tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/brazil-election-2018-53693/articlesBrazil election 2018 – The Conversation2019-04-18T10:44:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1156172019-04-18T10:44:41Z2019-04-18T10:44:41ZBolsonaro’s approval rating is worse than any past Brazilian president at the 100-day mark<p>Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was elected last year on a wave of popular anger at the country’s stagnant economy and political chaos, promising voters a “<a href="https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/politica/noticia/7144371/desanimado-com-politica-economist-aponta-quem-pode-ser-esperanca-melhor">better future</a>.”</p>
<p>After just over 100 days in office, many Brazilians <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/04/09/world/americas/ap-lt-brazil-bolsonaro-100-days.html">feel this right-wing former congressman has not delivered</a> on that promise. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s approval rating, which began dropping immediately after he took office on Jan. 1, has declined from <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/03/20/governo-bolsonaro-tem-aprovacao-de-34-e-reprovacao-de-24-diz-pesquisa-ibope.ghtml">49% in January to 34% in late March</a>, according to the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics. That’s the lowest ever recorded for a Brazilian president at the 100-day mark.</p>
<h2>Nepotism, hate speech and mismanagement</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s rise to <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">lead Latin America’s biggest country</a> after 13 years of leftist leadership was made possible by years of overlapping political, economic and crime crises that created widespread <a href="https://theconversation.com/disillusioned-brazilians-choose-bolsonaro-haddad-after-a-tense-and-violent-campaign-104224">disillusionment</a> across Brazil.</p>
<p>Capitalizing on voter frustrations, Bolsonaro, a longtime lower house representative, ran a polarizing outsider campaign not unlike the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-divided-country-gets-a-divisive-election/2016/01/09/591bfccc-b61f-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html">2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump</a>, now a close <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/us/politics/bolsonaro-trump.html">ally</a>. He demonized women and minorities, attacked democratic institutions and, according to a Brazilian court, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/world/americas/brazil-president-candidate-hate.html">incited hate and violence</a>. </p>
<p>Still, he won the presidency last October with <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">55% of the vote</a>, less than the more than 60% received by the leftist former president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/americas/30brazilcnd.html">Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva</a>, who won the 2002 and 2006 elections in a landslide. In Brazil, voting is compulsory.</p>
<p>Many Brazilians expressed hope that, once in office, Bolsonaro would set the demagogy and bigotry aside to focus on addressing the huge challenges facing Brazil. These include a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-did-brazil-go-from-rising-bric-to-sinking-ship-57029">long-stagnant economy</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">rampant government corruption</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/caught-between-police-and-gangs-rio-de-janeiro-residents-are-dying-in-the-line-of-fire-83016">record-setting urban violence</a>.</p>
<p>That hasn’t happened.</p>
<p>Hours after taking office, Bolsonaro issued an executive order that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-amazon-rainforest-protections">decreased environmental protections of the Amazon</a>, outraging environmentalists worldwide and endangering the indigenous Brazilians who live in the world’s biggest rainforest. </p>
<p>On a recent visit to the Holocaust Museum in Israel, Bolsonaro made headlines for claiming that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-brazil/brazils-president-calls-nazis-leftists-after-israel-holocaust-museum-visit-idUSKCN1RF1QD">Germany’s Nazi Party was a leftist regime</a>. His foreign affairs minister only made things worse when he defended his boss’s comments by explaining that both Nazis and socialists are “<a href="https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/ernesto-araujo-volta-defender-que-nazismo-foi-um-fenomeno-de-esquerda-23562729">anti-capitalist, anti-religion, collectivist [and] against individual freedom</a>.”</p>
<h2>Picking unnecessary fights</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro has demonstrated a lack of mastery of the legislative process, despite having been a lawmaker for nearly three decades.</p>
<p>Reforming Brazil’s expensive, ailing pension system was one of Bolsonaro’s main <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/bolsonaros-economic-guru-urges-quick-brazil-pension-reform-idUSKCN1N41EB">electoral promises</a> to boost the economy. But his mismanagement of negotiations around a bill to save Brazil <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-pensions-factbox/factbox-pension-reform-brazils-uphill-battle-to-save-1-trillion-reais-idUSKCN1RH1VY">$US270 billion over the next 10 years</a> by raising the retirement age and increasing individual contributions has frustrated the fragile, cross-party coalition of lawmakers working to pass his plan.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has <a href="http://www.brazilmonitor.com/index.php/2019/03/23/bolsonaro-and-maia-hangs-a-duel-with-statements-about-pension-reform-voting/">picked fights</a> with supporters of the bill, including the speaker of the lower house. And he has failed to explain <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-signals-weaker-pension-reform-concern-over-boeing-deal-idUKKCN1OY0UN">critical aspects of the proposed reform</a>. </p>
<p>Pension reform, which requires three-fifths congressional support to pass, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-pensions/update-1-brazil-aims-to-pass-pension-reform-by-mid-year-source-idUSL1N1ZN1Y1">now seems unlikely to happen</a> before the June deadline Bolsonaro set – if it happens at all. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269847/original/file-20190417-139104-fvhkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pension reform also eluded Bolsonaro’s predecessor, former President Michel Temer, who was indicted on charges of money laundering in March.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Corruption-Probe/dfc5bdb74a994cb098c5fe9ca571e9e2/4/0">AP Photo/Leo Correa</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bolsonaro’s controversial cabinet</h2>
<p>Concerns over corruption have likewise clouded Bolsonaro’s first 100 days.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has failed to take seriously repeated corruption allegations against <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/americas/brazil-women-candidates-money.html">numerous aides</a>. That’s risky in Brazil, where a multi-year judicial investigation still underway has sent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/21/brazils-former-president-michel-temer-arrested-in-corruption-investigation">two presidents</a>, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/brazils-corruption-fallout">several lawmakers</a> and dozens of corporate executives to jail for bribery.</p>
<p>And Bolsonaro recently raised eyebrows by suggesting that he’d like to appoint his son Carlos, a far-right Rio de Janiero city councilman who manages the president’s Twitter feed, <a href="https://jovempan.uol.com.br/programas/os-pingos-nos-is/merecia-um-cargo-de-ministro-ele-me-colocou-aqui-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-filho-carlos.html">to join his cabinet</a>. All three of the president’s sons play an unusually active role in their father’s government.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s frequent positive references to military dictatorship as a form of governance also has critics worried.</p>
<p>Protests erupted in early April after Bolsonaro <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190401-bolsonaro-coup-anniversary-brazil-protest-dictator">called on Brazilians</a> to honor the anniversary of the <a href="http://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-623">1964 coup</a> that ushered in military rule in Brazil. Brazil’s 24-year military dictatorship claimed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/10/brazil-president-weeps-report-military-dictatorship-abuses">191 lives</a>, “disappeared” 210 dissidents and tortured several thousand people, according to a <a href="https://libya360.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/brazilian-commission-report-details-murder-and-torture-by-us-backed-dictatorship/">2014 government report</a>. </p>
<p>“Liberty and democracy only exist when the armed forces want them to,” Bolsonaro has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-says-democracy-liberty-depend-on-military-idUSKCN1QO2AT">since commented</a>.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro served in Brazil’s armed forces. His vice president, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuf1N5bY1Hs">Hamilton Mourão</a>, is a retired general. And eight out of the 22 ministers in Bolsonaro’s cabinet are military officers. </p>
<p>That’s a higher proportion of military men in government than any prior democratic administration in Brazil – higher even than <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-supera-geisel-medici-e-figueiredo-em-ministros-militares/">some of its authoritarian regimes</a>.</p>
<p>Some of Bolsonaro’s civilian cabinet ministers are equally controversial. </p>
<p>Damares Alves, the evangelical pastor picked to lead Brazil’s Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, has made it her mission to promote “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/06/outcry-over-bolsonaros-plan-to-put-conservative-in-charge-of-new-family-and-women-ministry">family values</a>,” which entails promoting traditional values and combating abortion as well as gender equality.</p>
<p>“It’s a new era in Brazil: Boys wear blue and girls wear pink!” she <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6myjru-e81U">announced</a> on her first day in office.</p>
<p>Historically, the human rights ministry has worked to improve the lives of minorities in Brazil and ensure their legal protection.</p>
<p>And Bolsonaro’s first minister of education, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez – <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/bolsonaro-fires-brazils-controversial-education-minister/a-48257072">who has since been fired for mismanagement</a> – outraged teachers when he ordered all public schools to submit to the ministry a video of schoolchildren singing the national anthem on the first day of the new school year.</p>
<p>Brazil’s literacy rate is among the lowest in Latin America, <a href="http://datatopics.worldbank.org/education/country/brazil">at 92%</a>. And its school dropout rate is among the region’s highest: <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.SEC.CMPT.LO.ZS?locations=BR">28% of students never graduate</a>.</p>
<p>His demand may also have been illegal, since Brazilian law prohibits the recording of minors without parental consent.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro was elected to snap Brazil out of a deep slump. After three months in office, the “better future” he promised looks a lot like the crisis that came before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helder do Vale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bolsonaro was elected to bring Brazil a ‘better future.’ Instead, his first months in office have been marked by mismanagement, legislative gridlock and protest.Helder do Vale, Associate Professor, Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1145702019-04-07T14:58:32Z2019-04-07T14:58:32ZThe new Brazilian government is devoid of ideas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267592/original/file-20190404-123437-1vvrem3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro walks past the Granaderos presidential guard during a recent welcoming ceremony in Santiago, Chile.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Esteban Felix)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Brazil, Latin America’s largest country, had some good years between 2003 and 2013. In 2010, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-economy/brazil-economy-surges-in-2010-growth-seen-cooling-idUSTRE7222QZ20110303">Brazilian GDP increased 7.5 per cent</a>, almost two times more than the world average of 4.3 per cent and three times North America’s index of 2.6 per cent.</p>
<p>Western media during that period often referred to Brazil as a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazil-the-worlds-next-economic-superpower-09-12-2010/">rising star</a>. </p>
<p>However, for many reasons, the rise was brief. </p>
<p>Since 2013, the country has faced many uncommon situations, including the tightest, most polarized election in the nation’s history in 2014, two major GDP retreats (-3.7 per cent in 2015 and -3.6 per cent in 2016), the impeachment of former president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/31/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-brazil-what-you-need-to-know">Dilma Rousseff</a> in August 2016 and the controversial arrest of its most popular political leader, former president <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/05/americas/brazil-lula-ruling-corruption-election-intl/index.html">Lula da Silva</a>, in April 2017, followed by corruption and money laundering convictions.</p>
<p>In this chaotic scenario, many Brazilians saw the 2018 general elections as an opportunity to return to normal and bid a final farewell to political crisis. Jair Bolsonaro, a former Army captain elected six times as a congressman, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/oct/28/brazil-election-2018-second-round-of-voting-closes-as-bolsonaro-eyes-the-presidency-live">won the election with 55 per cent of the popular vote</a>, defeating the leftist Workers Party candidate. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro is well-known, especially because of his <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/29/brazil-election-jair-bolsonaros-most-controversial-quotes.html">innumerable controversies and explosive comments</a>, including his infamous statement that “the mistake of Brazilian army dictatorship was not to have killed 30,000 people, starting with the president.” He says he’s in favour of torture and ordered celebrations for <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190401-bolsonaro-coup-anniversary-brazil-protest-dictator">the 55th aniversary of a military coup</a> that left more than 400 dead, resulted in thousands of people being tortured and lead to the shuttering of parliament from 1964 to 1985. </p>
