Brazil’s 2018 Election: Quid pro quo will remain the name of the game

Brazil’s next president, to be elected in October, is set to have the least amount of popular support since the country became a democracy. And that could turn into the recipe for a troubled administration.

With Lula out of the race (barring some bizarre turn of events, that is), the amount of voters willing to either vote blank or to nullify their votes has raised from 19 to 39 percent, according to the latest survey from Datafolha, Brazil’s most prestigious polling institute. That’s more than one-third of the electorate. It means that without a landslide victory in the runoff stage (highly unlikely),...