On Sept. 11 in the Swedish Riksdag, the right wing electoral alliance led by the Moderate Party won by a razor-thin majority, unseating incumbent Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and her center-left alliance.
While the Moderate Party’s leader Ulf Kristersson will be tasked with creating the next government, it was the Swedish Democrats who won the larger proportion of votes and seats within the alliance consisting of them, the Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals.
This exclusion is likely due to the Sweden Democrats’ past extreme rhetoric and controversial history concerning racism and nationalist policies. However, in recent years, they have steered themselves toward mainstream issues focusing on crime and immigration.
South of Sweden, Italy faces a similar outcome according to Politico’s Poll of Polls. Fratelli d’Italia, led by Giorgia Meloni, held a three-point lead over the center-left Democratic Party before Italy’s blackout period on polls began on Sep. 9th. However, along with the parties Lega, Forza Italia and Noi Moderati, a right wing coalition is likely to form Italy’s next government.
At age 19, Meloni joined the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist organization known for praising former Italian dictator Benito Mussolinni. However, similar to the Swedish Democrats, the once fringe party has been moderated by Meloni’s change in perspective.
While still socially conservative, opposing gay marriage and emphasizing “family values” in their platform, they have moderated their views on the European Union. At one point, the party fought for a transition away from the Euro, but now Meloni offers vague policy positions, arguing that her party wants “a Europe that does less, but does it better.”
Italy had some experience with right-wing governance following the 2018 general election, when the populist Five Star Movement joined the right wing Lega, having similar anti-immigrant, euro-skeptic electoral messages. However, the coalition fell through after disagreements over the funding of a high-speed rail link.
Unlike Italy and Sweden, right-wing parties and figures in Brazil are more likely to lose their incumbency rather than strip others from it. Incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, faces an uphill battle according to the Economist. Their poll-of-polls has Bolsonaro’s main opponent and former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the center-left Workers Party, garnering 50 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, which will occur on Oct. 2, in contrast to Bolsonaro’s 37 percent.
If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote in the first round, the top two vote receivers will move on to the second round on Oct. 30, where de Silva currently leads Bolsonaro 56 percent to 44 percent in recent polling.
Brazil also differs from its European counterparts due to the violent implications that the election has and might produce. For example, 45 politicians have been murdered during the first six months of 2022, while Bolsonaro has told his own supporters to “machine-gun…Worker’s Party supporters” on the campaign trail. Moreover, larger gun loopholes have given his supporters and private citizens in general a greater ability to own firearms.
All of these factors, including Bolsonaro’s rhetoric suggesting he will not accept the election results if he loses, has led to predictions by voters and foreign observers alike of a potential insurrection, mirroring the events of Jan. 6 in the U.S., where Bolsonaro voters raid the electoral tribunal before confirming the results.
In contrast to the Jan. 6 insurrection, however, Brazil’s military has clearly supported Bolsonaro in the upcoming election, giving fear to not only a potential insurrection where the military police do not repress rioters, but a push that could overturn Brazil’s democratic system of governance entirely.
While this outcome is unlikely, the threat to Latin America’s largest democracy remains real. Its survival is reliant on not only its voters, but their armed forces as well.
