Bolsonaro and Haddad hold different visions for future
RIO DE JANEIRO: Right-winger Jair Bolsonaro and leftist candidate Fernando Haddad, who will contest a second-round runoff to become Brazil’s next president, hold diametrically opposed visions of Brazil’s future.
Here is a glance at their key policy differences:
Economy
BOLSONARO: Reduce public debt by 20% through a raft of privatisations and the sale of state properties, create a parallel private pension system, reduce the number of ministries and redistribute the “tax burden so that those who pay a lot pay less and those who evade and hide pay more”.
HADDAD: Unfreeze public spending and make labour legislation more flexible, reversing current government policy.
Security
BOLSONARO: Loosen gun laws, lower the age of criminal responsibility to 16, boost police legal protection when using guns and categorise invasions of property and homes as “terrorism.”
HADDAD: Wants to boost gun control measures and closer tracking of the movement of weapons and says that Brazil should explore “decriminalisation and regulation of the drugs trade”.
Corruption
BOLSONARO: “We want a decent, different government from all those that have plunged us into an ethical, moral and budgetary crisis.”
HADDAD: Backs greater transparency in the fight against corruption and says campaigning against corruption “cannot serve to criminalise politics.”
Diplomacy
BOLSONARO: “We are going to stop hailing murderous dictatorships” – said in reference to Venezuela – “and denigrating big democracies like the United States, Italy and Israel.” His programme makes no mention of four-nation South American trade bloc Mercosur, of which Brazil is a key member. Instead, it emphasises bilateral ties and pacts.
HADDAD: “Brazil must resume and deepen Latin American integration” and strengthen ties with Africa.
Deplores “the politics of intervention and the use of strength” to resolve international disputes.
Education
BOLSONARO: “School programmes and teaching methods need to change.
There needs to be more mathematics, more sciences and Portuguese. Without indoctrination or early sexualisation.”
HADDAD: “We will promote comprehensive health for women for the full exercise of sexual and reproductive rights and will strengthen an inclusive, non-sexist, non-racist and non-discriminatory view of the LGBT” community.
Abortion
BOLSONARO: His programme doesn’t mention it, but he has promised to veto any move to ease Brazil’s restrictive abortion laws.
In the country, terminating pregnancies is permitted only in cases of rape, where the mother’s health is in danger, or severe brain malformation in the fetus.
HADDAD: The PT programme makes no reference to abortion either. Haddad said in 2012 he was “personally against” the legalisation of abortion, but called for “establishing public policies that offer women the conditions to plan their lives”.