Another Assassination Attempt Against Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez

On July 9, security guards shot a 24-year-old man on the premises of forestry company Forestal Mininco in the city of Carahue in Chile’s Araucanía region in what the Chilean media described at the time as an “armed confrontation.” 

Pablo Marchant Gutiérrez, a Chilean anthropology student who had joined the indigenous Mapuche people’s struggle for autonomy and recuperation of ancestral lands, was found dead after what appeared to be an execution.

Marchant’s killing is the latest incident in the conflict between Mapuche communities and Forestal Mininco, which has been accused of human-rights abuses during violent land evictions in Wallmapu. That is the Indigenous name of the Mapuche people’s ancestral home, which encompasses the southern cone of South America that is divided between the modern states of Chile and Argentina. Because Mapuche culture is tied to the land, its medicinal plants, as well as geographical elements such as lakes, rivers and forests, denying the Mapuche people the right to live there is tantamount to genocide, per the United Nations’ definition. 

However, between former U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet’s terror laws being used to criminalize Mapuche elders and activists, the United States and the United Kingdom arming Chile’s security forces, and the failure of international agencies to treat the Mapuche conflict with urgency, the West appears complicit in the genocide of the Mapuche people.

Questioning Authorities

Not satisfied with the official accounts of events, Marchant’s family requested forensic investigations, from which a sinister picture emerged of what had happened on Forestal Mininco’s premises.

The investigation found Marchant was shot in the back, contradicting the police’s account that Marchant had threatened officers with a M16 assault rifle. The report stated he was killed “on his knees” with his head inclined towards the floor, and that his injuries were consistent with that of an execution.

Neither the police nor prosecution services informed Myriam Gutiérrez, Marchant’s mother, of her son’s death. Instead, the Mapuche community relayed the news. Afterward, Legal Services of Temuco—another city in the Araucanía region—called Gutiérrez, saying she needed to be present at the autopsy. However, when Gutiérrez arrived, she wasn’t allowed in the facility.

“To this day, five months on, there has been no form of justice against those who have protected my son’s murderers,” Gutiérrez told Toward Freedom. “I must also point out that these cases are never resolved because the state does not recognize these [recuperation] acts as legitimate—instead, they qualify them as ‘terrorist actions.’”

Toward Freedom contacted Forestal Mininco, the Chilean consulate in London, and Chile’s Interior and Security Ministry, but they did not respond as of press time.

Human Rights Violations

Not long after Marchant’s death, President Sebastian Piñera announced on October 12 a state of emergency in response to escalating tension in the southern regions of the Andean country. Over 1,000 troops are deployed in the Araucanía region, armed with drones, tanks and anti-riot weaponry. The central Chilean region is known for its virgin forests.

Less than a month into the military occupation, security forces opened fire at a roadblock, killing one Indigenous man and injuring several others, including a 9-year-old girl.

Despite the frequency and severity of the violence, political persecution and racism Mapuche communities face have failed to prompt an appropriate response from international agencies. Free from international intervention, Chilean security forces have been able to kill, evict and arrest Mapuche people with complete impunity, all with an eye to protect the interests of industries operating out of contested Indigenous land.  This comes despite Chile being a signatory to the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labour Organization (ILO Convention 169) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Chile is the only Latin American country that does not recognize the existence of Indigenous peoples in its constitution.

“What the state is doing is colonial domination against the Mapuche people via a repressive genocidal political agenda, in turn denying their right to exist as an autonomous Mapuche nation,” Gutiérrez said. “Pablo knew and understood that people were being repressed and that they had been banished from their land in a brutal and repressive manner.”

Subsidizing Corporations

Chile currently holds the largest planted area of Pinus radiata, or Monterey pine trees, in the world. These fast-growing, medium-density softwood trees are known for their versatile uses, ranging from constructing homes, cabinets, boats and furniture to acting as a noise buffer in residential areas. 

The Mininco and Arauco forestry companies own over 2 million hectares (4.94 million acres) of forest and supply 400 different products in approximately 80 countries, including wood chips for paper pulp production.

The forestry sector’s success can be attributed to state subsidies and land grabs facilitated during Augusto Pinochet’s time as the U.S.-backed dictator following the 1973 coup. Pinochet’s extractivist policies ensured more than $800 million in Chilean tax money funded the sector. Large swathes of land previously belonging to the Mapuche people, peasant farmers and state-owned agencies, such as CORFO (Chile’s economic development agency), were seized and handed to Pinochet’s inner circle, including Julio Ponce Lerou, his son-in-law.