<p>Women and LGBTQ people are among his primary targets. He said in 2011 that would be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/world/americas/conservatives-star-rises-in-brazil-as-polarizing-views-tap-into-discontent.html">unable to love a gay son</a> and would prefer a homosexual son die in an accident. To a rival congresswoman, Bolsonaro said in 2014: <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/12/11/jair-bolsonaro-rape_n_6310460.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY25iYy5jb20vMjAxOC8xMC8yOS9icmF6aWwtZWxlY3Rpb24tamFpci1ib2xzb25hcm9zLW1vc3QtY29udHJvdmVyc2lhbC1xdW90ZXMuaHRtbA&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALf2PepBwopf5bdqLXQInh2lw0-tPZ1K7deThfv5dCFnLWFmWQ0a7FlFHuGIl1CyfIC7qTgMzyatnEhGYhg2TRALcE24Q8FZFiIGgIvRruouF7mmMh04_VVMbf7vHvYQygnTv5dp5LBKWR279zLbN3Ke6MT73sOQfFc3_92Xmvon">“I would never rape you because you’re not worthy of it.”</a> </p>
<h2>How did he win?</h2>
<p>So how was someone like Bolosnaro able to win the election in a country like Brazil? Several factors explain his victory.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267619/original/file-20190404-123434-gnmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bolsonaro is seen in a recent photo at the presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)</span></span>
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<p>In the election campaign, the left was divided into two candidates in the first round. Additionally, the Workers Party — once helmed by former presidents Rousseff and da Silva — was immersed in several corruption scandals, especially related to briberies involving the Brazilian state oil company. Polls showed almost 50 per cent of the Brazilian electorate had rejected the left as the election neared.</p>
<p>Less than a month before the first-round poll, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45441447">Bolsonaro was stabbed</a> at a public rally as he walked among hundreds of supporters. His life in danger, he underwent emergency surgery and remained in the hospital for some weeks. </p>
<p>Brazilian police arrested the alleged attacker, a former leftist party member. Now the victim of an attack, the incident worked in Bolsonaro’s favour. In the final October poll, Bolsonaro was elected the 38th Brazilian president, winning more than 55 per cent of the vote.</p>
<h2>More controversy, lack of preparedness</h2>
<p>In the months since, however, many Brazilians who voted for him in the hopes of leaving political crises behind them are disappointed. His government has <a href="https://en.mercopress.com/2019/03/21/bolsonaro-s-aura-and-approval-ratings-rapidly-fading">only a 34 per cent</a> approval rate. A spate of social media controversies involving not only the president but his three sons, all politicians and equally polemic, helps to explain. </p>
<p>During the recent Brazilian Carnival, when thousands of tourists come to the country, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/06/bolsonaro-carnival-pornographic-tweet-ridiculed">Bolsonaro tweeted out a sexually explicit video of two men on the street during a Carnival parade</a>. </p>
<p>“I don’t feel comfortable showing it, but we have to expose the truth to the population (…). This is what many street carnival groups have become in Brazil,” the president wrote to his 3.4 million followers. </p>
<p>He was mocked by progressive Brazilians.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s perceived lack of initiatives is also bothering many Brazilians. <a href="https://www.apnews.com/0fb07d84d14c4d948f7028907c60f23f">On education, in particular, policy has been seemingly ignored</a> in place of Bolsonaro speeches “in defence of the traditional family” and against “Marxist indoctrination,” “Communism” and other imaginary enemies. </p>
<p>An official document entitled “message to congress” was recently sent to Brazil’s parliament; just 10 of its 285 pages pertained to education, and <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/bolsonaro-overlooks-ict-in-message-to-congress">contained the same vague ideas from Bolsonaro’s campaign platform</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Where are the goals?’</h2>
<p>At a recent education commission hearing, 25-year-old congresswoman Tabata Amaral directly asked the education minister: “Where are the projects? Where are the goals? What are the expected results?” She concluded that after three months, the document showed by the minister to the commission was not a strategic plan, but a simple “wish list.” The video of the exchange <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ViHSJaosW0">went viral</a> on social media in Brazil.</p>
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<p>In a style similar to Bolsonaro’s, Education Minister Ricardo Velez Rodriguez has become notorious for unfortunate statements. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/brazil-education-overhaul-aims-ousting-marxist-ideology-60877090">In an interview with the country’s biggest magazine</a>, he said: “The travelling Brazilian is a cannibal. Steals things from hotels, steals plane’s lifeguard seats; he thinks he leaves the house and can take everything.” The outcry was even louder since Rodriguez is not a native Brazilian; he was born in Colombia.</p>
<p><a href="https://brazilian.report/power/2019/03/28/brazil-disastrous-ministry-education/">It’s not just education</a> that the government is allegedly neglecting. There has been scant policy on health or social welfare either. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, just a few months after Bolsonaro’s election, many Brazilians are waking up to the reality that if they’d hoped to escape political corruption, they have chosen a seemingly ill-prepared president. </p>
<p>The most accurate definition of Bolsonaro’s term so far was arguably made by a mayor and former presidential ally: “The government is a <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/03/30/jair-bolsonaro-brazils-apprentice-president">desert of ideas</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lenin Cavalcanti Guerra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The popularity of Brazil’s new president has decreased significantly in just a few months. Why? Too much controversy and too few ideas.Lenin Cavalcanti Guerra, Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1063032018-12-21T11:42:08Z2018-12-21T11:42:08ZRightist Bolsonaro takes office in Brazil, promising populist change to angry voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252203/original/file-20190101-32154-pfr6ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro after his swearing-in on Jan. 1, 2019, in the capital of Brasilia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Brazil-Bolsonaro-Inauguration/b15f0589afdb4810a6a96725a02c7747/1/0">AP Photo/Andre Penner</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Brazil’s new president Jair Bolsonaro, who took power on Jan. 1, is often called the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45746013">Trump of the Tropics</a>” for his law-and-order rhetoric, racist and sexist remarks, pro-business stances and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">outsider pledges to upend politics as usual</a>. </p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was among the right-wing world leaders who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-heading-to-brazil-for-inauguration-of-far-right-president/2018/12/28/bba3388e-0abc-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html?utm_term=.5ce68202a907">attended his inauguration</a> in Brasilia, along with Israeli Prime Minister <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-lands-in-brasilia-for-bolsonaro-inauguration-pompeo-meeting/">Benjamin Netanyahu</a> and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro used a Trump-style populist playbook to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election.html">win the Brazilian presidency in October with 54 percent of the vote</a>. Spreading angry anti-establishment messages, he persuaded enough disaffected working-class voters to create a victorious if unusual electoral coalition of the working class and the very rich.</p>
<p>Unlike in the United States, however, where Trump targeted rural Americans left behind by economic progress, Bolsonaro’s working-class supporters mostly come from <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/eleicao-em-numeros/noticia/2018/10/07/bolsonaro-vence-em-17-estados-e-haddad-em-9-nas-capitais-placar-e-23-a-3.ghtml">Brazilian cities</a> – particularly the poor urban outskirts. </p>
<p>These areas, the focus of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WyJjrxQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">my sociology research on cities and democracy</a>, have been hit hard by the severe crime wave and recession gripping Brazil since 2015, leaving a pool of precarious, disaffected voters ripe for Bolsonaro’s calls for radical change.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s ‘new middle class’</h2>
<p>Paradoxically, many of the working-class Brazilians who voted for Bolsonaro against his progressive opponent, Fernando Haddad, had seen their quality of life improve dramatically under Haddad’s center-left Workers Party.</p>
<p>The biggest gains occurred under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010. Some 30 million poor Brazilians – 15 percent of the population – were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/05/brazilians-still-hold-great-affection-for-lula-despite-corruption-conviction">lifted out of poverty</a> during his two terms. </p>
<p>As incomes rose, working-class Brazilians began attending college, flying in airplanes and buying cars – <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sea2.12104">luxuries previously reserved for the rich</a>.</p>
<p>Ambitious <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-end-of-slum-upgrading-in-brazil-67208">slum-upgrading programs</a> added sanitation systems, public transportation and electricity to long-overlooked urban shantytowns. Affordable housing subsidies put more working Brazilians in safe, stable homes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251788/original/file-20181220-103634-1e8nlh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rocinha, a large favela in Rio de Janeiro overlooking the wealthy São Conrado neighborhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/anijdam/2361799355">AHLN/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brazil was celebrated worldwide as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-did-brazil-go-from-rising-bric-to-sinking-ship-57029">South American star</a>.</p>
<p>Lula’s anti-poverty achievements earned his Workers Party the <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/laura-carvalho/2018/11/a-escolha-de-antonio.shtml?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newscolunista">fierce loyalty of poorer Brazilians</a>. They voted overwhelmingly for his re-election in 2006 and supported his hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, in Brazil’s 2010 and 2014 presidential elections.</p>
<p>But in 2018, Bolsonaro won many working-class urban neighborhoods expected to go to his Workers Party opponent, Fernando Haddad. </p>
<p>In São Paulo’s urban periphery, for example, Bolsonaro won 17 of the 23 electoral zones that <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2018/12/13/revolt-of-the-peripheries-in-brazil-why-low-income-voters-in-wealthy-regions-swung-from-the-pt-to-bolsonaro/">voted overwhelmingly for Rousseff in the 2010 election</a>. </p>
<p>How did a far-right candidate attract left-wing voters? </p>
<h2>Brazil’s crime wave</h2>
<p>New <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/brazil-election-bolsonaro-evangelicals-security">research</a> from Brazil suggests that support for Bolsonaro among poorer Brazilians was driven in large part by <a href="https://theconversation.com/death-toll-mounts-in-rio-de-janeiro-as-police-lose-control-of-the-city-and-of-themselves-80862">high urban crime</a>. </p>
<p>Brazil has had one of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-fix-latin-americas-homicide-problem-79731">the world’s worst homicide rates</a> for <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/insight-crime-2014-homicide-round-up/">over a decade</a>. On average, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/americas/brazil-murder-rate-record.html">175 Brazilians are murdered every day</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-biggest-problem-isnt-corruption-its-murder-78014">Poor urban neighborhoods</a> are hot spots in this national crime wave. Turf wars between rival gangs and police shootouts <a href="https://theconversation.com/venezuelan-refugees-inflame-brazils-already-simmering-migrant-crisis-89008">terrorize Brazilians daily in the slum settlements and shantytowns</a> that surround even Brazil’s richest cities.</p>
<p>Even in São Paulo, where homicides have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1517758017300796">actually decreased since 1999</a>, frequent armed robberies, particularly <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2018/05/31/490699.htm">car jackings</a>, have residents feeling perpetually unsafe. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s crime-fighting plan is vague but forceful. It includes easing gun restrictions, instructing police to “shoot to kill,” battling <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/can-anyone-stop-pcc">gangs</a> and using the military as law enforcement. </p>
<p>Experts say this hard-line approach is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/how-jair-bolsonaro-entranced-brazils-minorities--while-also-insulting-them/2018/10/23/a44485a4-d3b6-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html?utm_term=.de5fedfd244a">unlikely to reduce violence</a>. </p>
<p>Brazilian law enforcement is already extremely aggressive, killing <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2018/03/08/in-some-countries-killer-cops-are-celebrated">more often than any other police force worldwide</a>. And sending soldiers in to “pacify” Rio de Janeiro’s favelas has actually <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-tanks-grenades-and-guns-police-wage-war-on-rio-de-janeiros-poorest-73182">increased shootings</a>.</p>
<p>Even so, many Brazilians believe this law-and-order message coming from a former army captain like Bolsonaro.</p>
<h2>Recession, crisis and a backlash</h2>
<p>Economic troubles have also left Brazilian workers feeling endangered.</p>
<p>In 2015, Brazil entered a severe recession. Gross domestic product – which since 2004 had averaged around 3 percent growth every year – shrank by 3.5 percent in both <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazils-gdp-expanded-1-0-in-2017-after-two-years-of-contraction-1519908523">2015 and 2016</a>. </p>
