You're listening to the London Review of Books podcast. I'm Thomas Jones. My guest today is Forrest Hilton, who teaches history in the graduate school at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador.

He's written many pieces for the LRB blog on Brazilian politics, most recently on the first round of the presidential election.

This is his second appearance on the podcast. The first time was in February 2021.

Hello, Forrest, and thank you very much for joining me again.

Hi, thanks very much for having me back.

So, Brazilians went to the polls on Sunday, the 2nd of October for the first round of their elections.

The frontrunner was Luis Sinassio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, the left-wing former president.

There were hopes that he might clear 50% and win outright in the first round, but in the event

he took just over 48% of the vote.

And the right-wing incumbent, Jaia Bolsonaro, came in second with just over 43% of the vote,

rather better than polls had predicted.

There'll be a runoff between those two on the 30th of October.

So perhaps Forrest, you could briefly tell us who they are, who is Lula to start with?

So Luis Ignacio da Silva, Lula, is, I think, it's safe to say, given the near collapse of social democracy across the world, really since

the 1990s, that Lula is really the world standard bearer for social democratic politics at this

point. He comes out of a major period of strike activity by the industrial working class in the ABC area of Sao Paulo

that translated this kind of militant trade unionism into a political party, the workers' party, the PT. And at the time it was born,

it was very much in touch with kind of revolutionary currents in Latin America from Nicaragua

to Cuba to El Salvador and so forth. And as it began to win mayor's races and gubernatorial races, it began more and more to acquire

experience in governing and distance and self somewhat from the revolutionary tradition

and really evolve its own kind of agenda for attaining regional and local power.

Meanwhile, Lula ran for the presidency every time, beginning with the return to democracy in

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