Elections in Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro, right-wing nationalist, tops the poll as Brazilians go to the polls

RIO DE JANEIRO – Jair Bolsonaro has already called for the assassination of a sitting president. As a legislator, he has openly complained about the time of the military dictatorship. Isolated by his extreme views, he struggled for years to find political parties willing to let him in.

Sunday, while the Brazilians voted in the presidential election, the same former captain of the army, aged 63, was the favorite to lead the most populous country in Latin America. After winning a first round earlier this month – but without success – Bolsonaro led his left-wing opponent Fernando Haddad two weeks ago in opinion polls of 18 percentage points.

His progress has been steadily decreasing, especially after making inflammatory remarks last weekend in which he pledged to imprison or exile left-wing opponents. According to a poll released Saturday night, he is ahead of Haddad by 8% and 13% of voters are undecided.

If Bolsonaro won, he would be the last of a worldwide wave of right-wing nationalists to triumph at the polls, which would have brought unpredictable new leaders into a region that was still struggling to promote democracy after years of dictatorship.

[Who is Jair Bolsonaro, the man likely to be Brazil’s next president?]

"I voted for Bolsonaro because things can not go on as they are," said Alexandre Maciel, 44, head of an oncology center, after voting in Sao Paulo. "He's the only one with the courage to do something different."

The election comes as faith has collapsed in corrupt Brazil's corrupt political class, the economy has collapsed and gang-related killings have multiplied, leaving the nation unprotected and besieged. . Haddad, mayor of Sao Paulo (the largest city in Brazil), who has a mandate, has had trouble connecting with the electorate. He has served as a substitute for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former popular president, whose candidacy for reelection was overthrown when he was jailed this year for corruption.

The Brazilian presidential candidate of the Workers' Party, Fernando Haddad, is surrounded by supporters as he arrives to vote in a polling station Sunday in Sao Paulo. (Miguel Schincariol / AFP / Getty Images)

Yet Haddad, who is from the same labor party as Lula, seems to have at least some support among those fearing a Bolsonaro presidency.

"For the first time in 32 years of voting, a candidate has scared me. That's why I'll vote for Fernando Haddad, "tweeted Joaquim Barbosa, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Brazil and anti-corruption advocate, said on Twitter on Saturday.

Licensed until recently as an indelible arousal, Bolsonaro launched his campaign without a significant political ally, with a small party machine and a derisory budget. He overcame these challenges with the power of social media, becoming Brazil's first presidential candidate to bypass the country's powerful television networks. He spoke directly to voters through angry tweets and live videos on Facebook.

Its simplistic and hard-to-solve solutions to deep-rooted crime and corruption issues in Brazil have worked well online, and it has developed a movement that some analysts compare to that of President Trump in 2016. Millions of dedicated supporters have applauded the Bolsonaro who spoke well in public for articulating their anger. His opponents on the left, he cried, should be locked up. Police should use lethal force against criminals. The Chinese bought Brazil.

Even though Bolsonaro was dismissed from the campaign in September – after being stabbed in the abdomen during a rally – his popularity increased.

He once described a political woman as "too ugly to be raped" and suggested that having a dead son was better than a homosexual son. Last year, he suggested that some descendants of African slaves were fat and lazy.

[How Jair Bolsonaro entranced Brazil’s minorities — while also insulting them]

Bolsonaro has moved into the mainstream in recent months, celebrating Brazil's "diversity" in tweets and promising: "We are going to unite people".

But he convinced his followers that he will reverse the status quo. To reduce crime, he advocated the easing of gun laws so that civilians could fight fire with fire. To stimulate the economy, indigenous lands and the vast Amazonian region should be open to development, he said.

"In this election, it was obvious that someone who could build a credible story of difference would be good. Bolsonaro understood it well, "said Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo. "He was politically incorrect, a little weird. But it's a way for him to distinguish himself from others. "

Bolsonaro campaigned to address a specific set of internal problems – corruption, crime, the anemic economy. But some argue that the success of Bolsonaro would not have been possible until now if it was Trump's age.

Bolsonaro sometimes seemed to imitate the American leader, to whom he had lavished praise. He promised to make Brazil "big" and chose to make war on the media rather than "false information".

