OP:ED - Why Brazil’s New Middle Class Turns to the Right?

(Kaieteur News) – Brazil’s new middle class was created by the left. Now it is voting for the right.

For decades, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s political narrative was simple, powerful, and electorally lethal: the Workers’ Party (PT) was the engine of upward mobility in South America’s largest economy. Through generous cash transfers, steady hikes in the minimum wage, and expanded credit, millions of Brazilians were lifted out of grinding poverty and into the comfortable embrace of the middle class.

Yet, as Brazil prepares for the high-stakes presidential runoff on 25th October, that legacy has metastasised into a political paradox. In the first round, Lula found himself trailing Flávio Bolsonaro, the senator and scion of former president Jair Bolsonaro, by nearly two percentage points. The sharpest erosion of Lula’s electoral base occurred not among the wealthy elite, but within “Class C”—the socio-economic group defined by the Getulio Vargas Foundation as making up over 60% of the population. In these working-class strongholds, Lula’s support plunged by five percentage points compared to 2022, while Mr. Bolsonaro clinched roughly 52% of the vote.