<p>Unemployment doubled, to over 12 percent. <a href="https://economia.uol.com.br/empregos-e-carreiras/noticias/redacao/2018/08/16/desemprego-ibge.htm">One in 4</a> working-age Brazilians suddenly became “underemployed.”</p>
<p>The recession, coupled with a nationwide corruption scandal that had implicated many high-ranking government officials, <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">including Lula</a>, created a sense of political chaos. Brazil’s crisis only deepened after the 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. </p>
<p>Rousseff’s successor – her vice president, Michel Temer – pushed through an <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-proposed-policies-will-hurt-womens-equality-and-be-bad-for-men-too-68214">austerity budget</a> that gutted the social programs helping poor and working-class Brazilians. </p>
<p>By January 2018, when the Brazilian presidential race began, it was clear that Brazil’s lauded “new middle class” had been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-brazils-post-olympics-hangover-will-hit-so-hard-61488">hit hardest by the crisis</a>.</p>
<h2>Bolsonaro’s big promises</h2>
<p>President Bolsonaro, who wants to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-30/brazil-s-super-minister-shoulders-weight-of-bolsonaro-economy">reduce the government’s role in the Brazilian economy</a>, has few economic promises for the poor – especially compared to the Workers Party’s phenomenal track record of redistributing wealth.</p>
<p>His campaign made up for it with raw anger. </p>
<p>As a candidate, Bolsonaro pushed a narrative that Brazil’s recession was caused by corruption in the Workers Party, and he promised to clean up politics. He said <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20181028-profile-jair-bolsonaro-brazil-presidential-election-dictatorship-democracy">criminals should die</a>, lauded military dictatorships and proposed jailing leftists. He used racist, sexist and homophobic remarks to blame minorities and political correctness for Brazil’s decline.</p>
<p>Nearly 58 million voters – both <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/26/its-not-just-the-right-thats-voting-for-bolsonaro-its-everyone-far-right-brazil-corruption-center-left-anger-pt-black-gay-racism-homophobia/">rich and not-so-rich</a>, <a href="https://www.theroot.com/its-complicated-why-some-afro-brazilians-are-willing-t-1829976462">black</a> and white, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-27/gays-for-bolsonaro-why-many-will-overlook-his-homophobic-rants">homosexual</a> and heterosexual – thought this bombastic authoritarian strongman might be just the man to get Brazil back on its feet.</p>
<h2>Can Bolsonaro help the working class?</h2>
<p>Now they’ll find out whether they bet right.</p>
<p>Some political analysts reckon Bolsonaro’s policy agenda will actually <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-faces-two-very-different-economic-models-in-bolsonaro-and-haddad-98573">hurt</a> Brazil’s working classes.</p>
<p>A plan to auction off Brazil’s state electricity and oil companies to the highest bidder, for example, may give the economy a short-term boost, but <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-10-11/brazils-push-toward-privatization-worries-economists">economists warn</a> that privatization won’t make these important sectors more efficient or innovative.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s promise <a href="https://www.nexojornal.com.br/ensaio/2018/O-Minist%C3%A9rio-das-Cidades-tem-problemas.-Mas-n%C3%A3o-pode-acabar">to shutter the Ministry of Cities</a>, which oversaw Brazil’s federal slum-upgrading investments under Presidents Lula and Rousseff, will hobble poorer cities. Programs for housing, sanitation and transportation are all under threat.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean urban working class voters will abandon President Bolsonaro. </p>
<p>After all, Trump’s approval ratings among America’s white working-class base have been relatively durable despite a 2017 tax reform that <a href="https://theconversation.com/tax-reform-for-the-rich-trumps-plan-abandons-his-working-class-supporters-84871">primarily benefited the rich</a> and tariffs that hurt key sectors of the American economy. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president using the tried-and-true playbook of authoritarians worldwide. The resentments he stoked among poorer voters may continue to flourish even if their economic prospects do not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin H. Bradlow has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, and the Brazilian Studies Association.</span></em></p>Brazil’s new president – often called the ‘Trump of the tropics’ for his inflammatory, right-wing rhetoric – won over poorer voters by stoking fear and resentment. Can he make them happy?Benjamin H. Bradlow, PhD candidate, Department of Sociology, Brown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064762018-12-05T11:40:57Z2018-12-05T11:40:57ZWhatsApp skewed Brazilian election, showing social media’s danger to democracy<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/18/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-whatsapp-fake-news-campaign">Misinformation via social media</a> played a troubling role in <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/12/fraude-com-cpf-viabilizou-disparo-de-mensagens-de-whatsapp-na-eleicao.shtml">boosting far-right Congressman Jair Bolsonaro</a> to into the Brazilian presidency. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro did not <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">win 55 percent of votes</a> thanks to misinformation alone. A powerful desire for political change in Brazil after a yearslong corruption scandal and a court decision compelling the jailed front-runner <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">Luis Inacio Lula da Silva</a> to withdraw from the race both opened the door wide for his win. </p>
<p>But Bolsonaro’s candidacy benefited from a powerful and coordinated disinformation campaign intended to discredit his rivals, according to <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/10/empresarios-bancam-campanha-contra-o-pt-pelo-whatsapp.shtml">the Brazilian newspaper Folha</a>. </p>
<p>Days before the Oct. 28 runoff between Bolsonaro and his leftist competitor, leftist Fernando Haddad, an investigation by Folha revealed that a conservative Brazilian business lobby had bankrolled the multimillion-dollar smear campaign – activities that may have constituted an illegal campaign contribution. </p>
<h2>Election scandal fallout</h2>
<p>Using WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned messaging service, Bolsonaro supporters delivered an onslaught of daily misinformation straight to millions of Brazilians’ phones. </p>
<p>They included doctored photos portraying senior Workers Party members celebrating with Communist <a href="https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/lupa/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Relat%C3%B3rio-WhatsApp-1-turno-Lupa-2F-USP-2F-UFMG.pdf">Fidel Castro</a> after the Cuban Revolution, audio clips manipulated to misrepresent Haddad’s policies and fake “fact-checks” discrediting authentic news stories.</p>
<p>The misinformation strategy was effective because WhatsApp is an essential communication tool in Brazil, used by <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2018/brazil-2018/">120 million of its 210 million citizens</a>. Since WhatsApp text messages are forwarded and reforwarded by friends and family, the information seems more credible. </p>
<p>The fallout from Folha’s front-page report compelled WhatsApp to issue an apologetic <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/opiniao/2018/10/como-o-whatsapp-combate-a-desinformacao-no-brasil.shtml">op-ed</a>.</p>
<p>“Every day, millions of Brazilians trust WhatsApp with their most private conversations,” wrote WhatsApp’s vice president, Chris Daniels, in Folha. “Because both good and bad information can go viral on WhatsApp, we have a responsibility to amplify the good and mitigate the harm.” </p>
<p>The company announced that it would <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/how-whatsapp-is-fighting-misinformation-in-brazil/">purge</a> thousands of spam accounts in Brazil, clearly label messages to show that they had been forwarded, tighten rules on group messaging and partner with Brazilian fact-checking organizations to identify false news.</p>
<p>Brazil’s highest electoral court also created an <a href="http://www.tse.jus.br/imprensa/noticias-tse/2018/Outubro/conselho-consultivo-sobre-internet-e-eleicoes-discute-impacto-das-fake-news">advisory board on internet and elections</a> to investigate disinformation in Brazil’s 2018 election and propose regulations to limit its impact in future political processes.</p>
<h2>It’s a WhatsApp-defined world</h2>
<p>Brazil is only the latest country to learn that <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-killing-democracy-with-its-personality-profiling-data-93611">social media can undermine the democratic process</a>. </p>
<p>Numerous studies have confirmed that a toxic blend of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/25/facebook-fined-uk-privacy-access-user-data-cambridge-analytica">data mismanagement</a>, targeted advertisement and online misinformation also influenced the outcomes of the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-post-truth-election-clicks-trump-facts-67274">2016 U.S. presidential race</a>.</p>
<p>Brazil’s WhatsApp election scandal should be a wake-up call particularly for other developing world democracies, as revealed in <a href="https://public.tableau.com/profile/zeroratingcts#!/vizhome/zeroratinginfo/Painel1">research I recently presented</a> at the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum. </p>
<p>That’s because the conditions that allowed fake news to thrive in Brazil exist in many Latin American, African and Asian countries.</p>
<p>Internet access is very expensive in Brazil. A broadband connection can cost up to 15 percent of <a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/economia/noticia/2017-02/brazils-national-average-household-income-capita-40016-2016">a household’s income</a> and mobile plans with unlimited data, common in rich countries, are rare.</p>
<p>Instead, mobile carriers entice users by offering “zero rating” plans with <a href="https://internet-governance.fgv.br/sites/internet-governance.fgv.br/files/publicacoes/belli_arcep_zero_rating_minitel_en.pdf">free access</a> to specific applications, typically Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. Nearly three-quarters of Brazilian internet users had these prepaid mobile-internet plans in 2016, according to the technology research center <a href="http://cetic.br/media/docs/publicacoes/2/TIC_DOM_2016_LivroEletronico.pdf">CETIC.br</a>.</p>
<p>Most Brazilians therefore have unlimited social media access but very little access to the rest of the internet. This likely explains why 95 percent of all Brazilian internet users say they mostly go <a href="https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/media/com_mediaibge/arquivos/c62c9d551093e4b8e9d9810a6d3bafff.pdf">online for messaging apps and social media</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the “rest of the internet” is precisely where Brazilians might have verified the political news sent to them on WhatsApp during the 2018 election. Essentially, fact-checking is <a href="https://www.cetic.br/noticia/acesso-a-internet-por-banda-larga-volta-a-crescer-nos-domicilios-brasileiros/">too expensive for the average Brazilian</a>.</p>
<h2>Concern over Africa’s elections</h2>
<p>Democracies in Africa, where more than a <a href="https://theconversation.com/taking-africas-democratic-temperature-as-a-dozen-countries-prepare-for-polls-107675">dozen countries will hold elections in 2019</a>, are vulnerable to the same kind of lopsided access to information that influenced Brazil’s presidential vote.</p>
<p>As in Brazil, many Africans get <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-free-basics-developing-markets">stripped-down internet access</a> through Facebook’s Internet.org and Free Basics platforms. But, worryingly, most African countries have little or no data protection and no <a href="http://www.networkneutrality.info/sources.html">net neutrality</a> requirements that internet providers treat all digital content equally, without favoring specific apps. </p>
<p>In my analysis, Facebook and a handful of tech companies are now racing to <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/luca-belli/scramble-for-data-and-need-for-network-self-determination">collect and monetize</a> the data gathered through sponsored apps, allowing them to profile millions of Africans. Lax government oversight means that <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/nir-eyal-hook-model/">people</a> may never be informed that they pay for these “free” apps by exposing their personal information to data mining by private companies. </p>
<p>Such personal information is exceedingly profitable to advertisers in Africa, where Western-style public polling and consumer surveys is still rare. It is easy to imagine how valuable targeted advertising would be for political candidates and lobbies in the lead-up to Africa’s 2019 elections. </p>
<h2>Move fast and break democracy</h2>
<p>Democracy cannot thrive when the electorate is intentionally misinformed about candidates, parties and policies. </p>
<p>Political debate driven by likes, shares and angry comments on social media increases <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-each-side-of-the-partisan-divide-thinks-the-other-is-living-in-an-alternate-reality-71458">polarization</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-there-are-costs-to-moral-outrage-78729">distorts healthy public discourse</a>. Yet evidence shows that <a href="https://theconversation.com/audiences-love-the-anger-alex-jones-or-someone-like-him-will-be-back-101168">insults, lies and polemics</a> are what best drive the user engagement that generates that precious personal data. </p>
<p>For over a decade, social networks have been associated with free communication, unfettered by gatekeepers like news editors or fact-checkers. Many in Silicon Valley and beyond saw this <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-internet-freedom-a-tool-for-democracy-or-authoritarianism-61956">innovative disruption</a> as broadly beneficial for society. </p>
<p>That can be true when social networks are just one of many ways that people can engage in open and pluralistic debate. But when just a handful of apps are available to the majority of users, serving as the sole channel for democratic dialogue, social media can be easily manipulated to poisonous ends. </p>
<p>Mark Zuckerberg’s longstanding motto was, “Move fast and break things.”
