At least 4 in 10 Brazilians think that companies are not trustworthy; A tight majority of 53% thinks otherwise. These average values hide huge differences, which reflect the political inclinations of those interviewed. While 75% of those who supported the 2022 second round see no problem with the voting machine, only 26% of Bolsonaro voters think it produces credible results. The data are from a recent
Only the left, which the survey separates into Lulistas and non-Lulistas, form a majority — well above the average — in support of electronic voting. The proportion (18%) who share this positive opinion is ridiculous, the same happening with only 30% of right-wingers who do not faithfully follow the former captain. Those interviewed who say they are independent of the two political camps are divided almost in the same proportion as the average of those interviewed: 55% trust the polls and 41% do not.
Citizens distrustful of democratic institutions are not exactly new in Brazil, nor in other places where representative government prevails. This is what can be seen in the 2025 edition of “Government at Glance”, published by the OECD. The study dedicates an entire chapter to trust in public institutions in the 38 countries that make up the organization. For the report’s authors, distrust is an indicator of the gap between citizens’ expectations and what institutions actually offer in democratic societies. In fact, it also seems to be an inevitable consequence of the representative system itself which, in contemporary democracies, inexorably distances representatives and the represented.
The interpretation of the phenomenon divides political scientists. Some see disbelief in institutions as a symptom of malaise, if not crisis, in representative democracies. Others, such as the French historian Pierre Rosanvallon, see it as an indication of the existence of a citizenry that is more attentive to what governments do and more capable of supporting mechanisms to control those in power. This is the thesis he defends in “La contre-démocratie. La politique à l’âge de la défiance” (Counter-democracy: politics in the age of distrust).
In any case, the results of the research on electronic voting machines do not bring encouragement to Brazilian democrats. After all, free and clean are the heart of the system, and respect for results guarantees its continuity. Doubts about the integrity of the electoral process can always be exploited by authoritarian leaders and movements. That’s what he did, and that’s what whoever claims his political heritage will probably do.
Last Friday, Brazil lost José Alvaro Moisés, political scientist and professor at the University of São Paulo. He was, at the same time, a respected academic and an intellectual on the front line of defending democracy. Citizen distrust was one of his most important themes. In his opinion, low institutional trust generated “democratic ambivalence”, that is, support for democracy in the abstract, but tolerance for authoritarian solutions in crisis situations. He is gone; His work remains very current.
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