Today, Mapuche attempts to recover ancestral land via land reclamations are met with brutal evictions and violent attacks that sometimes claim the lives of their leaders, Reynaldo Mariqueo, director of UK-based NGO Mapuche International Link, told Toward Freedom.

“Though most political parties recognize that the conflict with Mapuche people is political and not military, they continue to ignore demands for restitution of their lands, autonomy and self-determination,” Mariqueo said. 

Western Complicity

The military occupation of Araucanía would not be possible without the support of the international arms industry. Multiple human-rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, decrying human-rights abuses that took place during the 2019-20 social unrest dubbed “El Estallido.” Yet, countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have continued to supply arms to Chile, whose military expenditure is one of the highest in the world, making up around 1.9 per cent of GDP.

In February, the Biden administration’s first foreign arms sale was to Chile. The $85 million package included:

• 16 SM-2 block IIIA rail-launched missiles, 
• two MK 89 Mod 0 guidance section adapters, 
• one target-detection device kit,
• Mod 14 naval guns systems, and
• associated training and supplies.

The UK also has armed Chile’s repressive military forces. A Freedom of Information request by British newspaper Byline Times found 50 percent of the £164 million ($217 million USD) worth of arms licenses sold to Chile since 2008 had been granted during 2019-20. This included so-called “non-lethal” weapons, such as smoke canisters, tear gas and other riot-control agents. Those tools were turned on more than 500 Chilean people who lost sight in one or both eyes. A similar tactic had been deployed during the 2019-20 Yellow Vests uprisings in France.

Genocide for Profit

None of the Chilean government administrations since the 1989 transition to democracy have challenged the might of forestry companies in Araucanía.

Whether left-leaning like Michelle Bachelet or extreme-right like Sebastian Piñera, the conflict rages on to the detriment of Indigenous people. It was Bachelet who commissioned the FBI to investigate the existence among Mapuche activists of terror cells linked to guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA). And it was Bachelet who conceived special unit Comando Jungla, a special military force trained in the Colombian jungle to combat alleged terrorism and narcotics operations in Chile.

“The militarization of the region continues, giving carte blanche to commit all kinds of atrocities against those communities peacefully struggling for the right to live on ancestral land,” Mariqueo said.

Meanwhile, Gutiérrez said her son only sought to help defend Wallmapu.

“He wanted to be among, collaborate and live like a Mapuche.”

Carole Concha Bell is an Anglo-Chilean writer and Ph.D. student at King’s College London.

For Francia Márquez, land is life.

The 39-year-old Afro-descendant woman was raised in mountainous territories that have been occupied by generations of Africans in what is now known as Colombia. They are the offspring of people who had escaped slave masters.

“Territory is a space of life and diversity,” said Márquez, who was dressed in white from head to toe and clad in African jewelry. She addressed a standing-room only event held on February 7 at a community center that serves the Spanish-speaking population in Hyattsville, Maryland, on the border of Washington, D.C. “And now, I want to be president of Colombia.”

Many say the upcoming Colombian presidential election looks to be the most consequential in decades. That’s because, while some praise Márquez, everyone Toward Freedom spoke to agreed militant-turned-politician Gustavo Petro is the strongest candidate on the left. The most recent poll shows Petro as the most favored left-wing candidate, with 77 percent of the public’s favor, compared to only 12 percent for Márquez. More interesting is that Petro is the most recognized and favored candidate across the political spectrum, according to Centro Nacional de Consultario, a Colombian think tank.

“With the failure of the government of Iván Duque, the public is really looking for something different,” said Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Under the right-wing Duque presidency, murders of social leaders have continued as the 2016 peace accords to demobilize guerillas remain unimplemented. “Last year’s civil strike, the effects of COVID-19 and the economics of the country have pushed people who normally wouldn’t have run.”

Márquez and Petro are seeking the nomination of Pacto Histórico, a left-wing coalition, during today’s party consultations. These primary-like events will determine who will move on to first-round runoff elections on May 29. A second round would be held on June 19 if no candidate wins at least 50 percent of the votes. While Petro seeks the coalition’s nomination as a Colombia Humana party candidate, Márquez is vying with the support of Polo Democrático Alternativo, a social democratic party.

