All played out Brazil’s Right plan for the long game
As Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro recovered in hospital from a bout of abdominal pain last night, the country he left behind was picking up the pieces.
Mr Bolsonaro, who has been suffering from health problems stemming from a knife attack that nearly claimed his life during his winning 2018 presidential campaign, was being treated in Orlando, where he fled before handing over power.
Meanwhile, his successor has quickly restored order in Brazil’s capital following Sunday’s attacks on government buildings by Mr Bolsonaro’s extremist supporters.
The riots probably end the campaign to reverse his election defeat of last October.
Activists have camped out next to army barracks since the autumn in an attempt to persuade the army to reverse a “fraudulent” poll.
Pro-bolsonaro lorry drivers had blocked roads in the weeks after the election and there were reports on Sunday of roadblocks in four Brazilian states and threats to surround oil refineries. But the extremists seem to lack leadership, not least because Mr Bolsonaro has been largely silent and, for the past week or so, has been in Florida. That is partly, it is said, out of fear of legal action since his immunity from prosecution ended once his rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, took office. Meanwhile, several of his former allies have moved to a much longer game. Rather than seek to reverse the election, they are using their strength in congress and in local government to build political capital and stifle the Left’s advance.
In the past 20 years Brazil has become more conservative, partly because of evangelical Protestantism – one in three Brazilians is now a member of an evangelical church.