The rise of a strongman

Implications of Jair Bolsonaro's presidential win

Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, has a new leader after 63-year-old Jair Bolsonaro, belonging to the Social Liberal Party, inflicted a crushing defeat on his Leftist Workers Party (PT) opponent Fernando Haddad. Mr Bolsonaro received 55 per cent of the votes polled — an outcome that was unimaginable even a year ago — as Brazilian voters were seen to have rejected the “politics-as-usual” scenario and instead punished the PT, which had been in power since 2003, for having failed to deliver on its promises. The PT’s rule ended with two disgraced presidents — Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently behind bars on corruption charges, and Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached for fiddling with deficit numbers in the national budget. The centre-right outgoing president, Michel Temer, who took over from Ms Rouseff in 2016, and mostly rolled back the Lula-era policies, never really convinced the Brazilians as an alternative. Notwithstanding the stunning victory in an election, Mr Bolsonaro’s rise will have significant implications for Brazil and indeed for global politics.

That’s partly because of who Mr Bolsonaro is and what he believes in. A former captain in the army with a middling record as a congressman, Mr Bolsonaro is known more for espousing racist and bigoted views. He has been a leading and vocal opponent of several progressive causes such as same-sex marriage, abortion and immigration. He has repeatedly made offensive remarks about women — for instance, once telling a woman “he wouldn’t rape her because she did not deserve it” — and gays — “when a child starts feeling a little gay, slap him, it will change his behaviour” — and blacks — “they don’t do anything”. Indeed, in the past, he has been charged by the attorney general with hate speech. Much of this found reflection in the highly polarising, divisive and violent campaign that he ran. Most reports suggest that there has been a rise in crimes against gays and blacks in Brazil. Journalists, too, were targeted with more than 100 recorded cases of threats to them. For the most part, Mr Bolsonaro was seen encouraging such militant behaviour among his followers even as he promised to purge his political foes and opponents to “either leave the country or go to jail”.

There is another reason why Mr Bolsonaro’s rise could be worrisome. In essence, he ran a negative campaign, stressing more on what he is against and convincing the people to vote against the established political order and choose a radical alternative. But it is unclear whether he truly understands and appreciates the democratic principles. That’s because he has shown a great admiration for autocratic rule; he has been appreciative of the dictatorship in Brazil before democracy was established in 1985. He is also in favour of the death penalty, wants to encourage the police to kill criminals, and promotes gun ownership. Observers fear, and rightly, that he may push Brazil out of the democratic fold and back into a dictatorship. His views on issues of global concern are equally alarming. Like Donald Trump, he too wants to withdraw from the Paris climate deal and wants to merge the environment ministry into the agriculture ministry. On economic policy, he is likely to have a conservative agenda that slashes government debt and deregulates economic activities. The rise of a strongman in a major democracy needs to be watched closely.