00:02we're now going back to the topic on Brazil's electoral day and for that let's
00:06welcome Jana Zuberman she has a PhD in economic development from the State
00:10University of Campinas a visiting professor for international relations at
00:14the Federal University of ABC and is the co-coordinator of the International
00:18Committee of Democratic Socialists of America good morning good afternoon good
00:23morning Jana welcome to from the south
00:27good morning Luis thanks for having me on again it's a pleasure let's talk very
00:32quickly about the election and it's important as we have been reporting
00:36millions of Brazilians are going to oppose but two very different models are at
00:40stakes here we have two very different candidates with their very opposing
00:44propositions so what do you think what is your analysis on what is being decided
00:49and the impact that the elections will have for Brazil and not only Brazil but
00:53also the importance of hats for the region as a whole well I would say without
01:00any exaggeration the stakes could not be higher on one hand you have a candidate
01:05that you know represents a model for national development that has been tried
01:11and true you know the the Workers Party that's been in power off and on for most
01:15of the last 20 years has promoted inclusive economic growth poverty
01:20reduction expansions and access to social rights like education health care and
01:26decent jobs and on the other side you simply have a candidate who is the negative
01:31candidate that represents the antithesis to all that that has no real
01:36proposals on the economy on you know science and technology on regional
01:41development it's very important Brazil is a country that has many regional
01:44disparities between you know the more wealthy south and southeast regions and
01:49the poorer north and northeast regions is only proposal the only proposals of
01:54Flávio Bolsonaro the far-right candidate are on public security you know building
01:58more maximum security prisons putting youth offenders as young as 14 years old in
02:04adult prisons and will that solve the roots the the the roots of crime probably not
02:11because as we know many of these problems that lead to people you know committing
02:15things like robberies of cell phones which is very common unfortunately in the
02:19streets of many Brazilian major cities is they are their social roots of those
02:23problems but Flávio Bolsonaro has no politics to address that and obviously if we
02:28look at this election from a regional and even a global perspective Flávio Bolsonaro
02:33has no foreign policy beyond just being completely subservient to the wishes of
02:38Donald Trump while Lula has been a tried and true statesman someone who has
02:43promoted the interests of the global south in particular has been a leader
02:46obviously bringing heading up the most important democratic country that is part
02:53of the BRICS that is part of the coalition of global south countries that's
02:57challenging challenging and trying to expand the you know global multilateral world
03:02order to make it more fair inclusive for told for everyone as we are in a moment
03:07of you know multiple crises economic crisis climate crisis social crisis
03:12political crisis so again if if Lula loses not only will it be a tragedy will be
03:18very unfortunate for uh Brazilians and especially the poor Brazilians and
03:23Brazilian workers but will also be a huge setback in the strengthening of a new
03:29multilateral world order understand that you are with an observation mission what can you tell
03:35us on how this electoral process is taking place on how the electoral day is unfolding
03:39as we have seen throughout the campaign different speeches coming especially from
03:44the far right talking about the lack of security in terms of voting the putting in question
03:49the electoral the electoral process what can you tell us on how that process has happened
03:57so as of again i'm not officially accredited as an observer under the uh brazilian electoral
04:03tribunal uh but we have been able to witness from outside the polling centers you know everything is proceeding uh
04:09under very in a very orderly way you know there's the maxima is just you know some lines out the
04:14door in some polling places
04:16i would say the only you know unfortunately we're having some rainy weather in some of the major urban centers
04:21like here in sao paulo also in rio which could potentially distract uh voters from coming to the polls
04:28uh but obviously that has nothing to do with fraud or or any kind of uh political circumstances
04:33uh and as many people already know brazil has some of the most uh trustworthy and safest voting mechanisms
04:40in the world it's completely electronic uh it's you know completely uh connected to
04:46proprietary uh national software so you don't have an influence of privatized softwares coming in and
04:52to tally the votes such as what happened in colombia's elections back in june so i think the possibility
04:59of fraud is close to nothing if we look at technical fraud uh in the sense of stealing votes or
05:05you know
05:06votes not being counted because of the technical mechanisms at the ballot boxes here the electronic
05:12voting earns uh but again what we see is obviously a climate of political pressure you know political
05:18pressure obviously coming from the big tech companies like meta that have you know treated the the
05:25advertising and posting uh for one campaign for the lula campaign in much in a much more disfavorable way
05:32than it has been for the bolsonaro campaign which has had a lot of advantages under uh by these big
05:37tech companies and also obviously the pressure coming from actual violence we had a very disturbing
05:43report last night of a city councilwoman in the state of minajarais who was viciously attacked but who was
05:51a you know a member of the pt who was viciously attacked by a bolsonaro supporter as she was giving
05:56her
05:57final speeches during the final rally to in the support of the lula campaign so hopefully
06:02we know we know very much that the the results of this election will be extremely close if again
06:06if we look at the polls they are in a statistical dead heat they have been in a statistical dead
06:11heat
06:11now for some quite some time uh so this is going to be decided by very few votes and hopefully
06:16there
06:17will be you know uh the democratic conscience of both sides to recognize the winner no matter what that
06:24uh no matter what that victory may mean thank you very much jana for your time here with us in
06:30from the south