That <a href="https://mashable.com/2014/04/30/facebooks-new-mantra-move-fast-with-stability/">catchphrase was retired in April 2018</a>, perhaps because it is increasingly evident that democracy is among the things that Facebook and friends have left broken.</p>
<p><em>The headline of this story was changed slightly after publication.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luca Belli receives funding from the Open Society Foundations, the Council of Europe, the Internet Society. The views expressed in this article do not represent the opinions of any entity with which he is associated.</span></em></p>Facebook retired its ‘Move fast and break things’ slogan – perhaps because, as new research from Brazil confirms, democracy is among the things left broken by online misinformation and fake news.Luca Belli, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, School of Law, Fundação Getulio VargasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074002018-12-04T22:20:47Z2018-12-04T22:20:47ZFrom America to Ontario: The political impact of the Christian right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248460/original/file-20181203-194941-1ipzkex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ontario PC leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen arrives to participate in a debate in Ottawa in February 2018. Granic Allen was supported by the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), and the organization said it recruited more than 9,000 PC memberships in support of her campaign to became the premier of Ontario.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few years, <a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/chr_rght.htm">Christian right groups</a> have made inroads into the political landscape of certain countries. Two recent examples have been the American and Brazilian elections. </p>
<p>Among Christian right organizations, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/09/exit-polls-show-white-evangelicals-voted-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/?utm_term=.9ba34f4f5edd">81 per cent of white evangelicals</a> are credited with helping propel Donald Trump to the White House in 2016.</p>
<p>During the recent midterm elections, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/07/how-religious-groups-voted-in-the-midterm-elections/">75 per cent of white “born again” evangelicals</a> supported Republican candidates. Their influence was also felt in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro’s victory. Recent polls estimate that <a href="https://newint.org/features/2018/11/06/did-brazil%25E2%2580%2599s-evangelicals-put-jair-bolsonaro-office">70 per cent of Brazilian evangelicals</a> voted for the new president.</p>
<p>Some groups in America have been pushing for Christian nationalist-inspired laws through a little-known endeavour originally launched in 2015 called “<a href="http://religiondispatches.org/project-blitz-seeks-to-do-for-christian-nationalism-what-alec-does-for-big-business/">Project Blitz</a>.” </p>
<p>Since 2017, more than 70 bills from Project Blitz were introduced, granting individuals the right to discriminate against LGTBQ people, forcing schools to display on their walls the “In God We Trust” motto and allowing religious convictions to dictate women’s reproductive rights. </p>
<p>A significant proportion of Brazilian evangelicals also expressed their opposition to <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/11/09/politica/1510258493_477218.html">abortion</a> and <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2017/04/1876035-adao-e-evo-nao-pode-diz-novo-presidente-da-bancada-evangelica.shtml">LGTBQ rights</a> during the election.</p>
<p>Canada is no exception. There’s a growing awareness about the <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/stephen-harper-and-the-theo-cons/2/?ref=2006.10-politics-religion-stephen-harper-and-the-theocons&galleryPage">rise of Christian right</a> here. Such groups become mobilized politically by viewing themselves as being part of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/30/doug-ford-brings-the-american-culture-wars-to-canada/?utm_term=.3dccc8d84dd5">culture war</a>. Issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, gender identity, LGBTQ rights and religious freedom are at the forefront of their concerns.</p>
<h2>Abortion as a ‘human rights issue’</h2>
<p>Christian right groups in Canada clearly do not have the same resources as their American counterparts. They do, nonetheless, attract people to their cause by framing their messages in ambiguous terms. </p>
<p>For example, euthanasia and abortion are presented as “<a href="https://www.itstartsrightnow.ca/join">issues that transcend party lines, religions and cultures</a>” and “<a href="https://www.itstartsrightnow.ca/about">abortion is… a human rights issue</a>.” But under that euphemistic veneer lies a polarizing tone similar to that of the American Christian right.</p>
<p>The Ontario provincial election in June saw the balance of political power shift from the Liberals and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/for-kathleen-wynne-it-s-time-to-get-real-about-election-promises-robert-fisher-1.2692035">their inclusive</a> agenda to the more traditional platform of Doug Ford’s Conservatives. <a href="https://www.elections.on.ca/en/election-results/provincial-results.html">In numbers</a>, this political shift translated into 48 additional seats for Ontario’s PC party, <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/members/current?order=field_party&sort=asc">for a total of 75</a>, and 51 seats lost by the Liberals. Of those 75 PC seats, 16 have been “<a href="https://www.macleans.ca/politics/how-canadas-growing-anti-abortion-movement-plans-to-swing-the-next-federal-election/">approved</a>” by Christian right lobby groups like the Campaign Life Coalition and <a href="https://www.itstartsrightnow.ca/rightnow_congratulates_new_pc_party_of_ontario_leader_doug_ford">Right Now</a>, two influential organizations on the Canadian social conservative landscape. </p>
<p>That represents <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/members/current?order=field_party&sort=asc">about 13 per cent</a> of total seats in the Ontario legislature. Twelve of the 16 approved MPs meet the demands of the Christian right by opposing abortion and rejecting the former Liberal government’s sex-ed program. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248466/original/file-20181203-194941-idin7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Christian right credits itself for Ford’s victory in June. Though its No. 1 candidate was Tanya Granic Allen, left, it instructed supporters to put Ford in the No. spot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://pressprogress.ca/the-religious-right-is-now-taking-credit-for-electing-doug-ford-leader-of-ontarios-pc-party/">The Christian right in Ontario clearly credits itself</a> for Ford’s victory. His association with <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/pastors-who-preached-homophobic-and-anti-semitic-views-endorse-doug-ford-for-ontario-pc-leader/">key figures</a> of the evangelical movement in Canada, as well as his <a href="https://twitter.com/fordnation/status/961802351173517312">numerous</a> appearances at conservative churches during the election campaign, expose the PC party’s active efforts to preserve <a href="https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2008/Fairie.pdf">its Christian conservative support</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/doug-ford-anointed-literally-by-controversial-evangelical-pastor-as-part-of-effort-to-win-social-conservatives">As Ford stated</a> during the PC leadership race, he wants to ensure that “the church has a voice all the time,” which he first did by <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4330893/doug-ford-ontario-1998-sex-ed-curriculum-teachers/">re-introducing</a> the 1998 sex-ed curriculum that denies children an education on same-sex marriage and gender identity.</p>
<p>The Ontario PCs also recently introduced <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pc-party-passes-resolution-to-not-recognize-gender-identity-1.4181651">Resolution R4</a>, seeking to remove the teaching and promotion of gender identity theory from the province’s schools.</p>
<p>What explains the drastic impact of Christian right interests in Ontario?</p>
<h2>Christian right seized the moment</h2>
<p>The Christian right clearly seized the window of political opportunity and broadened their movement to mobilize other traditionalists across religious conservative communities. </p>
<p>A post-election opinion poll conducted by <a href="https://researchco.ca/2018/06/08/ontario-who-won-and-why/">Research Co.</a> revealed that 77 per cent of Ontario residents wanted a change of government. That desire for change was even higher for voters who intended to support the NDP and the PC (i.e. around 90 per cent respectively). The <a href="https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/06/07/kathleen-wynne-ran-energy-ontario-voters/">numerous</a> scandals dogging Ontario’s Liberals, in combination with the party’s <a href="https://www.elections.on.ca/en/resource-centre/elections-results.html">16-year</a> reign and their leader’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wynne-liberals-ontario-election-minority-government-1.4689222">defeatist claim</a> a few days before the election day, likely explain the desire for change. </p>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2455495">Research</a> also suggests that the increasingly secularized political landscape in Ontario might lead to the gradual transformation of the PC party as a safe harbour for religious traditionalism. </p>
<p>When looking at the three main provincial party platforms, only the Conservatives <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ontariopc/pages/99/attachments/original/1540482720/52940PCPartyofOntarioConstitution2016-rebrand.pdf?1540482720">mention the idea of “worship.”</a> The party’s constitution even establishes worship as a <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ontariopc/pages/99/attachments/original/1540482720/52940PCPartyofOntarioConstitution2016-rebrand.pdf?1540482720">central principle.</a> </p>
<p>That made it possible for the Christian right to capitalize on its opportunity, partly by broadening its ranks. The issue of schooling, central during the 2018 election, was “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2455495">broad enough</a>” to encompass moral traditionalists beyond just Christian communities, including in conservative ethnic areas.</p>
<p>The well-established U.S. Christian right seems to have been helpful to its Canadian counterparts. An investigation by <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/politics/how-canadas-growing-anti-abortion-movement-plans-to-swing-the-next-federal-election/"><em>Maclean’s</em> magazine</a> revealed that members from the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) and Right Now have been travelling to the U.S. to exchange information on successful political tactics to advance their social conservative agenda. </p>
<p>Their activities have included leadership meetings and training by evangelical activist groups linked to influential American conservative donor networks. Such exchanges are confirmed by Right Now’s social media:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1009849903336468485"}"></div></p>
<p>During the Ontario election campaign, Right Now clearly used similar strategies as that of the U.S. Christian right’s Project Blitz.</p>
<p>The Campaign Life Coalition, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/clc-blog/id/65/title/social-conservatives-propelled-doug-ford-to-victory-and-he-still-needs-us-to-beat-kathleen-wynne--1">says it increased</a> by 50 per cent its membership recruitment for the Ontario Conservatives since 2015, and made up 12 per cent of the PC leadership race’s votes.</p>
<h2>‘Fragility’</h2>
<p>However, the reliance of Ontario’s Christian conservatives on external financial resources and other kinds of outside support shows their fragility, well-documented by <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/faith-politics-and-sexual-diversity-in-canada-and-the-united-states">research</a>. There’s clearly an inability of the movement in Canada to institutionalize itself due to the pragmatic nature of the electoral system in Canada.</p>
<p>The inability of the Christian conservative movement to incorporate itself in the Canadian political arena leads to a growing reliance on the U.S. Christian right, which is well-established within the American political system. </p>
<p>Canadian Christian conservatives are consequently able to survive and challenge their political environment via support from the American Christian right networks.</p>
<p>Academics and people in general haven’t paid enough attention to the Christian right in American politics. In 2010, Marci McDonald, Canadian journalist and author of <em>The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada</em>, noted that some people doubted such groups could impact Canada: “<a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Armageddon-Factor-Christian-Nationalism-Canada/dp/0307356477/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542475510&sr=8-1&keywords=the+armageddon+factor+the+rise+of+christian+nationalism+in+canada">Surely, you don’t think it can happen here. This is a profoundly different country than the United States</a>.” </p>
<p>But Christian right groups have influenced politics for years, since Stephen Harper’s years as prime minister to Doug Ford’s victory, and could have an impact on Alberta’s election in May. They will likely vote for Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives in next year’s federal election. </p>
<p>Christian right groups in Canada are here to stay. With their stealth manoeuvring, they’ve managed to politically mobilize their members not only through the effort of pastors at the pulpit, but also through think tanks, para-church organizations and other Christian institutions.</p>
<p>Many Christian right groups believe that their values are under attack and that God’s law should regulate all spheres of society, including politics. But the establishment of such a political system would result in discrimination against opposing views and ways of life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christian right groups in Canada may not have the same resources as their American counterparts. They are, nonetheless, attracting supporters by borrowing some U.S. tactics.André Gagné, Associate Professor, Religious Right; Fundamentalism; Religious Violence; Radicalization; Social Identity, Concordia UniversityAndréa Febres-Gagné, Research Assistant, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1057892018-11-05T11:43:58Z2018-11-05T11:43:58ZStrict Amazon protections made Brazilian farmers more productive, new research shows<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/la-proteccion-estricta-del-amazonas-fomenta-la-productividad-agricola-en-brasil-106488">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>Jair Bolsonaro, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-bolsonaros-presidency-means-for-brazil-5-essential-reads-105894">Brazil’s new president</a>, will make many decisions during his four-year term, from combating violence to stimulating a stagnant economy. </p>
<p>Those decisions will have large impacts on Brazilians, who remain deeply divided over the controversial election of this <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">far-right populist</a>.</p>
<p>But some of Bolsonaro’s decisions will affect the entire world, namely his promises to cut environmental protections in the Brazilian Amazon.</p>
<h2>The Amazon’s uncertain fate</h2>
<p>The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and a <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_commodities_boom_fuels_new_assault_on_amazon">major global food exporter</a>. </p>
<p>The Amazon Basin also provides the rains that nourish Brazil’s productive croplands to the south, a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-farming-factbox-idUSTRE78M5HS20110923">breadbasket for the world</a>. The rainforest’s destruction could cause large-scale droughts in Brazil, leading to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917306468">nationwide crop losses</a>.</p>
<p>An estimated 9 percent of Amazonian forests disappeared between 1985 and 2017, reducing the rainforest’s ability to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/28/alarm-as-study-reveals-worlds-tropical-forests-are-huge-carbon-emission-source">absorb the carbon emissions</a> that drive climate change.</p>
