Brazil's prez cam-pain
Far-right pol on top after knifing
Until just last week, the frontrunner in today’s Brazilian presidential election conducted his campaign from the intensive-care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital.
Jair Bolsonaro, 63, spent three weeks recovering from surgery following a stabbing on the campaign trail by a man police described as a deranged leftist, who claimed God had ordered him to silence the far-right politician.
Many Brazilians might share would-be assassin Adelio Bispo de Oliveira’s point of view. Bolsonaro is a former army captain and member of congress who has advocated shooting his adversaries and says he supports torture. His opponents fear he may return Latin America’s biggest democracy to authoritarian rule. Brazil was run by military juntas between 1964 and 1985.
Bolsonaro also vehemently opposes abortion, equates homosexuality with pedophilia and once told a lawmaker she was “too ugly” to rape.
Millions of Brazilian women have created their own #MeToo movement against him. Last month, thousands of protesters rallied under #NotHim banners.
Others have compared him to a Nazi. A group of 150 intellectuals and entertainers led by prominent musicians Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, who were forced into exile in Europe during Brazil’s military regime, have collected hundreds of thousands of signatures on a manifesto calling the leader of the Social Liberal Party “a clear threat to our civilized heritage.”
But Brazilian politics in the last several years has been anything but civilized. At one point, another leading candidate was running his campaign from a jail cell after bribery conviction.
Still, the protests and national hand-wringing have done little to dim Bolsonaro’s rise in the polls, where he has a 32 percent approval rating, 4 points higher than his closest rival, Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad, the former mayor of Sao Paulo. If none of the 13 presidential candidates gains a majority in today’s poll, a runoff is scheduled for Oct. 28.
Bolsonaro’s mostly upperand middle-class supporters welcome the tough-talking politician who has promised to end the government corruption that has torn the country apart. A staunch Catholic, Bolsonaro also has the backing of millions of evangelical Christian voters who welcome his opposition to abortion.
Since 2014, Brazil has been beset by a succession of scandals that began with allegations that principals at the state-run oil company, Petrobras, accepted bribes from construction companies.
Former Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, leader of the left-wing Workers’ Party, was convicted of accepting a bribe of a $1 million oceanfront apartment for helping a construction company obtain Petrobras contracts. He was sentenced to 12 years and went to jail last April.
But it didn’t stop the two-term leader — in office from 2003 to 2011 — from conducting his presidential campaign from his cell until last month, when a court ruled his conviction prevented him from running. Haddad, Lula’s running mate, filled in as the party candidate.
A few days after the ruling, Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach as supporters held him aloft in a crowd at a campaign stop in Minas Gerais state.
For some, the attack turned Bolsonaro into a political martyr and bolstered his appeal in this country of more than 207 million.
“I just want to send a message to the thugs who tried to ruin the life of a family man, a guy who is the hope for millions of Brazilians,” said his son Flavio, who is running for a senate seat in Rio de Janeiro. “You just elected him president.”