Aside from Pacto Historico, a center-right coalition, Coalición Equipo por Colombia (Team Colombia), and a center-left coalition, Coalición Centro Esperanza (Hope Center), are deciding on candidates today as well. A few candidates, including the notable former senator and once-exile Ingrid Betancourt, have opted out of today’s consultations and will run against the coalitions on May 29, either on a party ballot or independently.

Putting Colombia in Context

Colombia is among the top 20 most violent countries in the world. That is partly because the United States has provided $4.5 billion in arms and military training via Plan Colombia, a 22-year-old anti-narcotics program implemented during the presidency of right-wing president, Álvaro Uribe (2002-10). The U.S. military also reportedly has helped build out and now occupies seven Colombian military bases.

Out of 49 million people, 8 million have been displaced since 1985, according to Human Rights Watch. That’s because of decades of struggle between coca producers and traffickers, miners, Indigenous and Afro-descendant people, and those who represent foreign interests.

Meanwhile, Colombia has the highest income inequality and labor market informality in Latin America, according to the World Bank.

The Fear of ‘Becoming Venezuela’

Dan Kovalik got much pushback for announcing in February his support for Petro, who was roundly lambasted for recently saying in a radio interview, “We do not like [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro. We have said it many times. We don’t like what is happening in Venezuela in terms of the extinction of democracy.”

Another attack came on Twitter: “I suggest Maduro stop his insults. Cowards are those who do not embrace democracy. Get Venezuela out of oil, take it to the deepest democracy. If you have to step aside, do it.”

Le sugiero a Maduro que deje sus insultos. Cobardes los que no abrazan la Democracia.

Saque a Venezuela del petroleo, llevela a la más profunda democracia, si debe dar un paso al costado, hágalo. https://t.co/kA8DBwQ3fT

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 12, 2022

These kind of comments have moved some to call Petro “another Boric,” alluding to Chile’s new president, Gabriel Boric, who recently criticized Venezuela and Nicaragua.

“It might be tactical,” said Kovalik, who teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. “He still represents that [guerilla]. That’s why I still like him. He’s opposed to U.S. imperialism.”

Petro has gotten backing from figures of the international left, including U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. While regional leaders, including Maduro, assailed Petro on Twitter for criticizing Venezuela while it undergoes a process of socialist construction that began in 1998, some understand the rationale.

Sánchez-Garzoli has been working on Colombian issues since 1998 and has been exclusively focused on the country since 2004. She said Uribismo, the far-right ideology of Uribe that helped escalate the drug war, is to blame for the inflamed relationship with Venezuela. That has created a fear among Colombians that their country is “becoming Venezuela.”

“Colombians think of Venezuelans as their cousins,” Sánchez-Garzoli said. “There’s always been good relations, people to people—it’s just been the government that has had this antagonistic approach.”

Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist who co-founded a grassroots organization called the Black Alliance for Peace. He has lived in Calí, a predominately Afro-Colombian city, since 2011, and regularly advises movement and elected leaders in the country. “This spat between him and some figures like Maduro, while it is politically unwinding in terms of regional politics, plays a certain role in Colombian politics.”

Baraka said it is unclear if real ideological differences exist between Petro and Maduro, or if Petro’s statement was a critique from the left, or if it was Petro’s way of creating space between him and Maduro. “It’s understandable, but also opportunistic,” Baraka said.

Sánchez-Garzoli said part of the reason Petro lost the 2018 presidential election was because he wasn’t able to attract more moderate elements of the population to vote for him because of the public’s aversion to anything related to Venezuela.

Baraka said the question is similarly complicated among Afro-Colombians. “Part of it is confusion,” he said. “Part of it is the relative conservatism that’s across the region, unfortunately.”

When a candidate is considered in favor of Venezuela, that reinforces the right wing and the moderates because they fear a public seizure of companies as well as persecution of political and economic elites, Sánchez-Garzoli said. She added the center and the right recently have come together. “They are making alliances [with groups] they’ve never worked with before,” Sánchez-Garzoli said. “It’s very hard to know what that will mean in practice.”