<p>Deforestation is <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6407/1108.full.pdf">largely due to land clearing for agricultural purposes</a>, particularly cattle ranching. </p>
<p>Cattle production has an extremely <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-cattle-farmers-in-the-brazilian-amazon-money-cant-buy-happiness-85349">low profit margin</a> in the Brazilian Amazon. It also requires a massive amount of land for grazing. Both factors drive Amazonian farmers to continuously clear forest – illegally – to expand pastureland.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://mapbiomas.org/">12 percent of the Brazilian Amazon</a>, or 93 million acres – an area roughly the size of Montana – is used for agriculture, primarily cattle ranching but also soybean production. </p>
<p>Deforestation decreased substantially from 2004 to 2014 thanks to <a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/06/05/cutting-down-on-cutting-down">strict environmental protections</a> passed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2004. His Workers Party cracked down on illegal land clearing in the Amazon, making Brazil a world leader in rainforest protection.</p>
<p>But deforestation in the Amazon has <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2016/12/brazilian-government-announces-29-percent-rise-deforestation-2016">begun to climb</a> again recently. </p>
<p>Brazilian President Michel Temer, a conservative who entered office in 2016 during a deep recession, has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-environment/brazil-home-of-amazon-rolls-back-environmental-protection-idUSKCN18B21P">loosened enforcement of federal anti-deforestation laws</a>, slashed the environmental ministry’s budget and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-protests-as-amazon-forests-are-opened-to-mining-83034">opened the Amazon to mining</a>.</p>
<p>Satellite data reveal that between August 2017 to 2018, 1.1 million acres of Brazilian Amazonian forest were cleared – the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/ahead-of-election-deforestation-continues-to-climb-in-the-brazilian-amazon/">highest deforestation rate since 2007</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brazil’s next president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Brazil-Elections/efee31dae3e24db782c3da83aef19893/4/0">AP Photo/Silvia izquierdo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>President-elect Bolsonaro has promised to further slash environmental protections in Brazil, saying that federal conservation zones and hefty fines for cutting down trees <a href="http://news.trust.org//item/20181026090106-r6vs5/">hinder economic growth</a>. </p>
<p>Specific plans include <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/climate/brazil-election-amazon-environment.html">eliminating protections for indigenous territories</a> that safeguard forests from private developers and <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-brazil-apos-leading-candidate-232002196.html?guccounter=1">reducing fines</a> for illegally clearing land. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro also wants to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/jair-bolsonaro-looming-threat-to-the-amazon-and-global-climate/">dismantle Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment</a>, which enforces environmental laws.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s agricultural innovations</h2>
<p>The president-elect’s deregulatory agenda is supported by the Bancada Ruralista, a powerful congressional caucus that <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/12/temer-government-set-to-overthrow-brazils-environmental-agenda/">defends Brazilian agribusiness interests</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the lobby’s stance that regulation hurts business, Brazil’s strict environmental laws have actually helped Amazonian farmers, my <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017312669#.W8yp0HPwe_0.twitter">recent research</a> shows.</p>
<p>From 2004 to 2014, Brazil’s federal government employed a host of tactics to <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/53a5/9c0ef21a0a748f02e26969df1ff9dbc249f2.pdf">reduce Amazonian farmers’ incentives</a> to clear land. It increased penalties for deforestation, making it far more expensive to create new grazing land. Simultaneously, it <a href="http://www.agricultura.gov.br/assuntos/sustentabilidade/plano-abc/historico">offered state-subsidized, low-interest financing</a> for farmers who adopted more sustainable practices.</p>
<p>Those policies encouraged innovations that have made Amazon farmland much more productive. In a co-authored study <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017312669#.W8yp0HPwe_0.twitter">published in October in the journal Global Environmental Change</a>, my colleagues and I found that food production in the Amazon has substantially increased since 2004.</p>
<p>Amazonian farmers are now planting and harvesting two crops – mostly soybean and corn – each year, rather than just one. This is called “double cropping.” </p>
<p>Our study found that land in double cropping in Brazil’s most important agricultural state, Mato Grosso, increased from 840,000 acres in 2001 to more than 10.6 million acres in 2013, boosted by improved environmental laws. </p>
<h2>Farmers are getting richer</h2>
<p>Environmental regulation of the Brazilian Amazon has helped farmers improve business in other ways too, our research found. </p>
<p>Improved pasture management in Mato Grosso state led the number of cattle slaughtered annually per acre to double, meaning farmers are producing more meat – and therefore earning <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac4d1/meta">more money</a> – with their land. </p>
<p>Ranchers who add crops into pasture areas can <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac4d1/meta">more than quadruple</a> the amount of beef produced because cattle raised in integrated crop and livestock systems gain weight more quickly. That spares remaining Amazonian forests from deforestation.</p>
<p>These sustainable ranching practices also reduce the greenhouse gases associated with beef and leather production. Better nourished cows are slaughtered sooner, meaning <a href="https://theconversation.com/seaweed-could-hold-the-key-to-cutting-methane-emissions-from-cow-burps-66498">fewer burps per cow</a> per lifetime, leading to lower methane emissions. </p>
<p>Brazil’s progressive environmental protections have even pushed corporations that operate in the Amazon to adopt more sustainable practices. </p>
<p>Since 2006, hundreds of multinational food and timber companies, including Cargill and Nestle, have adopted “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0061-1">zero-deforestation commitments</a>” – pledges that they will never again source products from farmers who continue to deforest their land.</p>
<p>The commitments started in the Brazilian Amazon and have since extended to <a href="http://forestdeclaration.org/goal/goal-2/">all forests on the planet</a>, including the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-deforestation/drivers-of-deforestation-2016-palm-oil#.W9ujHxNKjdQ">Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests</a>.</p>
<p>Brazilian law, which restricts Amazonian farmers from clearing more than 20 percent of their land and requires them to federally register their property for monitoring, has made it easier for zero-deforestation companies to drop producers who cut down trees.</p>
<h2>Saving the Amazon</h2>
<p>Strong environmental protections are necessary to save the Amazon, protecting Brazil and the world from the loss of this <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917306468">critical, fragile habitat</a>.</p>
<p>If Brazil’s next president dismantles its environmental laws, corporations could abandon their zero-deforestation standards in the Amazon. That could have ripple effects in other threatened habitats worldwide.</p>
<p>Far from being bad for business, Brazil’s Amazonian protections help sustain the country as a global breadbasket. </p>
<p>If Bolsonaro scraps them, he won’t just imperil a legendary rainforest. He’ll hurt Brazilian farmers, too – and the consumers worldwide who depend on them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Garrett has received funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, and the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency.</span></em></p>Brazil’s president-elect wants to roll back environmental laws, saying they hurt rural growth. But preventing Amazonian deforestation has actually made farmland more productive.Rachael Garrett, Assistant Professor of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1058942018-10-29T19:14:22Z2018-10-29T19:14:22ZWhat Bolsonaro’s presidency means for Brazil: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242799/original/file-20181029-76411-pnpixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro hope he will 'transform' their country, which has been mired in political and economic crises since 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections-Bolsonaro/eeaf85221fc74a9db8aea0b6034bba06/6/0">AP Photo/Leo Correa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">Jair Bolsonaro</a>, the right-wing populist who cruised to victory in Brazil’s presidential election, is notoriously outspoken about his dim view of Afro-Brazilians, women, gay people, leftists and human rights.</p>
<p>The 63-year-old retired army captain and longtime congressman has said far less, however, about his agenda for Brazil. He skipped presidential debates and avoided policy questions on the campaign trail, making vague promises to “transform” the crisis-stricken country. </p>
<p>Here, five Brazil experts lay out what to expect when Bolsonaro takes office on Jan. 1.</p>
<h2>1. Social conservatism</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s polarizing presidency is likely to “worsen an already acute crisis” in Brazil, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481">country deeply divided over</a> major problems like crime, political corruption and economic stagnation, says Brazilian political scientist Helder Ferreira do Vale.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro opposes abortion – which is banned in Brazil – and gay marriage, which became legal in 2013. </p>
<p>Believing his country, the last Western country to abolish slavery, owes Afro-Brazilians no “debt over slavery,” he has promised to roll back affirmative action at Brazilian public universities.</p>
<p>To tackle Brazil’s record-high violence, the president-elect has said he will ease gun laws, reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 and legalize the death penalty in Brazil. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro has also lauded the law-and-order governing style of military dictatorships like the one that ran Brazil from 1964 to 1985. </p>
<p>“His adulation of the military raises serious doubts about the future of Brazil’s 33-year-old democracy,” warns Ferreira do Vale.</p>
<h2>2. A free market economy</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s presidency will certainly “<a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-faces-two-very-different-economic-models-in-bolsonaro-and-haddad-98573">mark a significant shift for Brazil’s economy</a>,” writes Arthur Gomes Moreira at England’s University of Sussex.</p>
<p>Run by the left-wing Workers Party since 2003, Brazil’s economic strategy centered on developing infrastructure, redistributing wealth and exporting commodities like oil and corn. Minimum wage grew almost 5 percent annually and poverty dropped by half.</p>
<p>But the country has been in recession since 2015, due in large part to plummeting commodity prices. And a judicial investigation has exposed bribes between high-ranking government officials and the construction companies hired to build Brazil’s key infrastructure. </p>
<p>Fury over the Workers Party’s perceived role in corrupting the Brazilian economy helped propel Bolsonaro into office. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242796/original/file-20181029-76413-mcwkiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brazilians punished leftist candidate Fernando Haddad for his party’s role in crashing their once-flourishing economy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections/39e22cae68034245b37ebc6672d94ad7/169/0">AP Photo/Andre Penner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bolsonaro favors a “much more neoliberal approach” to Brazil’s economy, writes Gomes Moreira, in which the free market drives growth – not government spending. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s pick for finance minister, the University of Chicago-trained economist Paulo Guedes, favors extensive cuts in public spending and privatization of all state-owned companies. A proposed tax reform would leave all Brazilians, regardless of income, paying the same level rate of tax. </p>
<p>Gomes Moreira says that the combination of social conservatism and economic liberalism is too extreme even for the pro-free market Economist magazine. It has characterized Bolsonaro “as a populist menace to Latin America.” </p>
<h2>3. A fight for women’s rights</h2>
<p>Women are among those feeling <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-elenao-and-the-vibrant-womens-movement-rallying-against-far-right-candidate-jair-bolsonaro-104969">nervous about Bolsonaro’s presidency</a>, says professor Selina O'Doherty, who researches activism at Swansea University. </p>
<p>The president-elect, who once told a fellow congressional representative that she “didn’t deserve” to be raped, has said women should be paid less than men, and he opposes legalizing abortion. </p>
<p>Concerned about what these stances mean for their rights, hundreds of thousands of Brazilian women protested Bolsonaro’s candidacy, declaring “#EleNao” — #NotHim. </p>
<p>Just 1 in 3 women voted for Bolsonaro in Brazil’s first-round presidential election, in early October. Two in 3 men did. </p>
<p>More women appear to have supported Bolsonaro in Sunday’s runoff. But the #EleNao protests will likely continue, O'Doherty says.</p>
<p>“The slogan ‘not him’ may need to be replaced … but the sentiment and political agency that these women have harnessed is unlikely to go anywhere,” she says.</p>
<h2>4. Environmental deregulation</h2>
<p>Environmentalists are also preparing for a fight.</p>
<p>According to Ed Atkins, a University of Bristol geographer, the president-elect wants to <a href="https://theconversation.com/jair-bolsonaros-brazil-would-be-a-disaster-for-the-amazon-and-global-climate-change-104617">withdraw Brazil from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement</a>, arguing that global warming is nothing more than “greenhouse fables.”</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has called for the closure of Brazil’s environmental protection agency, which monitors deforestation and environmental degradation. </p>
<p>“This would eliminate any form of oversight of actions that lead to deforestation” of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, Atkins says.</p>
<p>A recent study revealed that the Brazilian Amazon is disappearing faster each year. In August 2018, 134,672 acres of forest were cleared – three times more than the previous August.</p>
<h2>5. A starring role for evangelical conservatives</h2>
<p>Finally, the 2018 election solidifies the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazilian-evangelicals-swinging-hard-to-the-right-could-put-a-trump-like-populist-in-the-presidency-96845">political power of Brazil’s conservative evangelical Christians</a>, who backed Bolsonaro’s candidacy.</p>
<p>The president-elect is Catholic, but he campaigned with evangelicals and shares their conservative social views.</p>
<p>In 1970, 90 percent of Brazilians were Roman Catholic. Today, evangelicals make up nearly 30 percent of Brazil’s 208 million people. </p>
<p>“As their numbers have grown, so has the evangelical influence over Brazilian politics,” tilting the country rightward, says the Brazil-based demographer Peter David Arnould Wood. </p>
<p>Evangelicals in Brazil’s lower house of Congress – a 326-member bloc known as the “bullets, beef and bibles” alliance for its support of guns, agribusiness and Christianity – are “ardent opponents of abortion and LGBTQ rights,” explains Arnould Wood. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s presidency will empower evangelicals, who now have a majority in the highly fragmented lower house. They, in turn, are unlikely to check the power of their like-minded leader. </p>
