The antagonism between Lulistas and Bolsonaro supporters is already on the agenda and is the first thing that comes to mind when faced with the title of the new book, “O País Dividido”, by publisher Zahar. The author calculates, however, that the so-called “polarization” affects a small portion of the electorate, at most 20%.
“Is Brazil polarized? It is, but a small part of it. It has a large base of the pyramid that doesn’t care about politics. And that will decide the vote, it can fall to one side or the other”, said Nicolau in an interview.
Full professor at CPDOC (Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary History of Brazil) at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas) and one of the main scholars of parties and electoral systems in the country, the political scientist analyzes, in his work, data from the six elections for president in the last 20 years, from 2002 to 2022.
His study shows a huge gap between the electorate at the beginning of the decade and today and how this reconfiguration affected the results of the polls. In light of the three major transformations observed in the period – an older, more educated voter and increasing female participation –, he projects that, in the October election, women, especially younger ones. “The girls were on the left in all the elections.”
On the other hand, the trend is, as is the majority of voters with high school education, but who do not go to university, in place of the low-educated poor of the 2002 era. “Brazil went through an educational revolution, and the high school electorate in 2018 and 2022 went to the right.”
In the following interview, carried out in his office at FGV in Rio, he points out the Brazilian party framework, explains the concept of affective polarization and comments on the possible effect.
Mr.’s study shows that moral values started to have a much greater influence in the last elections. Why did this occur? Is this the main explanation for the rise of the right and the extreme right in the country?
This is a hypothesis. Moral issues have appeared since redemocratization, but between 2002 and 2014 this topic seems to have submerged on the agenda. There was a certain pact, or politics was in place so that this topic would not be on the agenda. But, throughout the 2010s, Brazil began to change. Moral themes become central to Bolsonaro’s political rise and his election in 2018.
Until 2014, evangelicals voted mostly for candidates, twice for Dilma and twice for Dilma. The turn of evangelicals to the right happened with the rise of Bolsonaro and remained at 22. My hypothesis, there needs to be more research, is that the turn is closely associated with the link between evangelicals and more conservative positions.
And this was amplified by social media…
The impact of social media on democracies, its association with the rise of populists, is an open topic. Some researchers think there is a stronger association, others think that social networks only gave space to voices that did not appear. A very well done survey of Solon [plataforma de análise de dados da política] showed that of the 30 most popular Brazilian politicians now on social media, 26 are right-wing and only 4 are left-wing. It is unquestionable that the right, for a reason that needs to be better studied, and independent of fake news, dominates the debate territory of social networks.
Until 2018 we had never had a religious field [dominante]Catholics were never 70 to 30 for any candidate, which is the size of evangelicals in the country today. If they are, any candidate who is anointed by them already leaves with 20 points. This makes you extremely competitive. I discuss the importance of evangelicals because they have practically doubled in size in 20 years and have become unified.
Mr. uses the term polarization, which is criticized by some analysts for creating a false moral and political equivalence. The field that Mr. generically defined as right-wing (because from 2002 to 2014 it had the PSDB as its exponent and, from 2018 and 2022, Bolsonaro) it is today dominated by Bolsonarism, a pole marked by coupism. Why the choice to use the term polarization?
In the book I avoid talking about ideology. I preferred to work with right-left ideas, but that didn’t work because I didn’t have data to assess right-left polarization over time.
Polarization is a term that we imported, a creation of American political science, and today the idea of affective polarization is widely used. It is not ideological: if you are on the left, you have a system of beliefs about the role of the State, with values such as equality, justice, and on the other side more liberalism, less State. It’s not that.
And what is affective polarization?
It is a vision by which I am polarized if I simultaneously evaluate my candidate very well and evaluate the opponent very poorly. In other words, I have a negative attitude, not only positive, let’s say, in love with my candidate, but I also reject the other a lot.
This rejection from the other side began in 2018, but in 2022 it was greater than ever. At the same time, Lula’s electorate started to hate, so to speak, Bolsonaro and Bolsonaro’s electorate, which already hated the PT, continues to hate it. Two out of every three Brazilian voters remained in this affective polarization.
The Brazilian electorate is very focused on the evaluation of individual politicians. We call everyone right or left by shorthand, but there is a small group at the top of the pyramid, of people very involved with politics, who go online, who talk about politics. And there is a mass of people below who don’t like politics, aren’t interested. The problem, when we talk about polarization in Brazil, is that most analysts talk about the environment in which they live, they think that Brazil is divided all the time.
