Brazil's Liberal Party concedes defeat to Lula

Bolsonaro's party capitulates to Lula

Brazil's Liberal Party, the ticket on which Senator Flavio Bolsonaro ran, acknowledged this Monday the results of the presidential election that ended Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's bid for a comeback. It did so while the surname that gives meaning to its political brand unravels by the hour: the patriarch is in prison over the coup plot, and the senator son, according to reports, has reportedly left the country for the United States.

The formal surrender of the party comes with the Brazilian right split in two. Right-wing parties hold 334 of the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 55 of the 81 in the Senate, a bloc ranging from center-right to hard right. None of them asked their voters to back Lula. And several didn't back Bolsonaro either. Governing with that map isn't impossible; it's a daily balancing act.

From future president to future inmate in 24 hours

The former president's son is under investigation for alleged money laundering linked to betting operations. He had been ordered to surrender his passports —he holds several— and, according to published accounts, he is believed to be in Argentina, a country that can be reached from Brazil with just an ID card thanks to Mercosur. A plane on the tarmac was reportedly waiting to fly him to the United States. The picture has its irony: the man who promised an iron fist against organized crime ends up managing his own escape with travel-agency logistics.

The contrast with the governor of São Paulo is devastating. In the country's most populous state, the Lula-aligned candidate lost by six million votes; Bolsonaro, in the same territory, won by just two. There are millions of center-right Brazilians who vote for governors and senators they like and yet can't stomach the Bolsonaro family. That electorate exists and is orphaned of presentable candidates.

Spain's Partido Popular and the Brazilian mirror

The comparison with Spanish politics leaps out, though it should be handled with care. Brazil's Liberal Party is not the PP (Spain's conservative People's Party), just as a shark is not a sea bass. But the temptation to look in the mirror has its logic: a right that wins local and legislative elections and then falls at the last hurdle to executive power because of its inability to build a narrative that appeals beyond its core.

The lesson, if there is one, is textbook: parties that tie themselves to a surname end up tied to its legal record. The PL has recognized the result because it had no other institutional way out. The question is how long it takes to find a ticket without that surname. And if it does, whether anyone votes for it.

With these materials, the Brazilian right should rebuild itself far from the Bolsonaros. It should. But politics rewards emotional loyalty more than a track record, and there the surname still carries weight. We'll be waiting a while to see the new basket.