2022 Brazilian General Election

Overview

The 2022 Brazil General Election to elect the President, Vice President and National Congress took place on October 2nd, 2022. There were more than 156 million registered voters in Brazil for this election. It became a viral event, with people expressing support for their candidates and commenting with lots of memes about the election to reduce nervousness about the results.

The voting day ended with no clear victor for Brazil's Presidental election, leading to a second voting round between incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. The second round of voting for Brazil's new President will happen on October 30th, 2022.

Background

The 2022 General elections will be the largest in the history of Brazil in terms of the number of candidates, with 25,941 applications accepted, being 13 Presidential candidates, 224 Governors, 243 Senators and other candidates for Congress.^[1]

Atop voters’ electronic ballots^[2] was a presidential race featuring two Brazilian political heavyweights: current President Jair Bolsonaro^[3] and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva^[4] (President from 2003 to 2010). For the past year, the two have engaged in a highly polarized and aggressive campaign. Lula was widely predicted to win heading into election day,^[5] with 50% of polled votes, while only 36% of polled votes were for Bolsonaro. However, the actual results of the election provided no clear victor.

The 2022 Brazil General Elections stirred up social media, with people using memes to express support for their candidates and also to reduce nervousness on Election Day. For example, this October 2nd, 2022 post by @niobiomemes on Twitter^[9] compared Brazil's electoral system with that of the United States, where counting can take several days. The post received 124,000 likes in four days.

Developments

Foreign Support For Bolsonaro

On October 1st, 2022, Hasbulla posted a tweet (seen below) expressing support for Jair Bolsonaro and his reelection campaign. The tweet^[10] received almost 76,000 likes in the course of a day. Bolsonaro replied to Hasbulla's tweet shortly after, thanking him for his support and inviting him to Brazil. Hasbullah and Bolsonaro also had a brief exchange in the replies that same day (seen below).^[11]

Election Day

On Election Day (October 2nd, 2022), the landslide victory for Lula did not materialize as the pools suggested, as a majority of voters in the southern states favored Bolsonaro^[6]. However, by night's end, Lula had 48%, accumulating 57 million votes, and Bolsonaro ended with 43%, 51 million votes. This result was insufficient to elect the new President, due to Brazilian laws that require at least one candidate to have more than half of the valid votes,^[7] leading to a second election on October 30th, 2022.

The counting of votes for the round-off election was concluded on October 30th, 2022, and Lula was elected as the new president of Brazil, with 60,345,999 votes, or 50.9%^[15], compared to 58,206,354 votes, or 49.1%, for his opponent, Jair Bolsonaro.

Candidates Responses

On Election Day, Lula addressed his supporters, saying he wished to win in the 1st round, but he believes "that nothing happens by chance," referring to the polls putting him in 1st place on the October 2nd voting. On Twitter,^[8] he also shared his excitement about campaigning across Brazil for 28 days more until the second round occurs (tweet shown below).

Eu adoro fazer campanha. E teremos mais 28 dias. Adoro fazer comício, subir em caminhão. E será a primeira oportunidade de ter um debate cara a cara com o atual presidente. Pra gente poder fazer comparações do Brasil que ele construiu e do Brasil que nós construímos.

— Lula 13 (@LulaOficial) October 3, 2022

Bolsonaro celebrated his outperformance of forecasted polls, saying he received more than 2 million votes compared to his 2018 election. A day before the election, the current President of Brazil also shared a video of Donald Trump declaring his support for Bolsonaro's reelection (seen below).

- Obrigado, meu amigo Trump! Graças ao apoio do povo brasileiro e de nossa determinação em lutar pelos interesses do Brasil, hoje somos respeitados no mundo todo e contamos com o apoio de nações livres e prósperas e não mais de ditaduras socialistas, como no passado. pic.twitter.com/p4gcAcSiIU

— Jair M. Bolsonaro 2️⃣2️⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) October 2, 2022

Protests

Two days after Jair Bolsonaro's reelection defeat, he still has not spoken publicly. His silence allegedly caused roadblocks^[16] all over the country, with truckers and sympathizers blocking roads in protest against the election results. On November 1st, 2022, a video uploaded by @choquei went viral on Twitter^[17] showing a cyclist pretending to be hit by a car trying to pass through the roadblock. The video has 5.5 million views and 152,000 likes in less than 24 hours (seen below).

