Brazil's Election: United by the horror.

In recent years, voters in Latin America have not voted for the candidate they consider suitable, but vote for the candidate who can beat the one who horrifies us.
In Brazil case, those who vote for Bolsonaro do so hopping that Lula da Silva does not return. While those who vote for Lula do so hopping that Jair Bolsonaro does not follow.
As a result, elections end up being tremendously polarized. As the other candidates didn't exist. So we have Lula with 48%, Bolsonaro with 43% and the third one(Ciro Gomez) with just 4%.
Something similar happened in Argentina between the 2 candidates Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernández who polarized the election like in Brazil for the same reason.

 

Seems this is how the world has become. Trump has done more damage to our unity in the US than the civil war that tore us apart, north and south, in the 1860's.... There seems to be no middle ground left anywhere.

 

Humans! What a sorry lot.

 

I think that many who wanted to vote for Gomes or Tebet, thought that if they did so, they would throw their vote (so to speak), since they had no chance.
I believe that Bolsonaro is overvalued by the number of votes he achieved, after the wear and tear of a much-questioned government, handling the pandemic horriblely, showing himself as misogenous and authoritarian, etc. It is only explained that he achieved that amount by many who actually voted against Lula rather than in favor of Bolsonaro. IMHO

 

Evidently, a great number of people think that it's just fine to be ruled by right wing authoritarianism.

 

I'm afraid that's hard to get Latin people's behaviour and only those of us who live in Latin countries are used to it though.
If you live in a developed country, you certainly don't care too much in elections because whoever wins, your life will probably remain the same as before.
In Latin countries, however, you're afraid because may lose your job or property depending on who is in charge. That is why I say in the title that we are united by the horror rather than for love. For some, if Bolsonaro wins they could lose their jobs and even sufer hungry. For others (usually middle-class people), with Lula they could lose their properties since the fear is the country could follow the footsteps of Venezuela or Nicaragua.
That forces them to vote to prevent them from winning... A/B, rather than a desired more moderate candidate.
Both main candidates have strong suspicions of corruption, which will be blamed on A or B, whoever they support.
The bad thing is that we go from extreme right to extreme left and vice versa. As they have opposite conceptions, when the right-wing win they shrink the state (privatize). When the left wins, they nationalize what their former leaders privatized. In each of these transactions the state (the people indeed) loses a lot of money. IMHO