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The Index

ELECTION WATCH

GUILHERME OSINSKI looks at what is happening at the poll booths of the world

1. Brazil

OCTOBER

has raised concerns that Bolsonaro is attempting to discredit the poll, and may even be planning a coup if defeated.

The election is also seeing an increase in political crime. On 9 July, municipal guard and Workers’ Party treasurer Marcelo Arruda was shot dead by federal prison guard Jorge Guaranho, a supporter of Jair Bolsonaro. Back in 2018, Bolsonaro had suggested “shooting the petralhada” (referring to people on the left-wing).

2. Slovenia

As Brazil’s presidential elections approach, so do fears about the country’s future. The two frontrunners in the fight for the presidential seat are current President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) and his main opponent, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party), who was president between 2003 and 2010.

Opinion polls show that Lula is in the lead, leading Bolsonaro to question electoral transparency and the likelihood of fraud in the Brazilian system. On 18 July, Bolsonaro invited ambassadors from more than 30 countries to a meeting in which he cast doubt on the credibility of the machines and even suggested the participation of the military to “guarantee safe elections”. The day after this meeting, the US embassy in Brasília released a statement supporting Brazilian institutions and describing the electoral system in Brazil as a “model for the world”.

Bolsonaro and his sons have disputed approximately 20 elections since 1996, the year the machines were introduced, despite being elected in 19 of them. This

23 OCTOBER

In October, people in Slovenia will head to the polls to choose their president for the next five years.

Leading the polls is Nataša Pirc Musar, an independent lawyer and journalist who has worked for Melania Trump in the USA. Her supporters hope she can heal the divided country. If she succeeds, it will be the first woman in charge of the country.

Facing Musar is Anže Logar from the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party, the same party as the country’s former Prime Minister Janez Janša.

Logar worked as minister of foreign affairs from March 2020 to June 2022 and during his term, he said that all media outlets in the country belonged to the communist regime. Media freedom in Slovenia has recently been in decline, with journalists, particularly women, being frequently harassed and threatened by politicians, including Janša.

3. Israel

1 NOVEMBER

Israel’s legislative elections in November will choose the members of the 25th Knesset. The previous legislative elections in March 2021 produced a hung parliament with neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing bloc or the opposition with enough seats to have a majority.

Netanyahu was asked by president Reuven Rivlin to try to form a government but his failure to do so saw a coalition of eight parties form a unity government under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Yamina and alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid. However the coalition only had a single seat majority and the resignation of several members made the government unworkable.

Netanyahu’s Likud party leads the opinion polls but at the time of going to press no group appeared to have a majority, suggesting yet more turmoil ahead.

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