In 2022, a third of voters who say they are right-wing voted for Lula. Because for ordinary people it doesn’t make any difference. They do not have a sophisticated mapping like the ones we were literate in in this world of ideas.
But can you call this affective polarization a monopoly of hate?
Things are mixed, no doubt. And then, returning to the topic of social networks, this is driven, I estimate by 15% to 20% [do eleitorado]people participating in this more ideological dispute, who share, make memes, follow Lula or Flávio.
But this segment is not representative of Brazil. Ordinary Brazil is much less polarized, much less concerned about these issues. People touch your life. When we ask in polls: “Would you vote if voting were not mandatory?” 40% say no. “Do you classify yourself as right or left?” 30% don’t know. “Are you interested in politics?” 30% have no interest at all. The problem is that we study the upper part of Brazil, which is hyper-politicized, hyper-interested, but we don’t study the lower part.
Is Brazil polarized? It is, but a small part of it. And there is a large base of the pyramid that doesn’t care about politics. And that will decide the vote, it could go one way, it could go the other. Baixada Fluminense, in 2014 voted en masse for Dilma, 2018 en masse for Bolsonaro. In 22, Bolsonaro won, but with a reduction.
Mr. wrote in 2025, , that in the last decade the Brazilian party system has gone through turmoil. Since then, have there been any more significant changes? Will the reduction in the number of parties continue?
The trend is that it will continue. There are two factors. One has to do with the compaction of the party framework due to the end of coalitions and the performance clause, which have a devastating effect on small parties.
Another simultaneous change is the recent emergence of a much more ideological and demarcated right. The Brazilian right in the FHC and [nos primeiros anos] Lula was the PFL, which today we would call the center. A more pragmatic right, with a low level of ideology. The novelty did not happen with Bolsonarism, but with the migration of politicians elected with Bolsonaro to a single party, which became the largest party in Brazil in terms of money and votes, which is .
For the first time [após a redemocratização] We have an organic party that is right-wing, assumes itself as such, has conservative positions in the moral field, has attracted political leaders of different tones, , . There is a generation of new politicians who appeared in 24, social media activists, military personnel… Nobody denies it: you are in the PL, you are right-wing. You’ll probably have it again. If it’s not Flávio [o candidato]the PL will have a candidate. In other words, it is a political force that changes the situation.
This is already showing up in opinion polls. When you ask what your party is, people always say PT first. And then the rest is residue. The PL already appears with a very significant number of statements of sympathy. In other words, we have an organic right-wing party in the country.
What could be the impact of the Master case on candidacy and voting intentions?
You have to wait a little. But my impression is that your candidacy is not at risk at first. Removing it has a very high political cost, not only because he is at 30% – few candidates in history have reached that – but he is also getting personally involved in building support in several states. So the withdrawal would do a lot of damage to the right and put at risk a project that seemed likely to be successful.
How does this resonate with the electorate? Probably the [bolsonaristas] more engaged people remain faithful despite the news. But there is a nucleus with not so crystallized support, I have the impression that this affects this voter, I don’t know to what extent. But we are very far from the election, people are not as involved and concerned about politics at the moment. It could be a downward swing and only then will we assess whether this really produced an irreversible negative effect.
What do developments portend for the next election?
[Pelos dados das três últimas eleições]people with low education tend to vote less than those with medium and high education, that is, abstention tends to be bad for Lula. He would have to campaign with high school voters [que migrou para a direita]but also for people to go to the polls.
Looking at six [últimas] elections, many people say: “Abstention has grown.” It didn’t grow. It grew on the margin, a very small thing. You need to see the degree of excitement that this campaign will produce in the two most relevant tribes at this moment, that is, with another term for Lula and also with Flávio, who does not have his father’s charisma. He is inheriting Jair’s political capital, much more than I imagined. We don’t know if he will survive, but his performance today is surprising. Does he mobilize the electorate to go to the polls?
It is the first election without a centrist candidate. There are only left and three right-wing candidates. So these centrists, who voted for the PSDB, who tried their luck in the last one with Simone [Tebet]they are a little less motivated to attend. Today I would intuitively bet on small growth [da abstenção].
X-RAY | JAIRO NICOLAU, 62
Political scientist, specialist in parties, elections and voting behavior. He is a professor and researcher at CPDOC (Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary History of Brazil) at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas). He was a professor and researcher at Iuperj (1995-2011) and UFRJ (2011-2018). He is the author of “Elections in Brazil”, “Whose Representatives?” and “O Brasil Dobrou à Direita” (all by Zahar), among other books.
