By Tatiana Mouravieff-Apostol, Year 12
Voters in Brazil are set to elect a new president on Sunday 28th of October and the campaign trail has been quite dramatic: Jair Bolsonaro, the current front-runner, is recovering from an almost fatal stabbing, Brazil’s most popular politician is in prison and the country just came out of a massive corruption scandal called “Operation Car Wash” or “Lava Jato” in Portuguese where, amongst other things, former president Dilma Rousseff was impeached.
On Sunday, we will learn who was elected, between Jair Bolsonaro the far-right candidate leading the race and leftist rival Fernando Haddad. Let’s look at how both of them will be destructive to Brazil’s economy, social welfare, and other things.
Bolsonaro is called the “Trump of the Tropics” by Brazilian media. He is a 63-year-old populist (populism is an approach which emphasizes the role of “the people”, seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people) who won the first round of voting on October 7th (46% while Haddad had only 29%)
He has no interest in becoming Brazil’s next president: he would rather become the next commander-in-chief of “Latin America’s largest democracy”. Indeed, he is known to be a pro-dictatorship former military officer (when Brazil was a military dictatorship from the 60s to the 80s) and for insulting gays (he would rather his son die in a car accident than being gay, “I try to educate my child not to be gay”), women, making racist statements regarding slavery, being favorable to torture and in general inciting hate. In fact, Brazilians initiated the #EleNao or #NotHim movement against him stretching to North America and Europe.
However, Bolsonaro is seen as the more “market-friendly candidate” which makes his supporters rationalize his controversial comments. Voters are hopeful a Bolsonaro administration would tackle the country’s growing fiscal deficit and privatize key companies.
Fernando Haddad is the leftist candidate facing the Trump of the Tropics. He is 55 years old and is part of the Workers’ Party (PT), created by former President Lula who is now in jail for corruption and money-laundering. He was announced as Lula’s running mate but since he went to jail, Haddad has named Lula’s replacement. This suggests he is as corrupted as Lula.
Haddad has promised to reverse the austerity measures (high taxes) and boost spending to drag the country out of its worst ever recession.
As Antonio Jobim (he wrote “Girl from Ipanema”) used to say, “Brazil is not for beginners”: if Bolsonaro wins the elections, Brazilians can expect a wave of fear and hatred and if Haddad wins (which is unexpected), Brazil will be as corrupted as before.
