Right turn in Brazil
Radical shift follows conservative gains seen in Latin America
Brazil becomes the latest country to drift toward the far right, electing a strident populist, Jair Bolsonaro, as the nation’s most radical president in 30 years.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil on Sunday became the latest country to drift toward the far right, electing a strident populist as president in the nation’s most radical political change since democracy was restored more than 30 years ago.
The new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has exalted the country’s military dictatorship, advocated torture and threatened to destroy, jail or drive into exile his political opponents.
He won by tapping into a deep well of resentment at the status quo in Brazil — a country whiplashed by rising crime and two years of political and economic turmoil — and by presenting himself as the alternative.
Bolsonaro, who will take the helm of Latin America’s biggest nation, is farther to the right than any president in the region, where voters have recently embraced more conservative leaders in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Colombia. He joins a number of far-right politicians who have risen to power around the world, including Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
“This is a really radical shift,” said Scott Mainwaring, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who specializes in Brazil. “I can’t think of a more extremist leader in the history of democratic elections in Latin America who has been elected.”
With 92 percent of votes counted, Bolsonaro was ahead with 55 percent, carving out a significant advantage over Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers’ Party, who had 44 percent.
Hundreds of supporters gathered outside Bolsonaro’s seaside home in Rio de Janeiro, jumping and hugging each other when the results were announced. As golden fireworks lit up the sky, they chanted “mito,” or legend, paying homage to their president-elect.
Reeling from the deepest recession in the country’s history, a corruption scandal that tarnished politicians across the ideological spectrum, and a record-high number of homicides last year, Brazilians picked a candidate who not only rejected the political establishment but at times also seemed to reject the most basic democratic tenets.
Bolsonaro’s victory caps a bitter contest that divided families, tore friendships apart and ignited concerns about the resilience of Brazil’s young democracy.
Many Brazilians see authoritarian tendencies in Bolsonaro, who plans to appoint military leaders to top posts and said he would not accept the result if he were to lose. He has threatened to stack the Supreme Court by increasing the number of judges to 21 from 11 and to deal with political foes by giving them the choice of extermination or exile.
Bolsonaro, 63, a former Army captain who has been a member of Congress for nearly three decades, beat a crowded field of presidential contenders, several of whom entered the race with bigger war chests, less baggage, and the backing of powerful political parties.
Part of the reason for his victory was the collapse of the left. Many cried foul after former President Luiz Inácio da Silva, the longtime front-runner in the race, was ruled ineligible to run after he was imprisoned in April to start serving a 12-year sentence for corruption and money laundering.
His Workers’ Party had won the last four presidential elections, and da Silva, a former metalworker, retained a devoted following among poor and working class Brazilians who felt represented by him personally and had benefited from his party’s social inclusion policies.
But many more Brazilians showed through their votes that they’d had enough of the Workers’ Party, which time in power ended in an economic morass.