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Right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro is about to become Brazil's next president on Sunday.
Bolsonaro spent decades on the sidelines of Brazilian politics as a member of the Rio de Janeiro State Congress, but his popularity grew in 2018; He has been running the presidential race since he announced his candidacy for the tiny social-liberal party in July and did not reach the absolute majority he needed to hold the presidency in the first round of voting, October 7th. The polls before the Sunday-Off race now put him at least 15 points ahead of his only remaining opponent, the leftist Fernando Haddad.
An extremely polarizing figure, his candidacy inspired the two mass events, as well as the strong support given to the ballot box. Analysts say Bolsonaro has been vague about the details of his political platform, instead appealing to Brazil's "culture wars", making deeply conservative and often offensive statements on issues such as LGBTQ rights and human rights issues. religious freedoms. But among the boasters, Bolsonaro has made a number of concrete political promises that could transform his country. Here's what you need to know about the Bolsonaro promises that divide Brazilian voters.
Law and order
The hard line on security is Bolsonaro's most consistent speech to voters. Brazil is going through a period of extreme violence, due in part to the expansion and fragmentation of organized crime groups. A record number of 63,880 people were murdered in 2017 and in February the government made the unprecedented decision to send the army into a violent crime case in Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro attributes this increase to the growing importance accorded by human rights politicians, which he says have prevented security forces from pursuing gangs.
It plans to give the police more leeway to use lethal force in crime-fighting operations. "Nobody wants to let a policeman kill," he told TIME in August. "But I want to give him carte blanche not to die." In that same interview, he also expressed support for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw thousands of extrajudicial killings in the name of a war on drugs.
Another key security policy has been to ease gun controls. Brazil currently requires citizens to have technical skills and a clean criminal record to buy firearms. He also wants to protect civilians who kill in self-defense from being sent to prison.
LGBTQ rights
Brazil has expanded the rights of the LGBTQ community in recent years, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013 and the creation of public health programs for transgender people.
Lawyers say President Bolsonaro, who has already compared homosexuality to pedophilia, will reverse these advances, both by pushing for legislative changes and by canceling programs such as LGBTQ crisis centers at a time of widespread homophobic violence.
On October 11, Bolsonaro signed an agreement with an association of Catholic voters, promising to defend "the true meaning of marriage, as a union between men and women" and to "fight against the marriage". gender ideology ".
Women's rights
Bolsonaro is known for his misogynistic remarks, including telling a congressman in 2014: "I will not rape you because you are not worth it". Activists also worry about the seriousness with which he takes sexual violence since he has sponsored a 2013 bill for victims of rape of the public health system.
He made a series of statements defending the pay gap between men and women in Brazil – women earn on average 23% less than men. For example, in a 2016 TV interview, he said that if he was an employer, he would pay less women than men because they have to be away from work to have children.
Brazil already prohibits abortion, except in case of rape, fatal abnormality of the fetus or danger to the life of the mother. But the Supreme Court is currently considering allowing abortion elective until 12 weeks of pregnancy. Bolsonaro promised to Catholic voters that he would stop any change to the law.
Hundreds of thousands of women have protested against his candidacy under the banner "Ele não" ("Not him"), but recent polls show that 42% of women now have the intention to vote for him.
Race Relations and Minority Groups
Brazilians of African descent make up the majority of the Brazilian population. However, a 2016 study found that these companies accounted for only 6.3% of management positions in the country's 500 largest companies, and earned an average of 44% less than white Brazilians.
Bolsonaro is committed to reducing affirmative action programs in public universities to address these imbalances. "I would not ride a plane piloted by a quota beneficiary, nor would I be operated by a quota doctor," he said in July.
During the election campaign, he promised to remove the legal and cultural protections of minority communities in this extremely diverse country, including the designation of indigenous lands in the Amazon rainforest. "Minorities must comply with the majority," he said. "The minorities [should] either adapt or simply disappear. "
Activists also said that the security commitments of the candidate in terms of security would have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who constitute the bulk of the population in the neighborhoods where Bolsonaro plans to send armed police.
Environment
Bolsonaro's position on the environment has alarmed the international community at a time of great introspection on global climate goals.
Brazil is the guardian of the Amazon rainforest, a vital source of trees that filter carbon dioxide from the earth's atmosphere. Bolsonaro pledged to limit the powers of the Brazilian environmental agency, Ibama, to lift restrictions on agriculture over vast areas of the Amazon and to pave a highway in the rainforest.
Since the beginning of his campaign, he has also repeatedly threatened to follow the initiative of President Donald Trump and withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement on the climate. But some say US leaders will be able to prevent it from using trade as leverage.
