 Salaam from the People's Dispatch studios here in New Delhi. I'm Siddhant Ani and you're watching Daily Debrief on the show today. From Brazil, we get the latest from our reporter on the ground, Zoe Alexandra, in a run-up to an important vital election, a presidential election there. And we look at why opposition and pro-democracy forces are rallying in Pakistan and Iraq. On Sunday the 30th, Brazilians will vote in a run-off election that might mark a significant shift in the road for one of the biggest nations on the planet. Climate activists are saying the fate of the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, depends on it. And Brazil's massive working class and poor have come together in support of the Workers' Party candidate, former President Luiz Inasio Lula da Silva. Latest polls show Lula holding a very decent, but not massive six-point lead, with three days to go before polling. incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his far-right support base have been upping the ante since the first round of results put the two in this run-off election, leading to a volatile month of October. Zoe Alexandra has been in Sao Paulo during this time and has this to report. How are we reading the numbers, Zoe? Well, it's a very exciting week here in Brazil. There's just five days left till the big day October 30th, where the Brazilian people are going to elect who's going to be the next president. The numbers are looking very tight. I think one thing that was very interesting about the first round is that while the polls had predicted accurately what kind of numbers Lula would be getting from 47% to 49%, which ended up being right, the predictions for how much Bolsonaro was getting in the first round was vastly different. This round, the latest polls are still showing Lula pulling ahead in the second round, winning with anywhere between a six and two point difference. We're seeing a lot of different numbers, but all of the polls that came out yesterday still show that Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party would win against Jair Bolsonaro. But I think it's important to point out that it is extremely close. And while the margin of error is between one and 2% for a lot of these polls, as I mentioned before, the first round poll results compared to the final results of the elections showed that really the polls can only give you so much of the picture. And the question of abstention in Brazil, the question of blank ballots is a huge issue. And that definitely impacts how the polls actually play out in the run up to the elections. Right. It's been a bit of a volatile month, Zoe, the month of October, since the first round results came out. Tell us a bit about that before we sort of round up with what the key talking points are at this late stage before the final voting. That's exactly right. I mean, as you said, it's been a very volatile month, very focused on fake news, very focused on a battle on social media, spreading different rumors or resharing old interviews and putting them in a new context. We've seen accusations of Lula being satanic, that he's going to close the churches. There's been so much really bouncing around, but I think the main thing is that it's all been taking place on social media and having a much less emphasis on programs, on proposals, on concrete solutions, and really much more about creating discourses of hate, creating discourses of volatility, and trying to really tap into this emotional element of the elections, which is, of course, unfortunate because as we've said on the show, Brazil is living one of the worst crises in its history. And yet Bolsonaro, the current president, would rather focus on saying that Lula is going to close churches, which is, of course, a lie. He actually created the law of religious freedom. So that's what's going on. And even in this past week, there's been a huge polemic because a very strong Bolsonaro supporter, Roberto Jefferson, he had been spreading a lot of fake news. He's been constantly attacking members of the Supreme Court, and his house arrest was revoked because of a video that he published on his daughter's social media page calling one of the Supreme Court justices, a witch, a whore, all of these horrible words, misogynist, questioning or ruling. And because of that, his house arrest was revoked, military police went to his house to arrest him, and he responded by shooting at them 20 times with the rifle and throwing grenades at them. This is the level of intensity that we're living right now in Brazil. There's a very high level of volatility. People are very anxious about violence. And of course, it has to be underlined that this is also a strategy of the far right to dissuade people from voting to dissuade them from participating, dissuade them from campaigning. One of the campaign activities in the northeast of Brazil was interrupted because of gunfire. So this is a situation on the ground, a lot of tension, a lot of fake news, a lot of social media battles and less focus on the real issues facing the Brazilian people. We've on daily debrief and on people's dispatch in general, so we've covered all of the issues that workers in Brazil and the working class and the poor are facing consistently. But one of the key elements of this sort of political battle that has emerged is the future of the Amazon rainforest and the focus on climate. So maybe with that, you can sort of summarize where the discourse is at, if any. Definitely. I mean, as we've seen in the past couple of years, since the coup against Dilma Rousseff with the assumption of Michel Temer as president, and then of course, much intensifying after Jair Bolsonaro to presidency has been the deforestation of the Amazon and the horrendous impacts that this has on the environment. We published a article from Brasen de Fato, which actually overlaid in electoral map on the map of deforestation of the Amazon in the high concentration of environmental crimes involving illegal mining that happens in the Amazon. Essentially under Jair Bolsonaro, all of these activities which attack the Amazon rainforest, which all of us know is such an important element of the ecosystem, not only for South America, not only for Latin America, but for the world. This is, he's given a free hand to these people. These are his major political allies. If you look at this map published by Brasen de Fato, it shows that the major areas of support for Bolsonaro, where he was able to actually get over 70% of the vote, are exactly where these people are concentrated for committing these environmental crimes who are trying to get this political support to be able to do illegal mining, to steal lands from indigenous people, to steal lands from the native people of the area, and to essentially destroy the rainforest. And we know that this is going to have huge impacts, especially while climate change is accelerating in other areas. The impact on drought. This is going to be really, really important. And Lula, and all of the other candidates, of course, in the first round had called for complete end to legal deforestation, a complete end to all illegal environmental crimes in the Amazon. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has very strong ties to these people. He says that there's it's it's kind of a conspiracy, the way that the indigenous people have have conservatorship over parts of the rainforest. And this is all just to attack Brazilian agriculture. And that it's important to open up the Amazon for logging and for other agricultural activities to make Brazil more productive. We of course know this is not true. Yeah, thanks very much, Zoe, for your continued reporting from Brazil. And of course, we will join you again, as in when the elections do to take place. Good luck for for the rest of the week. Thanks so much for having me. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, leader of the Pakistan Tehriqe Insaaf party has rallied his support base for what he's calling the largest long march in the history of the nation. The rally will begin at Liberty Square in Lahore in the province of Punjab and make its way to the capital Islamabad, a distance of just under 400 kilometers. The demand is quite simple, immediate general elections. Abdul, fresh political turmoil in Pakistan. We were talking about it briefly earlier. What exactly is going on? Why is Imran Khan and the PTI staging this march from Lahore to Islamabad? There are two things. Imran Khan one, what he said during his press conference yesterday, talking about his disqualification from his member of parliament seat by the Electoral Commission in Pakistan. That is one reason, of course. This week, we should see as the long drawn battle, which is going on between the state, particularly the present government and the PTI in that, that is one. The second thing is he also during his Oxford Union lecture, he also mentioned about the killing of a journalist, which was considered to be one who was primarily questioning the government again and again on the issue of the links between the US and the military and other establishment in Pakistan, which ultimately led to the vote of no confidence in April where he had to kind of resign from his post. So he was killed. The journalist who was in UAE had to go to for some circumstances had to go to travel to Kenya where he was assassinated. So he's blaming his assassination on the current establishment. So keeping both these in mind and of course, he's basically saying that these are signs that the present establishment has lost the confidence of the people and it is time for the fresh elections in Pakistan. So with the demand of the immediate announcement for the fresh election, he has announced the march on from beginning on Friday to Islamabad from Lahore to Islamabad. What sort of support Abdul has he managed to garner in this process and what is the overall political scenario looking like at the moment? If we see there are two bi-elections which also Emran Khan also proudly refers to during his Oxford Union lecture. The two elections which has happened, both the elections were won by Emran Khan's party, Punjab State election and other bi-elections. That according to him is a sign of the popularity the PTI is enjoying. He's also mentioning the huge popular mobilization which his party has been able to kind of do in last six months, roughly six months. So whenever PTI has given a call for demonstrations or marches in the past, there had been a huge popular participation in it and in this the upcoming march also he's claiming that this will be quote unquote the historic march which has never happened in Pakistan. If we see it objectively also that of course there is a by and large popular mood in favor of Emran Khan for various reasons. I think we have talked about this in this show many times. One of the major reasons is the overall image he has been able to create in the minds of the people about being a person who has kind of performed on certain issues. This performance of course should be seen in the context of the COVID and also the failures of the present administration, particularly because of the IMF pressures, which has led to a reduction of subsidies on at a time when the common Pakistanis are suffering because of the price rise and so and so. So it floods exactly. So in that context, of course, what for a common Pakistani, the time of Emran Khan looks much more relatively better than what is today. Also, we should see that the image he has been able to create as of a martyr given the fact that he that the US role in his no confidence vote against him has become a very popular slogan for the common Pakistanis given the long term kind of skeptic approach towards the US and US hostility towards the US because US, as we all know, since 1947, US has been one of the basic external elements in Pakistani politics, which basically people do not like it because it's led to the death of thousands of Pakistanis destruction of the economy. And Pakistan has become a kind of hub also fueled the military industrial complex that runs the entire country. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So that is the basic. So yeah, very quickly, just to sum up, what is the sort of likely reaction to this March going to be? And are we sort of with the possibility of election in the near future, something that we are looking at? It is not that likely allowance. Prime Minister said immediately after what Imran Khan Pakistani Prime Minister said that the elections will happen in next year, whenever it is scheduled. And there are there are possible Imran Khan said that the march will be peaceful. But of course, there are possibilities of violence, particularly because the state will try to prevent the protesters marches from entering the capital capital. And finally, three years from a popular youth led uprising and elections that followed in October of 2021. Iraq has been more or less in a state of political paralysis to mark the nearing of the end of the month of protests back in 2019, that left 600 dead at the altar of change, change that ordinary Iraqis have not seen enough of since then. Despite some recent positives, the key demands of the movement that began in Baghdad's iconic Therese Square remain, remain constant. Thousands gathered to chance of the people demand the fall of the regime, a rallying cry from back in 2019. Abdul Seens from Baghdad that we're looking at, particularly the green zone and democracy bridge, I think as it's known, leading into that green zone area, which of course was the center of, you know, the occupying forces or the US forces when they were in the country. Going back to that kind of police barricading security, traffic jams, all of that scenario, three years on from the uprising, what is the current political status in Iraq? Most of the demands, we should start with that most of the demands with the protesters raised in 2019 remained unfulfilled. They're not, I think there is no political will also to kind of address those. And that is the one thing which defines today's politics in Iraq. The people who gathered on Therese Square, I tried to also master the Jamuri Bridge or the Bridge of Democracy, whatever it is called. Of course, there is a disappointment, particularly from the among the young youth population in Iraq, which is more than 50% of the Iraq's population has not seen any realization of potential it is Iraq has given the fact that it is one of the largest exporters and depositors has a largest reservoir of oil in the world, which is a hot commodity at this moment. So the the anniversary on the anniversary, there were attempts to kind of reignite the protests which happened in 2019. Of course, it did not come through for various reasons, primarily because of the exhaustion and all. And also, there is a slight kind of political change at the at the top level, which is happening. In last few months, Iraq has seen different kinds of protests, not the kinds of protests we saw in 2019. This was primarily between the Sadr supporters and the people who opposed it, which ultimately has now has led to the real election of a new president, designation of a new prime minister, the prime minister who was opposed by Sadr is now the designated prime minister in Iraq. So given the circumstances, the political circumstances in the country, the the the urge for the reemergence of the kind of protests we saw in 2019 is not that strong. And that that basically led to a low low key demonstration kind of demonstration commemorating the third anniversary, which happened on Thahir on Tuesday. And by the way, Tuesday 1-1, but there were throughout the month, there had been demonstrations commemorated because this is the Tishri movement October Revolution, as the people say. All right. It was an uprising that sort of had significant human toll over 600 people were killed. What were sort of the key factors you of course pointed out that Iraq is resource wise a rich country. And the people are not seeing any benefit of it despite intervention from the West and all of that. So so what are they looking for? And and politically does some kind of solution or answer lie in the offering in some the basic reasons behind the protests in 2019, where primarily if we for the man for the sake of simplification to make it easy for us to understand where primarily three, of course, the economic conditions were the driving force. The the governments which came the system, in fact, which came into existence after the US invasion in 2003 has failed to deliver on the basic economic issues in Iraq. Given the fact that Iraqi as we said before, Iraq is one of the richest countries on the globe when it comes to the economic resources. The poverty is in is increasing. The unemployment is unprecedented. According to the UN data around 35% of the youth population, which is as I said before, 5% and more. There is 35% unemployment among the youth in Iraq and particularly those who are graduating, they are not able to find jobs. So apart from that, the the supply of basic services like electricity, water, sanitation is pathetic in Iraq and has been for a quite a long time. So that is one reason which basically led people forced people to come to the streets and demand better government. The second set of issues were the external interference. It is a fact that the US military which came in 2003 on and off has been in Iraq despite the fact that there is a popular sentiment against it. The march the protests in in 2019 demanded the withdrawal of the US forces and end of all kind of external interference, which also included the Iranian interference in Iraqi politics. So that is the second set of issues. And the third, of course, is the larger political systematic changes, which the protesters were demanding, which included the end of the muhasa saw or the sectarian quota system, which divides the political posts, according to the sects in in Iraq. It also demand there was a demand for a kind of some kind of a more accountable government, which basically means Assad during his election victory in 2021. After that, what he tried to do that kind of attempt to create a majority in government, instead of a government based on consensus, which the protesters saw saw as the reason for the widespread corruption and inefficiency in Iraq. So on all these three front fronts, there has been hardly any progress, despite the fact that in last few months, because of the price rise in the prices of the oil, so exports has kind of created a surplus of foreign kind of currency currency in the country, it has created some kind of economic resources in the hands of the government, despite all that the common Iraqis have not seen better days yet. And of course, this is a country that was released on economic indicators leading the region. Exactly, exactly, before the invasion. Alright, thanks very much for both those updates. And we'll of course see you very soon again on Daily Debrief. And that is also in fact, a wrap on this episode of the show. We'll of course be back with another episode, same time, same place tomorrow. As always, for more details on these stories and everything else we do head over to our website, peoplesdispatch.org. And don't forget to give us a follow on the social media platform of your choice. See you again. Bye.