Voters edge towards ‘last resort’
RIO DE JANEIRO: By the time Brazilians were done voting on Sunday, mighty power brokers had been tossed out of office, long-dominant political parties had been humbled, and a far-right populist suddenly looked as if he just might be the most powerful man in the country.
It was the most sweeping political shift Brazil had ever seen in a single election since democracy was restored in 1985.
“What we are watching today is the collapse of our current system,” said Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, a political scientist at the University of São Paulo.
The near-winner in the first round of voting in the presidential race was Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain. He offered few detailed policies. But his draconian approach towards fighting violence — he would make it easier to for the police to kill suspected criminals and imprison more people for longer — appealed to many in a nation traumatised by rising crime, a dispiriting economy, and a political class widely regarded as venal and unresponsive.
Mr Bolsonaro’s show of “discipline and strength” has attracted middle-class voters, said Thiago Aragão, a political consultant based in Brasília. “They treat Bolsonaro as a last resort, as someone who could contain the growth of violence in Brazil,” he said.
When they embraced him, sending him to the second round with 46% of the vote, Brazilians sent an unmistakable message: They want a drastic course correction. And if a measure of authoritarianism is required, so be it.
This is a shocking reversal for Brazil. When the country emerged from two decades of military rule in 1985, the population celebrated the end of a regime that had killed or disappeared 434 people and tortured thousands. This is a huge shift in a country where the military has largely stayed out of politics for 30 years.
Mr Bolsonaro’s promise to take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption has extraordinary appeal for some voters who have come to see their leaders as kleptocrats. But on Monday, some of the candidate’s supporters said fears that he could be despotic were overblown. And some suggested that law-abiding Brazilians need not worry.
Adriana Giotto, 77, a retired lawyer, said she had no traumatic memories of the military dictatorship.
“Those who are good citizens were not affected by the dictatorship in a negative way,” she said. “The dictatorship made mistakes and killed many people, but it was those who choose to live outside the rules of social harmony who set the stage for that to happen.”
Carolina Cremonez da Silva, 31, said that kind of mindset terrified her.
“Bolsonaro legitimises violence, authoritarianism” said da Silva, a psychologist. “He ends up getting many supporters because people are afraid. They are people who want that iron fist, that authoritarian regime, without understanding what that represents for society.”