Electoral surveys, until confirmed or disallowed, are like old courtesans, whose beauty was celebrated according to the taste of the customer. The candidates bet that they are correct, when the numbers are favorable to them, but capable of finding many reasons to suspect, they prove to be better the performance of the opponents. It is an old truth like the Sé de Braga, but there are always those in politics who are able to take them seriously, as now, when trying to know the luck of the candidates who will be running for the presidency of the Republic in 16 months.
With so much to happen, in a country where we never know what news we will wake up to tomorrow morning, we would say that the published trends are not very different from the fortune-tellers. So long before these gentlemen are fighting (how many will be?), taking these surveys seriously is, therefore, as imprudent as practicing jumping in the dark.
A few days ago, questionnaires collected by some institutes ensured that President Bolsonaro was in conditions to win in the second round if his opponent was Lula. Because in the last week, in a big turn, the preferences started to be credited to the possible candidate of the Workers' Party, who, unlike the rival, would already settle the bill in the first vote.
It does not hurt to remember the most recent stumbling block in electoral checks, when elaborated in advance. In 2018, Ibope, when projecting its spreadsheet numbers, announced that Jair Bolsonaro would lose, in the second round, if the opponent was Haddad, Ciro or Alckmin. But what happened was the exact opposite.
Not just here. Several countries, where democratic elections are taking place, recommend caution. The United States has learned to be cautious about premature consultations since 1948, when the entire country was surveyed, so that no one doubted Dewey's victory, but it was Truman who won. Four years later, the re-election of the president who had surprised him was handily given; however, he was defeated by Eisenhower. The examples are many.
Today, all candidates for the presidency of the Republic, those announced and those who can still arrive, are completely unaware of what awaits them in November 2022. When the time to go to the polls arrive, which country will they be governing? For even now, there is no way to predict what millions of voters will be thinking, for now only concerned with survival and the pandemic.
The President at the roulette
President Jair Bolsonaro, between the cross and the sword, has been pressured by those who defend the reopening of casinos, as a way to expand tax collection and stop the evasion of gamblers; and, on the other hand, urged by those who see gaming as an instrument of corruption and degradation.
Among these, the Minister of the Family, Damares Alves, who identifies the finger of the devil there has manifested herself. One cannot predict how Bolsonaro would act, if he had to decide; but knowing, beforehand, that he will have to face criticism and regrets, whichever way he intends to take.
Senator Ciro Nogueira, from Piauí, leads the group that proposes the regulation, animated by the expressive number of parliamentarians who are part of the governing base, in an open conflict with religious groups, notably evangelicals, these also large-scale Bolsonarists.
It is not only in the lap of the current president that the subject sleeps, is reborn and collapses again. This has been talked about since Gaspar Dutra, who locked the doors of the casinos, because he thought they contributed to the degradation of families.
In fact, convincing arguments are lacking on both sides. Some want that gambling can lead the poorest to misery, but just for that reason they do not convince, because casinos host the rich; so much so that they are going to play in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo, where only with a lot of money can one experience the vertigo of gain and the fever of loss, the same excitement of the Dostoievsk player.
Wage earners do not fly so high, and if, addicted, they are content with the meal in the jogo do bicho, a serious institution, which, contrary to the Constitution, is worth what it says, honored since it was invented in 1888 by the baron of Itabira do Mato .
To say that the country would collect more taxes is also doubtful, based on our high competence to evade during the day; let alone in the early hours of lights and roulette far from the inspection...
Another thing is that, strictly speaking, the Lotos, Loto Manias and Mega Senas, that employ thousands and promote draws daily, have already managed to cover Brazil with a vast green cloth; and that is not the reason why miseries continue to thrive. One feels, then, that we are experiencing the singular debate about the liberation of gaming in the country that plays the most in the world.
Wilson Cid
Journalist, writer and university professor, Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil
Jornal do Brasil