In a region where the left has successfully taken state power, many said it is important for Petro to win to create more stability for the Western Hemisphere’s left pole, which includes Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Perú. “They’re not going to go away quietly,” Kovalik said of Colombia’s ultra-right wing.

James Early, a board member of Washington-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies, also sees potential in a Petro presidency. “Getting rid of this ultra-right Duque government and whoever would become the steward of state power is really the bottom line. This is where the rub comes.”

The Afro-Descendant Question

Charo Mina Rojas, an Afro-Colombian who supports Márquez’s candidacy, believes it would be a boon if Petro wins the presidency. But that support comes with reservations.

“Gustavo Petro continues to be part of that white supremacist voice that does not recognize diversity and the political power that diversity can have in this country, particularly from marginalized ethnic groups,” said Mina, who is a member of the Proceso de Comunidades Negras, or Black Communities Process, which represents more than 100 Afro-descendant community councils and organizations spread across 4 departments, or states. “Colombia always performs as a Mestizo country, but it’s white people governing.”

Unfortunately, Petro’s campaign did not respond as of press time to Toward Freedom’s inquiry.

Sánchez-Garzoli noted Petro has been known for a more top-down approach, keeping decision making to a tiny circle of advisors.

That is unlike the Afro-descendant tradition, in which every aspect of life is collectivized, attracting many to Márquez’s candidacy.

“She’s fearless—she’s a leader,” said Victor Hugo Moreno Mina, an Afro-descendant who is running for a seat in Colombia’s congress under the Green Party banner. “She has been defending Black communities in the cities, but also in the rural areas.”

Moreno is the Consejo Mayor, or president and legal representative, of the Asociación de Consejos Communitarios del Norte del Cauca (ACONC, or the Association of Community Councils of Northern Cauca). ACONC represents 210 rural communities and 10 municipalities in Cauca department.

Moreno was with Márquez on May 4, 2019, when armed assailants shot at their group as they were preparing for discussions with the government on what they see as negligence. “She defends people who don’t have their basic needs [met] in our communities.”

For Afro-descendants, their ancestral territories dating back to the 17th century have been equated with life itself. They descend from Africans who were kidnapped from the same villages in Africa and sold together, which meant they could communicate in their native languages to outsmart the slave masters. After escaping into the mountainous jungles of Colombia, they established the first African settlements. Their descendants had been able to continue the traditions of their homeland in relative isolation until the drug war in the early 2000s that began mass displacement. Then an influx of mining companies continued the violence in the 2010s.

Ubuntu, a term with roots in the Bantu languages of central and southern Africa, means “I am because you are and you are because I am.” That is reflected in Márquez’s campaign slogan, “Soy Porque Somos,” or “I am because we are.” Marquez helped organize rural Afro-descendant women in her hometown of La Toma, located in the Cauca department, against foreign mining companies. Eighty women walked 350 miles in 10 days in November 2014 to the capital, Bogotá. That, as well as a 22-day protest in Bogotá, moved the government to end illegal mining activities and convene a national task force. But before that had taken place, the death threats had become too much to bear. On April 5, 2014, she was forced into exile with her two children, landing in the city of Calí. Her efforts caught international attention, winning her the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018.

The collectivism of the Afro-descendant community filters into Márquez’s approach to campaigning for president.

“I don’t have anything to offer. We have to change the logic,” Márquez told a crowd of mainly Spanish-speaking people on February 7 in Maryland. “That’s why we have a mandate.”

Instead of running on a platform, she brings to the public the demands of the Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, which includes distributing land to women, a focus on education, the legalization of drugs, an end to obligatory military service, the right to abortion and an end to the country’s 60-year-old civil war.

“She is contesting these structures from a very clear Black feminist perspective,” Mina said.

A Black woman at the event stood up wearing a Daishiki, a West African blouse-like patterned garment. “You have not let those evil forces touch you,” she told Márquez.

“To see you gives me hope,” said Pedro, an Indigenous Colombian who wound up in the Washington area after fleeing the violence.

“She defends everything with her body and soul,” Moreno told Toward Freedom.

‘Tricky Ethical Situation’

Mina said Márquez’s candidacy represents a grassroots process. And the people are patient.

“Nothing is going to change in a four-year period,” Mina said. “But in a long-standing process, we can expect a successful political alternative.”

Petro will need help to not only broaden his base, but to keep his current base excited. That’s where Márquez, who is unlikely to win today, can play a role.

