Books, not guns, say voters
ELECTION: NEW PRESIDENT MUST MAKE GOOD ON PROMISE TO ‘CHANGE COUNTRY’S DESTINY’
Rio de Janeiro – Brazilians opposed to far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed “Tropical Trump” by some, started a Twitter trend by casting their ballots on Sunday with books in hand – a jibe at his backers, who posted selfies of themselves voting with firearms.
Pointedly picking their titles – like 1984, How Democracies Die and How to Talk to a Fascist – opponents of the former army captain turned the hashtags #LivroSim and #ArmaNao (Books Yes, Guns No) into trending topics as Brazil voted in a divisive runoff election.
It was a tongue-in-cheek reply to Bolsonaro supporters, who posted images of themselves voting with their guns during the firstround election on October 7. Bolsonaro has promised to relax gun-control laws. –
We are prisoners of low growth, high taxes, high interest rates – economic guru.
Brazil entered a new era yesterday after electing its next president, Jair Bolsonaro, a farright congressman who vowed a fundamental change in direction for the giant Latin American country.
Bolsonaro, who openly admires Brazil’s former military dictatorship and shocked many with his derogatory remarks on women, gays and blacks, won 55% of the vote in a runoff election on Sunday – more than 10 points ahead of leftist opponent Fernando Haddad.
Having channelled voters’ anger with corruption, crime and economic malaise, he will now get down to work trying to deliver on the promise he made in his victory speech: “change Brazil’s destiny”.
Bolsonaro, 63, is due to fly to Brasilia today to start the transition process, which will culminate with his swearing-in on January 1.
His schedule includes meetings with deeply unpopular outgoing President Michel Temer, as well as the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the army chief of staff.
After a vitriolic campaign that left Brazil deeply polarised, the country is anxiously waiting to see what Bolsonaro’s presidency will actually look like.
One of his top advisors, economic guru Paulo Guedes, promised the changes would be sweeping indeed, at least as far as managing the world’s eighth-largest economy is concerned.
“We are going to change the social democratic economic model. It’s terrible. We are prisoners of low growth, high taxes, high interest rates,” said Guedes, a liberal economist trained at the University of Chicago, who will head an economy superministry under Bolsonaro.
“Brazil has spent 30 years letting its public expenditures balloon,” he told a post-election press conference.
“That model corrupted our politics, made taxes go up and caused our debt to snowball. We need pension reform and we are going to accelerate privatisations.”
The polls came on the heels of Brazil’s worst recession, a staggering multibillion-dollar corruption scandal and a year of record-setting violent crime.
Although many voters expressed strong dislike for Bolsonaro, even more rejected Haddad and his Workers’ Party which had won the past four presidential elections .
Bolsonaro faces a tall order uniting a divided country. –