<p><em>This article rounds up articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Bolsonaro promised angry Brazilians he would transform their crisis-stricken country. But he didn’t say how. Five Brazil experts examine his policies on crime, the economy, women, the Amazon and more.Catesby Holmes, International Editor | Politics Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1054812018-10-29T00:52:23Z2018-10-29T00:52:23ZBolsonaro wins Brazil election, promises to purge leftists from country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242634/original/file-20181028-7056-1yv865l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bolsonaro supporters celebrate outside his home in Rio de Janeiro after exit polls on Oct. 28 declared him the preliminary winner of Brazil's 2018 presidential election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Brazil-Elections/8c0877c5b3174268a3bc7f834be5a083/2/0">AP Photo/Leo Correa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the most <a href="https://theconversation.com/mapping-brazils-political-polarization-online-96434">polarized</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/brazil-election-all-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-vote.html">divisive campaign</a> in its modern history, Brazil has <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticia/2018/10/28/jair-bolsonaro-e-eleito-presidente-e-interrompe-serie-de-vitorias-do-pt.ghtml">elected as its next president</a> a right-wing politician who openly disdains human rights and admires military dictators.</p>
<p>Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old congressman who had <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazilian-evangelicals-swinging-hard-to-the-right-could-put-a-trump-like-populist-in-the-presidency-96845">strong evangelical backing</a> for his law-and-order stance on policing, support for gun rights and opposition to abortion, won 55 percent of votes. Bolsonaro’s leftist competitor, Fernando Haddad, a former education minister and ex-mayor of São Paulo, received 45 percent of the roughly 100 million ballots cast. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s angry, populist campaign rhetoric led many newspapers and public figures worldwide to declare his candidacy a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/25/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-democracy-rights">threat to democracy</a>. But 57.8 million Brazilians on Sunday showed less concern about Bolsonaro’s message.</p>
<p>Haddad, his opponent, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180911-brazil-workers-party-selects-fernando-haddad-presidential-candidate-drops-lula">joined Brazil’s presidential race</a> less than a month before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/disillusioned-brazilians-choose-bolsonaro-haddad-after-a-tense-and-violent-campaign-104224">first round of voting</a>. The Workers Party, which has run Brazil since 2002, tapped Haddad to replace front-runner Inacio Lula de Silva, a wildly popular former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">jailed on corruption charges in July</a>. Haddad was unable to retain Lula’s lead. </p>
<h2>Brazil’s politics of disillusionment</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s victory will likely worsen an already acute crisis in Brazil, the second-most populous nation in the Western Hemisphere.</p>
<p>Once a <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-economy-why-i-was-wrong-to-be-an-optimist-101685">rising star in the developing world</a>, Brazil has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/facing-unemployment-austerity-and-scandal-brazil-struggles-to-keep-it-together-71663">mired in severe recession</a> and political turmoil since 2015. Hundreds of politicians, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">former President Lula</a>, have been arrested and jailed in a judicial investigation that has exposed corruption at the highest levels of government.</p>
<p>That corruption has consequences: A survey conducted in August by the <a href="http://www.ibopeinteligencia.com/noticias-e-pesquisas/confianca-do-brasileiro-nas-instituicoes-e-a-mais-baixa-desde-2009/">Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics</a> showed that only 25 percent of citizens trusted their federal government and 18 percent trusted Congress. </p>
<p>In such circumstances, Bolsonaro’s win as an anti-establishment candidate was predictable – and not just because Bolsonaro had maintained a clear lead in the polls ever since Lula withdrew in September. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242635/original/file-20181028-7068-mxzwnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brazil’s next president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Brazil-Elections/efee31dae3e24db782c3da83aef19893/4/0">AP Photo/Silvia izquierdo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When voters don’t believe in their politicians or government institutions, candidates who tap into voter disdain for the political system can find success. In my scholarly research on democratization, <a href="http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3034146">this is what I call</a> the “politics of disillusionment.”</p>
<p>This phenomenon helped conservative outsiders to win in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-wins-us-election-scholars-from-around-the-world-react-68282">United States</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/its-the-right-wings-italy-now/562256/">Italy</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/09/viktor-orban-re-election-hungarys-anti-immigrant-leader-major-challenge-for-eu">Hungary</a>.</p>
<p>Now, disillusionment in Brazil has handed victory to a right-wing populist who promises to purge the country of his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/22/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-he-would-put-army-on-streets-to-fight">leftist opponents</a>.</p>
<p>“Either they go overseas, or they go to jail,” he told a huge crowd in São Paulo in one of his last appearances before Sunday’s vote. </p>
<h2>Inflammatory rhetoric and militarism</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro has been in Congress for three decades. But to harness popular rage against the system, his campaign offered an outsider’s scathing critique of Brazilian society.</p>
<p>In response to rampant political corruption and extreme violence in Brazil, Bolsonaro defended <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d7df60cc-b7c4-11e8-bbc3-ccd7de085ffe">military dictatorships</a> like the one that ran Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The only problem with Brazil’s former authoritarian leaders, Bolsonaro said, was that they “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/bolsonaro-harnesses-disillusion-with-brazil-s-traditional-politics-1.3634572">tortured rather than killed</a>” dissenters. </p>
<p>Critics say his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/world/americas/brazils-election-military.html">adulation of the military</a> raises serious doubts about the future of Brazil’s 33-year-old democracy.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro, a former army captain, regularly uses <a href="http://time.com/5375731/jair-bolsonaro/">homophobic, misogynistic and racist rhetoric</a> against large swaths of Brazil’s population. He has said that he would “never allow” his children to get <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/is-this-the-worlds-most-repulsive-politician/news-story/926a4a59cf6132f770dfdbd46f610e97">romantically involved with a black person</a> and that he was “incapable of loving a homosexual son.” </p>
<p>Bolsonaro also once told a fellow congressional representative that she “did not deserve to be raped” by him because she was “terrible and ugly.”</p>
<p>His candidacy was met by outrage and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/huge-protests-in-brazil-as-far-right-presidential-hopeful-jair-bolsonaro-returns-home">mass protest by women</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hundreds of thousands of women across Brazil marched against Bolsonaro, who is known for his disparaging remarks about women, on Sept. 29.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections-Bolsonaro/8f6c1736aacb43c4b251a2a6827d7cba/32/0">AP Photo/Andre Penner</a></span>
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<h2>The president-elect’s ambiguous policy agenda</h2>
<p>Beyond his inflammatory rhetoric, Bolsonaro has offered <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/blog/are-brazilians-ready-bet-bolsonaro">few specifics</a> about how he would govern Brazil.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election/brazil-right-winger-to-skip-debates-cannot-campaign-aide-idUSKCN1MQ12N">skipped presidential debates</a> and <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/brazil-election/brazil-presidential-candidate-bolsonaro-avoids-tv-debate-question-idUKE6N1U603T">avoided tough questions</a> about whether he would make economic and political reforms to help get Brazil out of its three-year-long crisis.</p>
<p>To tackle record-high crime, the president-elect has said he will ease gun laws and reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. He is a staunch proponent of <a href="https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/opinion-editorial/opinion-brazils-informal-death-penalty/">restarting the death penalty</a> in Brazil, saying he would “volunteer to kill <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW_3PW5QxJ8">those on death row</a>” himself.</p>
<p>Brazil has the world’s third-largest prison population. <a href="https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/brazil-has-worlds-third-largest-prison-population/">Sixty-four percent of those incarcerated are black</a>. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro also wants to end <a href="https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/eleicoes-2018/por-que-nao-estudam-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-cotas-para-negros">affirmative action at Brazilian public universities</a>.</p>
<p>He considers abortion to be <a href="https://www.pragmatismopolitico.com.br/2018/08/bolsonaro-contra-o-aborto.html">murder</a>. The procedure is banned in Brazil, but in recent years women’s groups have been pushing to liberalize abortion laws. That is unlikely to happen under Bolsonaro. </p>
<p>Some analysts have <a href="https://www.fairobserver.com/region/latin_america/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election-economy-populist-politics-latin-america-news-51621/">suggested</a> that Congress may rein in Bolsonaro’s more radical tendencies. But evidence from the United States and elsewhere suggests that in the politics of disillusion, presidents who campaign as extremist govern as extremists. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro takes office on Jan. 1. Brazil’s political institutions, already weakened by corruption and public outrage, will face great pressure to show that they can withstand the new president’s populist ambitions and militaristic instincts. </p>
<p>It is a daunting challenge for Brazil’s young and, I fear, faltering democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helder do Vale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing congressman and former army captain, is Brazil’s next president, with 56 percent of votes. Critics see a threat to democracy in his scathing attacks on Brazilian society.Helder do Vale, Associate Professor, Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1049692018-10-22T15:20:01Z2018-10-22T15:20:01ZBrazil: #elenão and the vibrant women’s movement rallying against far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241530/original/file-20181021-105776-xbyapc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women protest Bolsonaro in Brasília, Brazil.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brasilia-distrito-federalbrazil-september-29-group-1199637451?src=0nkkgquogl7RJJz-gEFbVQ-2-5">Arthur S Costa/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is well known for his <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-bolsonaro-factbox/factbox-far-right-brazilian-candidate-thrives-on-controversy-idUSKCN1II2T3">inflammatory statements</a>. He has publicly made <a href="https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/geral/noticia/2014/12/Jair-Bolsonaro-repete-que-nao-estupra-Maria-do-Rosario-porque-ela-nao-merece-4659789.html">misogynistic</a>, <a href="https://www.terra.com.br/noticias/brasil/bolsonaro-prefiro-filho-morto-em-acidente-a-um-homossexual,cf89cc00a90ea310VgnCLD200000bbcceb0aRCRD.html">homophobic</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdhUGgkdKFY">racist comments</a>. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45774849">He also</a> supports torture, and wants to reinstate the death penalty. A far-right member of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Bolsonaro is <a href="http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2018/10/1983421-bolsonaro-59-mantem-vantagem-sobre-haddad-41.shtml">currently leading the polls</a>.</p>
<p>But there is vibrant opposition and resistance to his popularity. Movements have sprung up to ensure he never gets into office, one of which is Mulheres Unidas Contra Bolsonaro!!! (Women United Against Bolsonaro!!!). Restricted to those who identify as women, although solidarity from men is welcomed, this organisation – which uses a secret, closed Facebook group as its headquarters – has more than 3.86m members. </p>
<p>The group is aligned with the #elenão (#nothim) movement, which calls on Brazilian voters to cast their vote in the forthcoming presidential election based on morals, not politics. The movement has been criticised as being nothing more than a hashtag, or a “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/09/26/ele-nao-trump-bolsonaro/">war of memes</a>”. Yet #elenão, along with the related #elenunca (#neverhim) and #elejamais (also #neverhim) is active on all social networks, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOjvz3hfBQw">visible on the streets</a>, and heard frequently as a chant, by people declaring their opposition to Bolsonaro. Among the group, there is firm belief that the movement directly helped prevent an outright win for Bolsonaro in the first round of presidential voting. </p>
<p>All this, even as the #elenão movement and its followers have been subject to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/11/brazil-election-violence-bolsonaro-haddad">backlash of violence</a> from <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazil-Woman-Wearing-NotHim-T-Shirt-Attacked-by-Bolsonaro-Supporters-20181010-0022.html">pro-Bolsonaro</a> <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/10/17/politica/1539775546_709713.html">supporters</a>.</p>
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<p>Since the <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/apuracao/presidente.ghtml">first vote</a> on October 7 2018, the election has become ever more divisive in Brazil. Many Brazilians I have spoken with are facing surprising divisions within their own families and social circles, leading them to ponder how Bolsonaro has such a strong support base. His supporters include evangelical Christians, Catholics, the wealthy, men, and people identifying as white. But he also <a href="https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/ibope-bolsonaro-lidera-entre-mulheres-negros-e-em-quatro-regioes/">tops the polls</a> among women, and people identifying as black/brown. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241540/original/file-20181021-105748-16j3vyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brazilian-presidential-candidate-jair-bolsonaro-during-1173987337?src=vMilySMAIhJJZDYqgKnpuw-1-3">Antonio Scorza/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Now, only the top two candidates remain <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-democracy-is-on-the-ropes-and-now-a-dreaded-election-begins-102283">in the presidential race</a>. Due to go head-to-head in a second round of voting on October 28, Fernando Haddad, of the leftist Workers Party has been left standing against Bolsonaro. Initially the #elenão movement focused on “anyone but Bolsonaro”, showing no united support for any other specific candidate, and canvassing for other specific candidates was also forbidden. After the first vote results, however, many #elenão movement members regretfully announced they would vote for Bolsonaro in the second round – mostly due to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2bbbaa04-cae7-11e8-9fe5-24ad351828ab">discontent</a> with the Workers Party’s previous performance while in power.</p>