"He was trying to look like Trump," said Marcos Nobre, a political strategist based in Sao Paulo. "His message to the electorate was:" If the United States has elected an asset, Brazil too can do it. "

Bolsonaro grew up in a large German Italian family with five siblings in Eldorado, a town located in the rural area of ​​northern Sao Paulo. At a time when the army tortured, exiled and murdered other members of his generation to oppose his policy, Bolsonaro saw the army as a means of go out. At the age of 18, he was accepted into the military preparatory school and then to his Brazilian counterpart at the West Point US Military Academy.

Brazilian soldiers stand guard while awaiting the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro in a polling station in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. (Ricardo Moraes / Reuters)

In the military, Bolsonaro has developed a reputation for "excessive financial and economic ambition," according to the military archives of the time. In 1986, he was imprisoned for two weeks after publishing an editorial in the prominent national weekly Veja, in which he demanded higher salaries for officers.

"He wrote what we all thought about at the time," said retired General Paulo Chagas, who served in the army at the same time as Bolsonaro. "It was a difficult economic period for us military."

Bolsonaro left the army in 1988 to embark on politics. As a member of Congress, he scared his peers of his violent speech by claiming in 1999 the assassination of the then-elected president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

"Thanks to the vote, nothing will change in this country," said Bolsonaro at the time in a television interview. "Unfortunately, it will only change the day a civil war breaks out and does the job that the military regime did not do. Kill some 30,000 people, starting with [Cardoso]. Innocent people will die, okay. But in every war, innocent people die.

Although it has only increased in the past two months, the Bolsonaro phenomenon began to take off two years ago, observers said. Its popularity has grown in urban areas, where contributors have become voracious consumers of its missives on Twitter and WhatsApp. It has spread to pastoralists suffering from squatter invasions on rural farms. White men and wealthy voters, eager to turn the page after a decade of left-wing government, rallied to Bolsonaro's side.

His rise surprised many people.

Ten years ago, Bolsonaro "resembled a burlesque show, a clown," said Rubens Soares, a longtime journalist at Folha de Sao Paulo, one of Brazil's largest news agencies. "The reporters were walking past his desk while he shouted nonsense."

Yet, said Soares, he noted a fundamental change last year. The supporters at the Bolsonaro rallies loved in a way that he had never seen before in Brazil.

"They would carry it on the streets," said Soares. "You could say that something was happening."

As Bolsonaro escalated, his candidacy emboldened extremists who, according to human rights groups, have staged dozens of attacks in recent weeks against gay men, lesbians, feminists , leftists, journalists and others. If Bolsonaro wins, some fear more political violence. His own rhetoric is often very inflammatory.

"Let these red thugs off the map of Brazil," Bolsonaro said at a lively rally on Sao Paulo's main main artery earlier this month, citing his leftist opponents. "We are the majority! The real Brazil!

Long regarded as an economic protectionist, Bolsonaro turned around during the campaign embracing the free market. But he has always played with the nationalists, denigrating China for having "bought" Brazil. Twice divorced and now married to his third wife, he nonetheless proclaimed himself a supporter of family values ​​and his opposition to gay rights and the legalization of abortion helped defeat the evangelicals. , a powerful electoral base.

But corruption and the Workers Party were his main targets. Since the restoration of democracy here in 1985, two presidents have been indicted, one in prison and the Brazilian leader has been indicted for corruption, an accusation he denies. A third of the lower house's members are under investigation for corruption, largely related to a large system of bribes involving some of the country's largest corporations. The outsider-cleans-house platform of Bolsonaro seduced Brazilians.

During the campaign, supporters of Bolsonaro funded a mass smear campaign against his leftist opponent, Haddad, on WhatsApp, the popular messaging platform, according to a survey conducted by Folha de Sao Paulo. Bolsonaro called Folha's allegations "false news".

While some Brazilians began to consider Bolsonaro as their hero, others seemed to forget his laudatory statements in the search for a significant change.

"If there had been another worthy candidate, I would not have voted for him," said Jose Colares, 51, a dentist in São Paulo, about Bolsonaro after voting Sunday. for the far right candidate. "He said a lot of rubbish, but he is the least of the evils."

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