in Rio from a class analysis standpoint or any other way?

Miguel Lago: Well, Rio is a very Bolsonalista city. It's where Bolsonaro comes from. It's probably one of the states where the evangelicals are stronger. There's a religious component that is extremely important. Lula wins within Catholics and Bolsonaro wins within evangelicals by large, both of them. Of course, you have some evangelicals that vote for Lula, some Catholics that vote for Bolsonaro, but they're really a minority.

If you look at the states where the Catholic church is stronger, Lula won by far. It's not the case, for instance, in Rio de Janeiro, especially in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro where evangelical churches are extremely strong and important. I would say that there's also a religious component, not only a social class that also exists, and that can explain why, for instance, in my city, Bolsonaro is so strong.

Brian Lehrer: Jack Nicas, from the Times, would you expand on what Miguel just referred to with respect to the evangelical vote for Bolsonaro and the religious dimension of this race? How similar is it to the United States where the Republicans tend to get the more right-wing Christians and the Democrats tend to get more liberal religionists?

Jack Nicas: It's quite similar. In fact, Bolsonaro's base has been called Bibles, beef, and bullets, the Bibles being the, predominantly, evangelical voters, which is a huge growing block actually set to overtake Catholics in Brazil within any day now, and the beef being the large agro-business industry here in Brazil, and the bullets being the law enforcement in the military community, which largely support Bolsonaro.

You could think in the US, it's a lot of farmers, and Christians, and law enforcement and military folks who supported the right-wing movement in the US. There are a lot of similarities between the right movements in the Trump and Bolsonaro movements in the US and Brazil.

At the same time, as you noticed with the first caller, Brazil is deeply Brazilian.

It's difficult to make real similar, direct clear analogies because what is interesting is a lot of big cities have huge Bolsonaro contingence because the wealthy in Brazil still really embrace the right wing and the conservative movement here, because the left in Brazil is very left in compared to the thinking in America. It's a far bigger government and socialist state than what I think many Americans are used to. That scares off a lot of the wealthy from voting for a candidate like Lula generally. It is a complicated political landscape but Miguel could speak more to that.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, thanks for staying over a few extra minutes. Your phone line is also breaking up so we're going to let you go. Just give us-

Jack Nicas: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: -one last thought before you do if you can. That is, for you as American based in Brazil, covering Brazil for The New York Times, for US readership primarily, are there lessons for our polarized politics from what happened in this election which seem to run along similar cultural and maybe economic lines?

Jack Nicas: Oh, boy. What I can say is that, the reality is I'm speaking from a country that is on edge not knowing if the president is about to accept his loss or not, so it does certainly feel like we are living through a moment here in Brazil that we, Americans, lived through just two years ago. I think what is clear in Brazil is that the right-wing populist movement that really swept many countries with Donald Trump and Brexit, it's still alive and well.

Even though Bolsonaro was voted out last night, it was a very, very narrow election. His movement is strong here in Brazil. It is going to remain strong. We have, right as we speak, truckers across the country trying to create blockades to protest a free and fair election. I think what we can say is that this polarization that we've seen across the globe, it's alive and well, and it's still happening, and it's something that the world is having to deal with, not just in the United States, but in Brazil and in Europe and in many other places.

Brian Lehrer: Jack Nicas, Brazil, bureau chief for The New York Times. Thanks again for joining us on a busy morning for you the day after the election. Miguel Lago-

Jack Nicas: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -is still with us for a few minutes, political scientist, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Policy Studies in Brazil, that's a think tank there, and a lecturer of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Miguel, for you as a person with a foot in both countries, are there lessons for the United States from the election in Brazil, or should we look at that as a discrete, different country, different set of cultures, and don't try to generalize too much to Trumpism and anti-Trumpism and stuff going on here?

Miguel Lago: I think there are a lot of similarities, but as Jack said, Brazil is very Brazilian, and I think America is very American as well in this sense, but there's a clear pattern that Bolsonaro is following that reminds us of what Trump did. The electoral system in Brazil is, let's say, more direct, takes less time to know who won the election so it's much more simple, or at least, less complex, our electoral process, so there are fewer opportunities for messing around with the election.