<p>In response, the group refocused its methods, to actively campaign for Haddad, adding the hashtag #haddadsim to the group’s activity. Members are now announcing hourly how many votes they have converted for Haddad. But what kind of role might this movement play in the election? How likely is it to achieve its goal and prevent a Bolsonaro victory against the odds? </p>
<h2>Changing voters’ minds</h2>
<p>The main factors that generally <a href="http://www.wwnorton.com/college/polisci/campaignsandelections/ch/12/outline.aspx">influence voter choice</a> are, from strongest to weakest: party identification, the economic performance of the sitting government, social identity, policy issues, and the personality of the candidate. This perhaps explains why there is support for Bolsonaro, to the extent that women who were actively against him are now opting to vote for him.</p>
<p>There is widespread anger towards and distrust of Haddad’s Workers Party, not helped by President Dilma Rousseff’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11416578/brazil-petrobras-rousseff-impeachment">2016 impeachment</a>, along with President Michel Temer’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/brazil-corruption-unions-strike-michel-temer-austerity">deeply unpopular austerity measures</a>. So, as candidate personality has a much weaker influence on vote choice, despite Bolsonaro’s controversial remarks, voters still support him. They choose his party as an alternative to the PT, rather than vote against him based on his homophobic, misogynistic or racist comments. In other words, voters may be morally opposed to Bolsonaro, but support him from a political perspective.</p>
<p>So if politics has a stronger influence than morals on a person’s voting behaviour, can #elenão succeed? <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11421">Studies show</a> that political mobilisation messages, originating and occurring predominantly online, do work – but only to an extent. They affect voter behaviour by encouraging information seeking, and influencing political self-expression among voters with a weaker party identity. However, they are most effective in influencing friends, family members, and friends of friends within a group member’s social media circle. The influence is stronger between those that have offline relationships and face-to-face contact, even though it is the online activism and solidarity that is credited with initiating this social influence. </p>
<p>This is visible in the #elenão movement from members of the the Facebook group’s regular reports of converting votes, which I have tracked as far outweighing the initial members pledging to vote for Bolsonaro in the second round. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241529/original/file-20181021-105776-bwwa0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Activists march in Rio de Janeiro.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hands-feminist-activists-march-women-against-1195896610?src=0nkkgquogl7RJJz-gEFbVQ-1-12">Alexandre S. R. Horta/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Every online post from a group member or supporter of how they have converted undecided or – for even more kudos – previous Bolsonaro supporters further encourages other women to share information and try to convert even just a single vote each. This could push Haddad to victory in the final vote. There is speculation that the final election result may hinge <a href="https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/rejeicao-de-bolsonaro-entre-as-mulheres-pode-atrapalhar-2o-turno/">on the women’s vote</a>, as women <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/brazilian_voter_demographics.pdf">make up 52% of the Brazilian electorate</a>. Unfortunately, this is a slim glimmer of hope. It is a tall order to convert enough votes to see Haddad emerge victorious. Bolsonaro <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticia/2018/10/18/datafolha-para-presidente-votos-validos-bolsonaro-59-haddad-41.ghtml">still leads the polls</a> by 59% to 41%, and is predicted to win in the second and final round of voting. </p>
<p>But whether it succeeds with its primary mission or not, this multi-million member transnational Brazilian women’s movement is extraordinary and nuanced, and has created a meeting point and planning headquarters for antifascist activism. There are plans to carry on as a solidarity and advocacy group, continuing to fight against the growing Brazilian alt-right that Bolsonaro’s campaign has revealed, regardless of the election outcome. </p>
<p>The slogan “not him” may need to be replaced after the election, but the sentiment and political agency that these women have harnessed is unlikely to go anywhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Selina O'Doherty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women are fighting to tip the Brazilian election by using morals over politics.Selina O'Doherty, Lecturer in International Development, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1046172018-10-09T14:46:06Z2018-10-09T14:46:06ZJair Bolsonaro’s Brazil would be a disaster for the Amazon and global climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239894/original/file-20181009-72130-idhvpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Scorza / Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is perhaps a cruel irony that, on the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/10/08/important-years-history-major-un-report-sounds-last-minute-climate-alarm/">landmark call</a> for urgent action, Jair Bolsonaro surged to victory in the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections. Although the leader of the far-right Partido Social Liberal did not achieve the 50% of the popular vote required to win outright, and will now <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-can-its-poorest-region-call-a-halt-to-jair-bolsonaros-dangerous-politics-104380">have a run-off</a> against Fernando Haddad of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party), his rise has posed some <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45652518">painful and divisive questions</a> both within Brazil and beyond.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has openly spoken of the need for a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/open-talk-of-a-military-coup-unsettles-brazil">military coup</a> and has a record of racist, misogynistic and <a href="https://extra.globo.com/famosos/deputado-jair-bolsonaro-fala-da-promiscuidade-de-preta-gil-declara-que-seria-incapaz-de-amar-um-filho-homossexual-em-entrevista-1980933.html">homophobic</a> views. He is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fnews%2facts-of-faith%2fwp%2f2017%2f11%2f28%2fa-trump-like-politician-in-brazil-could-snag-the-support-of-a-powerful-religious-group-evangelicals%2f%3f&utm_term=.9c0f46e47e3d">often</a> <a href="http://time.com/5375731/jair-bolsonaro/">compared</a> to Donald Trump in the US, and such parallels can also be seen in the protectionist economic doctrine Bolsonaro has adopted in this election, for instance a promise to <a href="https://www.bemparana.com.br/noticia/bolsonaro-ataca-industrias-da-reserva-indigena-e-da-expropriacao-de-terras-por-trabalho-escravo">end the banana trade</a> with Ecuador to protect Brazilian producers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-can-its-poorest-region-call-a-halt-to-jair-bolsonaros-dangerous-politics-104380">Brazil: can its poorest region call a halt to Jair Bolsonaro's dangerous politics?</a>
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<p>The electoral success of this divisive figure leaves Brazil at a crucial turning point. There have <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2018/10/05/01003-20181005ARTFIG00220-bresil-jair-bolsonaro-un-nostalgique-de-la-dictature-militaire.php">already</a> <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/10/05/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election-stabbinng/">been</a> <a href="http://time.com/5375731/jair-bolsonaro/">numerous</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-can-its-poorest-region-call-a-halt-to-jair-bolsonaros-dangerous-politics-104380">analyses</a> of what this could mean for Brazilian politics – but what could it mean for the environment? </p>
<h2>Tchau, Paris?</h2>
<p>Despite Bolsonaro’s campaign being based on personality as much as policy, it is possible to find some relevant promises – and they aren’t good news.</p>
<p>For a start, Bolsonaro has previously said that, if elected, he would <a href="https://library.ecc-platform.org/news/bolsonaro-threatens-quit-paris-climate-deal">withdraw Brazil from the 2015 Paris Agreement</a> on climate change, arguing that global warming is nothing more than <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/08/15/meet-political-dynasty-climate-science-deniers-threatening-withdraw-brazil-paris-agreement">“greenhouse fables”</a>. Ultimately, his power to reverse the decision is limited, however. This is because the Paris deal was approved via the Brazilian congress, which is currently divided between 30 parties, and Bolsonaro would face the <a href="https://library.ecc-platform.org/news/bolsonaro-threatens-quit-paris-climate-deal">tricky task</a> of convincing a broad church of conservatives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239914/original/file-20181009-72100-1z0woyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Protecting the Amazon rainforest is a key part of fighting climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvepino/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Although Bolsonaro may be unable to withdraw from the Paris framework, his election would still be a direct threat to the regime of environmental protection in Brazil.</p>
<h2>Ruralistas for Bolsonaro?</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s rise is a symptom of a wider political shift that has seen an alignment between the environmental views of the far right and those of powerful political factions in Brazil. </p>
<p>Although never directly linked, Bolsonaro’s environmental policies would likely be welcomed by the so-called “ruralistas” – a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/predatory-agribusiness-likely-to-gain-more-power-in-brazil-election-report/">powerful alliance</a> of agribusiness and big landowners within the country’s Senate and Chamber of Deputies. The ruralista faction previously supported the outgoing president <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-new-government-needs-economic-growth-and-may-sacrifice-the-amazon-to-get-it-65002">Michel Temer</a> and is infamous for its <a href="https://ruralometro.reporterbrasil.org.br/">regressive environmental agenda</a>, which seeks to further deforest the Amazon to make way for cattle farms, soy plantations and the mining industry.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has <a href="https://twitter.com/domphillips/status/1049100132401238019?s=03">called for</a> the <a href="https://www.rondoniagora.com/eleicoes/bolsonaro-diz-que-ibama-e-icmbio-vao-deixar-de-ser-industrias-de-multa-em-seu-governo">neutering</a> of both Brazil’s environment agency (IBAMA), which monitors deforestation and environmental degradation, and its Chico Mendes Institute which issues fines to negligent parties. This would eliminate any form of oversight of actions that lead to deforestation.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has also threatened to do away with the legislative protections afforded to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/sections/news/meet-brazils-presidential-front-runner-jair-bolsonaro-part-donald-trump-part-rodrigo-duterte">environmental reserves and indigenous communities</a>. He has previously argued that what he describes as an “<a href="https://racismoambiental.net.br/2018/10/06/bolsonaro-ataca-industria-de-demarcacao-de-terras-indigenas-e-expropriacao-de-terras-por-trabalho-escravo/">indigenous land demarcation industry</a>” must be restricted and reversed, allowing for farms and <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-will-let-miners-strip-the-amazon-vows-brazil-poll-favourite-jair-bolsonaro-bthft3gbc">industry</a> to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/brazilian-elections-and-the-environment-where-top-candidates-stand/">encroach</a> into previously protected lands.</p>
<p>By removing these protective organs from the equation, the message that Bolsonaro is sending is clear: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06917-w">vast swathes</a> of Brazil’s biologically diverse and ecologically important landscape will be <a href="https://amazonwatch.org/news/2018/0926-the-amazon-on-the-brink">opened up for development and extraction</a>. With the Brazilian soy industry <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-grains-sugar/brazils-farmers-dump-sugar-for-soy-as-trade-war-boosts-chinese-demand-idUSKBN1KZ0B5">profiting</a> from the current trade war between the US and China, it is highly likely that promises of this potential expansion would be well received.</p>
<p>In the run up to this election, figures were released which showed the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is <a href="https://imazon.org.br/publicacoes/boletim-do-desmatamento-da-amazonia-legal-agosto-2018-sad/">continuing to climb</a>. In August 2018, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/ahead-of-election-deforestation-continues-to-climb-in-the-brazilian-amazon/">545km²</a> of forest were cleared – three times more than the area deforested the previous August. The world’s largest rainforest <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-the-amazon-save-the-planet/">is integral</a> to climate change mitigation, so cutting back on deforestation is an urgent global issue. Brazil, however, is heading in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>Any collective relief at the far right not winning the first round outright may be short-lived. While the previous government of Temer <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-environment/brazil-home-of-amazon-rolls-back-environmental-protection-idUSKCN18B21P">rolled back</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-new-government-needs-economic-growth-and-may-sacrifice-the-amazon-to-get-it-65002">environmental protections</a>, a Bolsonaro government will likely adopt a brazen anti-environmental strategy. The second round of the election is soon to take place. In light of the IPCC’s recent report, there is more riding on it than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Atkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The far right frontrunner promises a brazen anti-environmental strategy.Ed Atkins, Teaching Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1042242018-10-08T14:53:08Z2018-10-08T14:53:08Z‘Disillusioned’ Brazilians choose Bolsonaro, Haddad after a tense and violent campaign<p>After a tense, violent and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/brazil-election-all-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-vote.html">polarized campaign</a>, Brazilians have voted to advance two candidates from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum to a presidential runoff on Oct. 28.</p>
<p>Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right congressman who enjoys <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazilian-evangelicals-swinging-hard-to-the-right-could-put-a-trump-like-populist-in-the-presidency-96845">strong evangelical backing</a> for his law-and-order stance on policing, support for gun rights and opposition to abortion, won 46 percent of the valid votes. </p>
<p>Fernando Haddad, a leftist candidate of the Brazilian Workers Party and former mayor of São Paulo, came in second place with 29 percent, his portion of the vote split with the other left-of-center presidential candidates, Ciro Gomes and Marina Silva. </p>