“Francia has really forced the debate on different issues,” Sánchez-Garzoli said.

The 1991 reformed constitution includes a declaration that Colombia is a plurinational state. Unfortunately, that has not played out in giving Afro-descendants and Indigenous Colombians full reign over their lives. That contradiction again has come to a head with the ethnic chapter of the 2016 peace accords not being acted upon, according to a 192-page report Instancia Especial de Alto Nivel con Pueblos Étnicos (IEANPE, or Special High-Level Body with Ethnic Peoples) issued in December. Non-governmental organization Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (INDEPAZ, Institute for Development and Peace Studies) reported murders of social leaders, which includes activists, politicians and journalists, surged to 1,270 between 2016 and 2021. Although forced displacements hit their peak in the early 2000s, as seen in the INDEPAZ chart below, about 100,000 or more people have been displaced every year since the peace accords were signed.

“The citizen backing is going to have to be significantly organized to broker deals with whoever emerges,” said Early, who, as part of a delegation, met with militants in Cuba as the peace accords were being hammered out. He said, as the only Afro-descendant at the meeting, he advocated for the safety of Afro-Colombians. “That is the principal question inside Colombia: How will the candidacy of Francia negotiate with the forces who are gathered around Petro?”

Mina takes a more realistic, or perhaps pessimistic, view.

“I don’t think they can change the relationships as they are,” she said. “You need a lot of economic power to do that.”

Mina added Petro has been trying to gain alliances with those in power. She and others saw that as a tough road to walk. More right-wing elements like the Catholic Church may require compromises that can go against a candidate’s positions.

“That is a tricky ethical situation,” Mina told Toward Freedom on a phone call from her Calí home. “If that was just words, that is okay. But that is not just words. When he wins, all those people will come back to cash the check.”

Kovalik said the international left, much of which has not seized state power, should support Petro’s candidacy.

“Even if he’s not openly supporting Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua, he’s not a lackey of the military in Colombia,” he said. “It will be a huge step forward for Latin America to have a president of Colombia who’s not willing to allow Colombia to be a giant military base for the United States.”

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

SÃO PAOLO, Brazil—What began as loud cheers mellowed out as election results were announced outside the CNN Brasil headquarters on October 2. Laughs merged into murmurs as onlookers began to hug each other.

It had become clear to the crowd of hundreds of “petistas,” or Workers’ Party (PT) supporters, that PT presidential candidate Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva—whom the Brazilian left had rallied behind—would have to fight a second round on October 30 against incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

Two middle-aged female petistas mourned when their state—Rio—elected a Bolsonarista governor.

“The poor don’t know how to vote,” one snapped in response to her friend, who had her face in her hands.

Some Brazilians’ desire to climb class rungs has helped win votes for Bolsonaro and his Liberal Party (PL) colleagues at the local and legislative levels of government. This, despite an appetite for progressive politics after four years of what City University of New York professor Danny Shaw described to Toward Freedom as the “underpinnings and trappings of fascist rule” as well as hundreds of thousands of avoidable COVID-19 deaths.

Lula’s Strategy ‘Has Not Paid Off’

Bolsonaro had garnered more votes than polls had predicted. During this year, neither of the leading pollsters—Datafolha and IPEC—showed Bolsonaro polling above 34 percent or 31 percent, respectively. In the end, Bolsonaro received 43.2 percent of votes and Lula 48.4 percent.

London School of Economics urban geographer Matthew Aaron Richmond said Bolsonaro’s base has remained relatively diverse as well, at least in income. In Rio, for instance, Bolsonaro has retained his strength in the low-income peripheries, where churches and militias with links to the police have a fair amount of authority. The same retention is true for the moderate-income settlements around Brazil’s most-populated southeast region, like Santo André in São Paulo.

“This suggests that Lula’s strategy of winning over such voters with a moderate pitch and coalition building has not paid off as hoped,” Richmond tweeted.

The Brazilian Right’s Advantage

Although many have posited Brazil-specific reasons for Bolsonaro’s continued popularity, one bloc has been encouraging—even coercing—others to vote for Bolsonaro because it would benefit from the inequitable policies he prioritizes, such as privatizing state firms like Petrobras, and supporting agribusiness in a way that has harmed the environment.