They tried to mess around with the election yesterday during the voting because the the federal police was used to prevent poor people that were in buses to go for voting in the Northeast region, where is the--

Brian Lehrer: Really? How did they do that?

Miguel Lago: They simply stopped the buses in the roads. We needed an order from the Supreme Court. There were 500 operations in Brazil. More than half of them were in the northeast which is the region where Lula really won by far, almost 70-30%. Of course, the majority of those people in the buses were Lula electors. We had here, in my city in Rio, the local police did a lot of, as we call blitzes. They stopped the traffic and it was really hard to go to vote for people who are living in favelas.

They created a mess to make sure that the poorest people could not go to vote, and this is something new that we never saw in Brazil. Of course, this was coordinated by the president. I think that they tried to steal the election, or at least they tried to mess the election so also the left could say that the election was frauded. Then you have the left and the far right claiming that the election was frauded and suspending eventually the election so that Bolsonaro could perhaps have more time campaigning. I don't know exactly what was his goal, but clearly, it was really, really serious what they did yesterday.

I think the Supreme Court was superb because they were able to stop those actions before the closing of the time for voting. Especially, the Supreme Court did not say that this would create any kind of questioning the electoral system. It was the best way to do and to deal with that, but I would say that they already tried to mess around during the voting day.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take one more call. Tamar in Eastchester, originally from Brazil. Tamar, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Tamar: Hello. I'm just calling to say that I'm so happy that Lula won and that Bolsonaro was defeated. My Brazilian community here, most people are pro-Bolsonaro. It's just heartbreaking to see people-- One president who's slogan is "[unintelligible 00:22:08] criminal is a dead criminal," that was so pro-violence. I'm just calling to say that I'm really, really relieved and happy that Lula won.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Tamar. Miguel, before you go, can you put this victory a little bit more in international, in this case, particularly regional context? Jack was talking about how the Bolsonaro supporters argued that with a leftist like Lula, Brazil risks becoming another Venezuela, and we see the very left wing government there having destroyed the economy that's resulting even in a large surge of Venezuelan asylum seekers to this country, including New York, as you well know and they don't want that to happen to Brazil. How did Lula successfully counter that argument?

Miguel Lago: First of all, I think the importance of Bolsonaro's defeat more than Lula's victory, it's extremely important for the Amazonian rainforest because if Bolsonaro was reelected, we wouldn't have a forest any longer. I think this is the most important news for the world, is that, and for preventing global warming, it's extremely important to keep the Amazon rainforest standing up. This is the first important measure that I'm sure that Lula will tackle and look at to protect Amazonian rainforest.

Politically, let's say, Lula, was not the left that won in Brazil yesterday. It was a broad coalition from the left to the center-right. I would say that it was a victory of the Democrats of the people that believe in democracy. On the other side, there was the far right, not the traditional right wing. If we see almost all the leaders of our traditional right wing, they supported Lula, and Bolsonaro had only his far-right group.

In this sense, it would not have a leftist government. It's always important to remind that Lula did not do a leftist government when he was in presidency. He did a very moderated center-left government that was completely different from some of our neighbors and very similar to other neighbors, very distant from Chavez and from Venezuela, because Lula really strengthened the institutions not dismantle them.

Bolsonaro looks a lot like Chavez, even though Bolsonaro is far-right and Chavez is left wing, because it's the same military strategy. It's a military government that takes care of all the activities and all the economic activities. There's a slight difference in terms of ideology, but in terms of political process, Chavez and Bolsonaro look alike.

Brian Lehrer: The left is doing fairly well in Latin America these days in elections?

Miguel Lago: Well, yes, the left won important elections around the region. Even though some are leftists or considered as leftist, if you look at Mexico, for instance, it's not a leftist government that is in place. López Obrador looks much more, now, like Bolsonaro more than Lula, for instance. If you look at Bolivia, it's completely different from Venezuela, Argentina is different from Chile and all of them from Brazil. I would say that Brazil will certainly be much more alike to Chile, to Colombia, than to other neighbors in this sense.

Brian Lehrer: Miguel Lago, political scientist, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Policy Studies, a Brazil-based think tank, and a lecturer on International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Thank you so much for joining us from Brazil on this morning after your dramatic election.

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