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SÃO PAULO – For years, Jair Bolsonaro has been a singular spectacle in Brazilian political life: a strange former captain, a former army captain, who had become nostalgic for the dictatorship that he served and one member of which had been elected to parliament in almost three decades.
Now 63, he is about to win the Brazilian presidency, having garnered 46 percent of the vote in Sunday's first round in a crowded group, 17 percentage points ahead of schedule. second and his rival in October. Fernando Haddad, leftist 28 seconds.
The rise of the tussle on the right is the last shock in world politics, as voters turn away from the status quo. They started in 2016 with the vote on the Brexit in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. democracy strongly to the right.
The anger of voters in Latin America transcends the ideology of the party. In July, Mexican voters elected the left-wing nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, mainly for the same reasons as the right, Bolsonaro, did well in Brazil: they're tired of corruption and the rise of crime .
Political scientists believe that Bolsonaro's first-round victory is the "exit" of Brazil's growing right-wing movement. Since the end of the military regime in 1985, the word "conservative" is a dirty word, absent from the names of the 35 Brazilian political parties.
But a wave of allegations of corruption against the left-wing labor party, which led the country from 2003 to 2016, and the recent implosion of the socialist regime in neighboring Venezuela, emboldened the Brazilian right. The same goes for a growing number of evangelical Christians.
"Brazilians openly express their conservative views, on social media, at home, at their place of work … it's an extraordinary change that has occurred in a relatively short time," said Bruno Garschagen, one of the new conservative authors filling the shelves. and blogs.
The revolt in Brazil did not stop at the presidential palace. The conservative PSL party of Mr. Bolsonaro won 52 seats in the lower house of Congress, making it the second political party of Brazil's next government. Meanwhile, the traditional titans of Brazilian politics that have largely ruled the country since its return to democracy in 1985 have suffered a series of humiliating defeats.
Supporters near Mr. Bolsonaro's house in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
Photo:
pilar olivares / Reuters
While the left-wing labor party managed to stay in the running for president, it lost key seats all over the country and had not even managed to elect former president Dilma Rousseff as a senator. The other political player in Brazil, the centrist PSDB party, also suffered a crushing defeat. His presidential candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, won only 4.8% of the vote.
"We will seal our victory in the second round, even with the whole system against us," said Bolsonaro, writing
from his home, where he is recovering from being stabbed last month by a supporter of the opposition.
In the past five years, Brazil has experienced its deepest recession in its history, along with a corruption scandal involving all major political parties. This allowed Mr. Bolsonaro, who was not caught in a corruption scandal during his long political career, to present himself as the only option for change.
But Bolsonaro's rapid rise shocked pollsters, analysts, columnists and many Brazilian politicians. Less than two weeks ago, the Datafolha sounder had set Bolsonaro's support at only 28%.
Many analysts here have long claimed that Mr. Bolsonaro could never win the presidency, partly because of his derogatory remarks about homosexuals, women and minorities. But his anti-establishment position appealed to voters.
"It was always ridiculous to think that Brazil, the western democracy that has probably suffered most in recent years of recession, crime and scandal, was going to reverse this global trend and elect a membership figure," said Brian Winter, Vice President of Policy. Americas / Council of the Americas based in New York.
Many Brazilians who voted for Bolsonaro on Sunday said it was the only way to defeat Mr Haddad, chosen last month to replace former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, founder of the incarcerated People's Party. for corruption.
Fernando Haddad, who will face Mr. Bolsonaro in the second round on October 28, during an election event in São Paulo Sunday.
Photo:
Patricia Monteiro / Bloomberg News
Many Brazilians were so disgusted with the choice that today 40 million people have refused to choose a candidate, either by voting blank or by abstaining, some ignoring the rules of compulsory voting in force in the country.
Bolsonaro campaigned on the nostalgia for the 21-year-old military dictatorship, which ended with the return to democracy in 1985.
The former captain of the army promised to better equip the police, lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 years to 16 years and to relax the weapons laws to fight against the high rate of crime. Brazil has the highest number of annual murders in the world, about 175 murders a day. He also said that the police should shoot more often to kill, raising the concern of some voters.
"I'm afraid that Bolsonaro opens the door to censorship, intolerance, a reign of fear," said Thiago de Figueiredo, a 23-year-old student.
The victory of the first round of Mr. Bolsonaro was the culmination of profound changes in Brazilian society in recent decades, including the rise of evangelical Christianity. Mr. Bolsonaro is himself a fervent Christian baptized in the Jordan. His middle name in Portuguese is "Messiah".
Evangelicals, who now make up one-third of Brazilians, are expected to outnumber Catholics by 2035, according to pollster Datafolha. Bishop Edir Macedo, billionaire founder of one of Brazil's largest evangelical churches, also owner of the powerful TV Record network, approved Bolsonaro shortly before the vote.
Bolsonaro said Monday in a radio interview that he saw no reason to change or moderate his message. "I will not become the little" peace and love "Jair."
-Jeffrey T. Lewis and Paulo Trevisani contributed to this article.
Write to Samantha Pearson at [email protected] and Luciana Magalhaes at [email protected]