🚨GRAVE: Bolsonarista simula acidente se jogando em cima de um carro que avança sobre a paralisação. pic.twitter.com/V1AQQrROOj

— CHOQUEI (@choquei) November 1, 2022

@raquelrealofc created a skit video to joke about the cyclist throwing himself at the car, garnering 30,000 views and 5,000 likes on Twitter^[18] in less than 24 hours (seen below).

MUITO GRAVE! pic.twitter.com/RlnAQig8Rq

— RAQUEL REAL OFICIAL (@raquelrealofc) November 1, 2022

Other videos of the roadblocks were also used as memes, like this instant karma moment of a truck dumping dirt on the road and falling to the side. The video was uploaded to Twitter^[20] on November 1st, 2022, and received 203,000 views and 22,000 likes in less than a day (seen below).

Karma instantâneo deles pic.twitter.com/yGcZS5V7e6

— jairmy (@jairmearrependi) November 1, 2022

Candidate's TV Debates

As part of the electoral campaign for the Brazilian Presidential Election, the candidates can participate in public TV debates to express their plans for the country. These events generated a variety of memes(see below), like the Globo Network^[12] Presidential Debate, which occurred on September 29th, 2022.

The Twitter^[14] user @luscas posted a video about how Lula is preparing himself to go to debate, which received 1.1 million views and 13,000 likes in one week.

lula se preparando pra ir no debate da globo hoje pic.twitter.com/4uDzVxUwHi

— luscas (@luscas) September 29, 2022

One candidate in particular, Padre Kelmon, got the attention of the online audience due to exchanges he had with other candidates, like the moment Soraya Thronicke^[13] misspelled Kelmon's name, calling him Padre Kelson, Padre Kelvin and Candidato Padre(shown below.)

Que Tistreza

During the September 29th, 2022, Presidential candidate debates, Felipe D'Avila, candidate for the presidency had a viral moment online after he misspelled the word "sadness" in Portuguese (Tristeza) and said: "Que TISTREZA" at the beginning of his speech. People flooded social media with clips of the candidate applying the phrase to other ironic memes like @richarlison_br01 TikTok post on December 3rd, 2022, in which he used to video with the caption "me when I arrive at school". The video garnered 209,300 views and 14,000 likes in three months.

Election Results

On October 30th, 2022, Lula was elected Brazil's next president for the 2023 to 2026 mandate. The result was widely commented on all over social media, with the majority of posts celebrating Bolsonaro's defeat. For example, this "celebration of life" video template with Mariah Carey's "Bye Bye" playing as the soundtrack received viral attention on Twitter^[23]. The post received 5.9 million views and 74,000 likes in one day.

DESCANSE EM PAZ! 🖤

pic.twitter.com/czgAkZfFeq

— CHOQUEI (@choquei) October 30, 2022

After Lula's victory was confirmed, the politician broke the record for the most-liked tweet in Brazil, posting a picture of his hand touching the country's flag on Twitter^[22]. The post received 1.4 million likes and 474,000 retweets in less than 24 hours.

Democracia. pic.twitter.com/zvnBbnQ3HG

— Lula 13 (@LulaOficial) October 30, 2022

Lula da Silva Win Reactions

Celebrities from all over the globe congratulated Brazil's new president on October 30th, 2022, like the Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who posted Lula holding a green light saber (seen below) on Twitter^[19]. The tweet received 430,000 likes and 57,000 retweets in three days.

Parabéns ao recém-eleito Presidente do Brasil: Lula da Silva!!! 🇧🇷#ByeByeBolsonaro 👋 pic.twitter.com/VqVCX5Oub6

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) October 31, 2022

The Avengers actor, Mark Ruffalo, also celebrated Lula's victory. He tweeted in Portuguese saying "Congratulations to the heroes of Brazilian democracy! For the first time, the number of votes increased in the second round. Brazilians joined together and democracy won. The world thanks you." His Twitter^[21] post received 121,000 likes and 13,000 retweets in three days (seen below).

Parabéns aos heróis da democracia brasileira! Pela primeira vez, o número de votos aumentou no segundo turno. Os brasileiros se juntaram e a democracia venceu. O mundo agradece. #NemTodoHeróiUsaCapa SamuelLJackson</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertDowneyJr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">RobertDowneyJr chrishemsworth</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DonCheadle?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">DonCheadle @wongrel

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 31, 2022

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References