Ana Ionova
Rio de Janeiro: Clad in a yellow-and-green shirt over a bulletproof vest, Flávio Bolsonaro danced on a carnival float as thousands of euphoric supporters cheered below. “Brazil already chose change!” he shouted, pumping his fist in the air.
Bolsonaro, a right-wing senator whose father was president not long ago, is heading into Sunday’s presidential race as the front-runner, having edged out leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a first-round election this month.
A victory for Bolsonaro would deliver the biggest win yet for an ascendant right-wing movement sweeping Latin America.
Right-wing leaders, propelled in part by voter discontent over security, have won seven straight elections in the region over the past 18 months. If Brazil elects Bolsonaro, it would put an enthusiastic ally of Washington in power in the region’s largest nation and leave Mexico as the only big country still in the hands of the left.
Bolsonaro, 45, has aligned himself with President Donald Trump on using lethal force to fight drug gangs and has offered Brazil’s vast critical mineral deposits as a way to reduce America’s reliance on China.
Trump has not formally backed Bolsonaro, but his administration has telegraphed its support in other ways, including by labelling Brazilian gangs as terror groups. The move shone a spotlight on crime, a concern for many Brazilian voters and a vulnerability for Lula.
A right-wing victory would also mark the Bolsonaro family’s stunning return to power, less than four years after the senator’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, tried to stage a coup and inspired his supporters to storm Brazil’s capital, in an episode echoing the attack on the US Capitol. He was convicted of plotting a coup and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Flávio Bolsonaro and his family may now be on the cusp of gaining sweeping new powers to rewrite Brazil’s history, reshape its future and target their perceived enemies. If elected, Bolsonaro has promised to seek amnesty for his father and the rioters, impeach the Supreme Court justices who jailed them and change Brazil’s Constitution.
Just months ago, Bolsonaro’s candidacy seemed like a long shot, with many sceptical that he could overcome a string of scandals and ignite the kind of enthusiasm that catapulted his father to office in 2018. And with the elder Bolsonaro jailed for trying to subvert democracy after losing the last election to Lula, his movement appeared to be in tatters.
Then the younger Bolsonaro shocked many when he nearly won outright in the first round of voting this month, drawing more ballots than Lula, though the margin was the narrowest ever in Brazil.
“Bolsonarismo is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of a large portion of the population,” said Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, a professor at University College Dublin who studies Brazil’s populist movements.
Bolsonaro’s success has largely been rooted in sweeping, if vague, promises to tackle crime, high grocery bills and a stagnating economy – issues at the top of the list of concerns for Brazilian voters.
Taking a page out of the playbook of right-wing allies in Latin America, Bolsonaro has vowed to “declare war” on drug traffickers by building more prisons, labelling gangs as terrorist groups and lowering the age of criminal responsibility.
While violent crime has fallen to a 14-year low, many working-class Brazilians live side by side with drug gangs that have expanded their control over neighbourhoods through fear and extortion.
“I will reclaim every metre, I will reclaim every street, every neighbourhood, every city, every territory that these scoundrels have taken from the Brazilian people,” Bolsonaro said during a debate days before Sunday’s run-off.
Inspired by the chainsaw used by Argentine President Javier Milei to symbolise a leaner state, Bolsonaro has adopted a pair of giant scissors as his symbol, vowing to cut about $US40 billion in public spending and privatise public companies. Speaking to a growing number of Brazilian workers who have migrated to the gig economy, he also pledged to lower taxes and decrease red tape for entrepreneurs.
Even as experts have questioned the economics of Bolsonaro’s promises, including how he can cut taxes without reducing welfare benefits, many voters have responded to his agenda with excitement.
Bolsonaro has also drawn overwhelming support in Brazil’s agricultural belt and in regions of the Amazon, where farmers and cattle ranchers have cheered his promises to make it easier to explore the riches of the rainforest.
Crucially, Bolsonaro has also tapped into a deep fatigue many voters feel toward Lula, painting him as a corrupt symbol of the political establishment.
Between 2003 and 2010, during his first two terms, Lula helped lift millions out of poverty through generous social programs financed by a commodities boom. When he left office, his approval ratings topped 80 per cent, but his legacy was later tainted when a sprawling corruption scandal landed him in prison.
In 2021, his convictions were tossed out by the Supreme Court amid evidence that the judge who convicted him was biased. This paved the way for Lula’s resurrection and return to the presidency in 2022, though he has struggled to clean up his image among voters who still link him to graft.
In Lula’s third term, Brazil’s economy has posted modest growth and largely escaped US tariffs, while unemployment has fallen to record lows. Still, rising household debt and eroding affordability have dampened his approval and fuelled Bolsonaro’s popularity.
Lula has also been saddled with the political fallout of a crisis engulfing Brazil’s Supreme Court. Against this backdrop, Bolsonaro’s attacks on the judiciary have grown more alluring to many Brazilians who have lost trust in institutions.
Lula scored points with many Brazilians by standing up to Trump last year when he tried to force the nation into dropping the coup charges against the elder Bolsonaro. Those efforts, the fruits of lobbying by a brother of Flávio Bolsonaro who lives in the United States, ultimately failed.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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