Brazil’s changing working class reshapes Lula-Bolsonaro run-off

Brazil’s changing workforce is complicating President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s bid for re-election, as traditional industrial jobs give way to delivery work, small businesses and other services. BBC News reports that voters in former manufacturing centres have turned towards right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, while many of the poorest still credit Lula with improving their lives.

In Osasco, once an industrial city near São Paulo, factories have closed as shopping centres and technology companies have grown. The city backed Lula in 2022 but voted for Bolsonaro in the first round this month. The two face each other in a run-off on Sunday.

Gilberto Almazan, a metalworkers’ union leader in Osasco, told the BBC that the working class had shifted from factory jobs to services, leaving unions struggling to keep pace. Across Brazil, millions now work in the gig economy, including as app-based drivers and food-delivery couriers, or run small businesses.

Some voters who backed Lula in 2022 now say they want change. Lawyer Gisele Bonfim told the BBC she had switched to Bolsonaro, while hot-dog seller Tairine said high prices and taxes were making life harder. Bolsonaro has proposed reducing public spending, ministries and some taxes, while saying he would keep some of Lula’s welfare programmes.

The BBC’s account suggests that dissatisfaction with Lula does not always amount to firm support for his rival. Some voters are frustrated by the economy, crime and corruption in politics; others who were unhappy stayed away from the first-round vote. Abstention was higher than average, with 33 million people not voting — the highest number since 1998, according to the report.

Economic pressures sit alongside changes in how working-class Brazilians organise their lives and communities. Author Richard Lapper told the BBC that unemployment had fallen to a record low and Brazil had been removed from the United Nations’ Hunger Map during Lula’s current presidency, but that rising prices, household debt and interest rates had fuelled a “crisis of expectations”.

The report also points to the growing reach of evangelical churches, which serve about a quarter of Brazil’s population and can offer practical support as well as religious community. Some conservative pastors are influential political figures, and church leader Silas Malafaia told the BBC that Bolsonaro shared the church’s values. But the article describes the first-round shift in much of the new working class more as a rejection of Lula than an active endorsement of Bolsonaro.

Lula’s campaign is now trying to mobilise people who did not vote, including through rallies and social media. In Rio de Janeiro’s Maré favela, where abstention was also high, some residents continue to value Lula’s welfare policies. One young mother told the BBC that she appreciated measures including a higher minimum wage and access to medicines; another resident blamed non-voting partly on late changes to polling locations and hopelessness about the future.