Bolsonaro’s key positions

1 ENVIRONMENT Jair Bolsonaro backed away from threats to follow US President Donald Trump and pull Brazil out of the Paris accord to fight climate change, as long as Brazil retains sovereignty over indigenous lands and the rain forest. He has also reconsidered his initial vow to eliminate Brazil’s Environmental Ministry. But Bolsonaro is a powerful supporter of agribusiness and is likely to favour profits over preservation. He has called for a new, pro-business approach to exploiting Brazil’s natural resources, insisting that bureaucrats have harassed farmers for just trying to make a living by carving out patches of jungle. Bolsonaro has chafed at foreign pressure to safeguard the Amazon rain forest. Critics fear that he will open the already endangered region to economic interests.

2 ECONOMY Bolsonaro was once seen by many as a pro-state protectionist. He professes to have adopted a profound shift in favour of the free market. He has tapped University of Chicago-trained economist Paulo Guedes as his financial tsar. Knowing that Guedes would be steering the economy made investors more willing to take a chance on Bolsonaro. Guedes wants to privatise or shut down state companies, cut public spending, ease international trade and pass austerity reforms.

3 CRIME “A policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman,” Bolsonaro said last year. Brazil is unquestionably in the midst of a horrendous crime wave, fuelled in large part by gangland turf wars for commercial rights to sell drugs and other contraband. Homicides hit a record high of 63,880 last year. Bolsonaro’s solution is zero tolerance. He has called for police to use more lethal force and wants to relax gun laws so that citizens can defend themselves. In the past, he has defended the use of police torture on drug traffickers and kidnappers. Brazil has one of the deadliest police forces in the world.

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