 Razul just had the first round of his historic election on October 2nd, that Sunday, widely watched election across the world. We will be talking about this in this episode of Mapping Fault Lines. We have with us Prabir Prakash. So, Prabir, widely watched election, like I said, it was expected that Lula Darcilu, the former president, who's making a powerful comeback after being persecuted for many years, it was expected that he might just edge through and win in the first round itself. He did lead, of course, but did not achieve that victory many of his supporters were looking for. And we also have Jair Bolsonaro, the incumbent president who did much stronger than expected. Now, I know that we don't make predictions on this show, especially about elections or wars for that matter. But what are your first thoughts regarding some of these, you know, these two developments specifically, Lula's lead as well as the more than expected showing with Bolsonaro? Well, let's look at the numbers first, because I think that makes sense. If we go by the exit polls, the Lula was supposed to have got 48.48% votes and Bolsonaro was supposed to have got about 37, 38% votes. So that was the prediction. Compared to that, Lula hasn't done anything different. He's still got 48% of the votes, but Bolsonaro has done about 5% better than that. So the shortfall in terms of the expectation is that Bolsonaro has done a lot better than the exit poll indicated. And therefore, Lula did not go over the 50% mark, which people thought he might that since he was so close, people might say, okay, he's already very close. Let's step him over the top. That didn't happen. Now, these exit poll figures are not different from what the poll predictions were even earlier. That Bolsonaro was trailing behind about maybe about 8% to 10% at certain point, and Lula was very close to 50%. So Bolsonaro seems to have done better than what the expectations were either in the earlier polls, opinion polls or in the exit polls. And while Lula's numbers have remained steady, they didn't go over from 48% to 50%, which would have given him a first round victory. And therefore, it would have meant that there would have been no second election. There would have been no runoff elections. The other part of this election is that if we look at not just the presidential poll, but how have the candidates fared in the Senate and other chamber, which is there in Brazil. Also, the governor's elections, what we find is in the governor's elections, for example, Sao Paulo on the left was supposed to do quite a bit better. It didn't. It trailed the right. The right seems to have picked up more seats in the elections to the Congress than what was expected. So it does appear the right has done better than what was expected. And that doesn't just include Bolsonaro's election, his figures, but also the figures across the country of the right who are contesting for governors, Congress, etc. So given all of that, yes, hope there is a good chance that Lula will maintain his lead and the runoff will go over the top, beat Bolsonaro, but it's become a much closer election and therefore more difficult to predict. The question is why was the Bolsonaro vote underestimated? And is there a pattern that the right wing votes tends to get underestimated? For example, like the Trump vote, if you remember the Hillary Clinton elections, all the exit polls said Hillary Clinton is winning when Trump really won the election. So is there a confirmation bias? Is there a voting bias in terms of the exit poll that the right wing does not really declare what it is going to do? Is there a shame factor involved? As people argued that a lot of people were ashamed to vote for Trump and therefore did not say who they were voting for. So it's not clear why or is the confirmation bias that the exit polls does themselves do not go to the sections who might represent a different constituency and they really overpull the kind of people they are. And therefore there is a bias in terms of the sample itself. These are open questions. We don't know to what extent these are true or not true. All we can say at the moment is that, yes, Lula seems to be better off than Bolsonaro. He's leading by 5% votes over Bolsonaro. And if the 7% vote which has gone to the centrist candidates, it does appear that the centrist candidates might question mark, might actually endorse Lula and therefore he will go over the top. Even now, Bolsonaro has a 7% gap to make up. Lula has a 2% gap to make up to go over the top. So yes, looking at these numbers, Lula seems to be much closer. But since these are not voters who have voted for either Bolsonaro or for Lula, we do not know which way it can go. There is also the risk that Bolsonaro may not accept the results if he loses in the final round in the run-off elections. And he might like Trump question the veracity of the elections itself. So that risk is also there and let us see whether the Brazilian democracy is strong enough to sustain such a challenge because Bolsonaro has been saying these things from the beginning. If he wins, he wins against all attempts to defeat him, including fraud in elections. If he loses, then of course the elections could be as we've lost because of fraud. So I think that risk is very much there. But we'll have to see how strong Brazilian democracy is in order to declare the results as they have recorded. Right, Prabir, absolutely. Of course, the election in Brazil important not only for that country, but for the entire region as well, in fact, the whole of the Americas. So could you also maybe take us through what really these two visions represent, what Bolsonaro and Lula represent when we're looking at, you know, what they mean for Brazil from a global sense, so to speak. Well, it's very clear that Bolsonaro is the last now remaining candidate of the right for a major Latin American country. So if he loses, then you have all the major countries in Latin America who belong to some kind of a left-wing platform. They do not agree on lots of issues. For instance, Chile, the president has a different position, for instance, on the Ukraine war, but a lot of other issues, they seem to agree. And of course, on the basic issue of poverty, the rich, should the taxes be lowered for the rich, etc., etc., which is really where the major social questions hinge in these countries, they are on the same side. So given that if Brazil also joins other left-wing countries, then it's a huge shift in political discourse in Latin America. And let's not forget Latin America has been the backwater of the United States. They have taken for granted that this is within the boundary doctrine that they really control or should have the right to control Latin America. But increasingly, the trade of these countries have also shifted from the United States to, for example, China. So given that there has been economic shifts, there is also the BRICS countries, which originally had raised the issue on foreign trade taxes, financial inflows, how to regulate all of that. So if Brazil also the left wins, then it means that the strengthening of BRICS may also take place, which in today's world is a significant, would be a significant change, particularly as the world seems to be or the US wants to divide the world in terms of those who are authoritarian and those who are liberal, in which actually Bolsonaro would be on the authoritarian side. But as we know that in their view, scheme of things left is authoritarian and anybody to the right is democratic, irrespective of whether they are authoritarian to the people or not. So I think, therefore, Lula's shift or Lula's coming or winning in Brazil would make a huge difference because, A, he has taken Latin America. B, Brazil is the biggest economy. So if Brazil comes out on the side of an independent Latin American economy, which is what a lot of the earlier presidency that he did, he was one of the ones who pioneered this along, of course, with Venezuela and, of course, with other countries as well. But he was a very important element in this, since he has come, if he comes back, then I think this is something which would really disturb the United States, particularly at a point of time when it is fighting Russia with economic sanctions and it is fighting China on the issue of not only Taiwan, but also sanctions on technology, technology sanctions. So energy sanctions in Russia, technology sanctions in China. So therefore Latin America becomes a very sensitive issue for the United States because still now they have taken it for granted and they are increasingly finding that their writ is not going to run in Latin America that easily. Even in Bolsonaro wins, there would be the other countries which have already defected, so to say, from the modern doctrine. So that's already there. But Brazil makes a huge difference, of course. It is also true that Bolsonaro is a little difficult for them to publicly endorse given that they talk about authoritarianism as a main threat. And there is no way they can cover up the fact that Bolsonaro is an authoritarian and is a very divisive figure. Thank you so much for talking to us. We'll be discussing many similar issues in future episodes of Mapping Portlines. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.