Journalist and historian Benjamin Fogel said the election has revealed Bolsonarismo as a “solidified electoral bloc with a clear ideological vision—to dismantle what remains of Brazil’s diminishing state capacity by handing over the country to the police mafias, evangelical capos, big agro and all sorts of other dodgy private interests.”

This bloc began to show its might well before Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, with the procedural coup against former President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the unlawful incarceration of Lula in 2018.

These kicked off the phenomenon of “antipetismo,” a campaign attacking the PT that has damaged government institutions and redistributive politics.

Revelations during this year’s campaign have shown Bolsonaro and his family have engaged in corrupt activities, including secretly siphoning off billions of Brazilian reals in health funding to pay off congresspeople to stop him being impeached.

Despite this, and the overturning of Lula’s imprisonment, many Bolsonaristas genuinely believe Lula and the PT are more corrupt than Bolsonaro.

The interest of many sectors of capital in keeping Bolsonaro in Brasilia has also meant many employers have illegally encouraged or asked their employees to vote for him. This is especially true in agrobusiness. Stara, an agricultural equipment company, sent staff letters this week predicting layoffs under a Lula government. As lawyer Rômulo Cavalcante told Toward Freedom, this is illegal.

The Class Effect

Bolsonaro’s links to big capital and Lula’s track record of strong redistribution as well as his base among the poor have impacted voting patterns. Some Brazilians who see themselves as middle class or hope to climb into that class voted for Bolsonaro. Not all of these people fit theorist Karl Marx’s definition of middle class because they don’t accrue wealth through others’ labor. That doesn’t change the fact, as author Hadas Thier alludes to, that they culturally identify as such.

Bolsonaro—often called “Trump of the Tropics”—is a favorite among Brazilian college graduates, according to a widely reported Datafolha poll.

This reporter’s friend said when his mother—a lawyer—asked him how he would vote and he replied ‘Lula,’ she retorted: ‘How could you? You have a degree!’

Voting out the PT is being viewed as a condition of being part of a better-off class, which partly explains Bolsonarismo’s endurance in places like Santo André in São Paolo.

The Strength of the Brazilian Left

Analysis has also shown that vote-buying has occurred, and many of the congress people who Bolsonaro has paid off have then themselves bought votes through clientelism and corruption.

That said, this election has also demonstrated strong Brazilian support for the left.

Brazil’s northeast has again come out strongly for the PT. Rosa Amorim was elected to the state of Pernambuco’s legislature, making her the first deputy to have grown up on one of many settlements of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MTST), a housing-justice organization.

Further south in São Paulo, Guilherme Boulos, an MTST leader, received over a million votes as a Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) candidate for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

Other PSOL candidates pulled through on Election Day, too. Sônia Guajajara is the first Indigenous person and Ediane Maria is the first domestic worker elected to São Paulo’s chamber. Erika Hilton, meanwhile, became the first transgender member of Brazil’s legislature.

Brazilians still support these movements that make Brazil a particularly fertile ground for progressive activism.

Capital’s Interests Beyond Bolsonaro

However, Brazil doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it is not immune to the forces that affect any capitalist country.

As Shaw explained to Toward Freedom, “Six to 10 families control [Brazil’s] entire media apparatus.”

Some have suggested big capital’s interest goes beyond Bolsonaro. A third candidate, Simone Tebet of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), received a disproportionate amount of airtime, suggested right-wing business advocate Brian Winter. Before the campaign, said Cavalcante, “she wasn’t known outside her state.” As journalist Brian Mier has suggested, a sector of capital wanted a viable candidate who wasn’t as incompetent as Bolsonaro, as redistributive as Lula, or as boring as candidate Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party.

After being knocked out on Sunday, Tebet endorsed Lula, who remains the favorite.

Back in front of the CNN Brasil headquarters on election night, Lula made an appearance after the crowd digested the result.

“It’s like destiny likes me having to work a bit more,” Lula said to a crowd that appeared to have grown to the low thousands because he showed up. “The campaign starts tomorrow… We are going to win these elections!”

As Maria told Toward Freedom, the left’s “abundant energy” will be up against a “giant force.” On October 30, we’ll find out which of the two will succeed.

Richard Matoušek is a journalist who covers sociopolitical issues in southern Europe and Latin America. He can be followed on Twitter at @RichMatousek and on Instagram at @richmatico.