<p>Nine other presidential candidates shared the remaining 12 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>In addition to choosing their top two picks for president, Brazil’s 147 million voters also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2018/09/brazil-elections-2018-glance-180926180151595.html">voted on Oct. 7 for two-thirds of the Senate and more than 500 congressional representatives</a>, races that featured a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexism-racism-drive-more-black-women-to-run-for-office-in-both-brazil-and-us-104208">historic number of black women candidates</a> running for local office. </p>
<p>Congress will remain highly fragmented, <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/eleicao-em-numeros/noticia/2018/10/08/pt-perde-deputados-mas-ainda-tem-maior-bancada-da-camara-psl-de-bolsonaro-ganha-52-representantes.ghtml">with no political party controlling a majority of seats</a>. But maintaining a pattern seen in previous elections, conservative caucuses – which represent the evangelical, agribusiness and crime-fighting interests – have increased their influence.</p>
<p>Despite electing right-of-center candidates to Congress, Sunday’s vote also show the <a href="https://epoca.globo.com/expresso/pesquisas-sugerem-derrotas-de-seis-ex-ministros-de-temer-23135744">loss of support for traditional parliamentarians</a>. Several influential Brazilian politicians were not reelected. The results for state governors’ races paint a more complex picture. Left-wing candidates won in the first round in <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/apuracao/brasil/">seven of Brazil’s 27 states</a>, showing progressive parties’ continues popularity at the state level.</p>
<h2>Disinterested voters</h2>
<p>The stakes of this year’s election are extremely high.</p>
<p>Once a <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-economy-why-i-was-wrong-to-be-an-optimist-101685">rising star in the developing world</a>, Brazil has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/facing-unemployment-austerity-and-scandal-brazil-struggles-to-keep-it-together-71663">mired in severe recession</a> and political turmoil since 2015. </p>
<p>Hundreds of politicians, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">former President Lula</a>, have been arrested and jailed in a judicial investigation that has exposed corruption at the highest level of government.</p>
<p>Now, as the country prepares for its presidential runoff, public trust in Brazil’s politicians and political institutions has never been lower. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239526/original/file-20181005-72100-1yjeras.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hundreds of thousands of women across Brazil marched against presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who is known for his disparaging remarks about women, on Sept. 29.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections-Bolsonaro/8f6c1736aacb43c4b251a2a6827d7cba/32/0">AP Photo/Andre Penner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A survey conducted in August by the <a href="http://www.ibopeinteligencia.com/noticias-e-pesquisas/confianca-do-brasileiro-nas-instituicoes-e-a-mais-baixa-desde-2009/">Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics</a> showed that only 25 percent of citizens trusted their federal government and 18 percent trusted Congress. </p>
<p>Other public opinion polling has put faith in Brazil’s government <a href="http://cms.cnt.org.br/Imagens%20CNT/PDFs%20CNT/Pesquisa%20CNT%20MDA/resultados_relatorio_cnt_mda_136.pdf">closer to zero</a>.</p>
<p>The 2018 campaign did little to reassure the electorate.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro, who trailed the popular former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva by a wide margin throughout the campaign, saw a boost in the polls after he was <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2018/09/08/jair-bolsonaro-is-stabbed-at-a-rally">stabbed at a campaign rally on Sept. 6</a>. His attacker appears to suffer from mental health problems, but the attacker’s Facebook posts also showed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45451473">outrage</a> at both Bolsonaro and Brazil’s political system in general.</p>
<p>The election was thrown into further disarray a few days later when front-runner Lula – who was <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">jailed on corruption charges in July</a> – was forced to withdraw from the presidential bid after an electoral commission ruled he could not stand for office. </p>
<p>With less than a month to go before election day, the Workers Party chose <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180911-brazil-workers-party-selects-fernando-haddad-presidential-candidate-drops-lula">Fernando Haddad</a>, education minister under Lula, to replace Lula on the ticket. </p>
<p>Lula had been in first place with 37 percent of voter support, but his forced withdrawal put Bolsonaro into the lead.</p>
<p>Yet nearly <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/09/ataque-a-bolsonaro-ajudou-a-conquistar-eleitores-indecisos-diz-mourao.shtml">20 percent of voters were still undecided</a> in the final days of the race – a sign of the general lack of interest in the electoral process this year. </p>
<h2>Politics of disillusionment</h2>
<p>The fact is that Brazilians, who are required by law to vote, will return to the polls on Oct. 28 with very little expectation either Bolsonaro or Haddad will do much to improve their lives – despite the country’s instability and troubles. Both candidates in the latest polls had more than <a href="https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/alta-rejeicao-a-bolsonaro-e-haddad-impoe-dificuldades-de-governo-em-2019/">40 percent rejection rates</a>.</p>
<p>Such situations tend to favor <a href="http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3034146">what I call</a> the “politics of disillusionment.”</p>
<p>When voters don’t believe in their politicians or government institutions, candidates who tap into voter disdain for the political system can find success. In my opinion, this phenomenon helped lead right-wing outsiders to triumph in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-wins-us-election-scholars-from-around-the-world-react-68282">United States</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/its-the-right-wings-italy-now/562256/">Italy</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/09/viktor-orban-re-election-hungarys-anti-immigrant-leader-major-challenge-for-eu">Hungary</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last eight months, the politics of disillusionment have driven Brazil’s presidential race. </p>
<p>The two front-runners – Bolsonaro and Lula – may sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they both espoused an openly anti-establishment agenda throughout the campaign. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203589/original/file-20180126-100902-17ti9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even from jail, former President Lula has loomed large over Brazil’s election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/Gbhkk3">Agência Brasil Fotografias/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than make concrete proposals for pulling Brazil out of the crisis that grips it, Lula – who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-lula-poll/brazils-lula-to-leave-with-record-high-popularity-idUSTRE6BF4O620101216">left office in 2010</a> with 80 percent approval – spent much his campaign attacking the country’s political institutions. </p>
<p>He depicted Brazil’s judiciary as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/presidential-corruption-verdict-shows-just-how-flawed-brazils-justice-system-is-90794">corrupt institution</a> in the thrall of powerful right-wing politicians who use Congress to persecute their enemies. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rACx1sDDL9w">campaign video</a> released a week before he was deemed <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election/brazils-jailed-former-leader-lula-ends-presidential-bid-idUSKCN1LR08N">ineligible to run for president</a>, Lula said he was a victim of Brazil’s broken political system.</p>
<p>“I am an innocent,” he said. “These judges are trying to prevent an innocent man from once again running a government that’s good for Brazil.”</p>
<h2>Racism, misogyny and anger</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro’s rightist critique of Brazilian society is far more scathing.</p>
<p>To capitalize on Brazilian voters’ frustration with political corruption and extreme violence, the former army captain <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d7df60cc-b7c4-11e8-bbc3-ccd7de085ffe">defends Brazil’s military dictatorship</a> which ran the country from 1964 to 1985, saying that the only problem with the authoritarian leaders was that they “tortured rather than killed” dissenters.</p>
<p>He also regularly uses <a href="http://time.com/5375731/jair-bolsonaro/">homophobic, misogynistic and racist rhetoric</a> to stigmatize, sideline or criminalize large swaths of Brazilian society. Critics point to Bolsonaro’s often violent messages as one explanation for the Sept. 6 knife attack against him.</p>
<p>When asked why he wants to roll back affirmative action at Brazilian public universities, Bolsonaro replied with a <a href="https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/eleicoes-2018/por-que-nao-estudam-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-cotas-para-negros">question</a>: “Why don’t they [minorities] just study?”</p>
<p>He has also said that he would “never allow” his children to get <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/is-this-the-worlds-most-repulsive-politician/news-story/926a4a59cf6132f770dfdbd46f610e97">romantically involved with a black person</a>. He told a fellow congressional representative that she “did not deserve to be raped” by him because she was “terrible and ugly.”</p>
<p>Bolsonaro also considers abortion to be <a href="https://www.pragmatismopolitico.com.br/2018/08/bolsonaro-contra-o-aborto.html">murder</a>. His candidacy was met by outrage and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/huge-protests-in-brazil-as-far-right-presidential-hopeful-jair-bolsonaro-returns-home">mass protest by women</a>.</p>
<p>To tackle Brazil’s record-high violence, Bolsonaro says he would ease gun laws and reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. He is a staunch proponent of reactivating the death penalty in Brazil, saying that he would “volunteer to kill <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW_3PW5QxJ8">those on death row</a>” himself. </p>
<p>Brazil has the world’s third-largest prison population. <a href="https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/brazil-has-worlds-third-largest-prison-population/">Sixty-four percent of those incarcerated are black</a>.</p>
<h2>The triumph of radicalism</h2>
<p>The outcome of Brazil’s first-round presidential election reveals a <a href="https://theconversation.com/mapping-brazils-political-polarization-online-96434">deeply polarized</a>, angry and alienated electorate.</p>
<p>In such a political climate, my experience shows that the most radical candidate – in this case Bolsonaro – is likely to triumph.</p>
<p>Haddad has <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticia/2018/10/07/haddad-comemora-ida-ao-segundo-turno-e-diz-que-quer-unir-os-democratas-no-brasil.ghtml">softened the kind of anti-establishment discourse</a> Lula used, hoping to attract moderate voters, and he may well have more concrete proposals for reforming and improving a democracy that’s frayed at the edges.</p>
<p>But in the politics of disillusionment, that will give him no advantage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helder do Vale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After four years of economic crisis and corruption, Brazilians have never trusted their government less. They showed their frustration Sunday, voting for two ideologically opposed candidates.Helder do Vale, Associate Professor, Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1042082018-10-04T10:28:29Z2018-10-04T10:28:29ZSexism, racism drive more black women to run for office in both Brazil and US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239182/original/file-20181003-52695-1e9425n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black women in Brazil protest presidential frontrunner Jair Bolsonaro, who is known for his disparaging remarks about women, on Sept. 29, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections-Bolsonaro/18cc3ef9baf641f3997233276e2de384/25/0">AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Motivated in part by President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html">disparaging remarks about women</a> and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12">numerous claims that he committed sexual assault</a>, American women are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/5/17823582/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts-black-women-voters-2018-midterm-elections">running for state and national office in historic numbers</a>. At least <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-midterms-women-results/">255 women</a> are on the ballot as major party congressional candidates in the November general election.</p>
<p>The surge includes a record number of women of color, many of whom say their candidacies reflect a personal concern about America’s <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-xenophobic-vision-of-america-is-inciting-racist-violence/">increasingly hostile, even violent, racial dynamics</a>. In addition to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-polarization-is-not-inevitable-just-look-at-europe-99356">59 black female congressional candidates</a>, Georgia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stacey-abrams-black-girl-magic-turned-georgia-a-bit-more-blue-97117">Stacey Abrams</a> hopes to become her state’s first black governor.</p>
<p>The U.S. is not the only place where the advance of racism and misogyny in politics has has spurred black women to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-45289523">run for office at unprecedented levels</a>.</p>
<p>In Brazil, a record 1,237 black women will be <a href="https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/amp/eleicoes/rio-de-janeiro-e-o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-negras-concorrendo-em-2018/">on the ballot this Sunday in the country’s Oct. 7 general election</a>.</p>
<h2>Brazilian women rise up</h2>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://aaad.unc.edu/faculty-staff/kia-caldwell/">scholar of black feminism in the Americas</a>, so I have been closely watching Brazil’s 2018 campaign season – which has been marked by controversy around race and gender – for parallels with the United States.</p>
<p>Last weekend, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-brazil-women-protests-20180929-story.html">hundreds of thousands of Brazilian women marched nationwide</a> against the far-right presidential frontrunner Jair Bolsonaro, under the banner of <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=elenao">#EleNao</a> – #NotHim. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro, a pro-gun, anti-abortion congressman with <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazilian-evangelicals-swinging-hard-to-the-right-could-put-a-trump-like-populist-in-the-presidency-96845">strong evangelical backing</a>, once <a href="https://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/pela-terceira-vez-bolsonaro-e-condenado-a-indenizar-maria-do-rosario">told a fellow congressional representative</a> that she “didn’t deserve to be raped” because she was “terrible and ugly.” </p>
<p>Bolsonaro has seen a boost in the polls since he was <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2018/09/08/jair-bolsonaro-is-stabbed-at-a-rally">stabbed</a> at a campaign rally on Sept. 8 in a politically motivated attack.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239188/original/file-20181003-52691-14lk95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protests in Rio de Janeiro against Jair Bolsonaro on Sept. 29, organized under the hashtag #EleNao (#NotHim).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Brazil-Elections-Bolsonaro/84258035385e4a3d8a075023f00e6a3f/2/0">AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brazil has shifted rightward since 2016, when the left-leaning female president Dilma Rousseff was ousted in a partisan impeachment process that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/americas/brazil-impeachment-coup.html">many progressives regard as a political coup</a>. </p>
<p>Her successor, then-Vice President Michel Temer, quickly passed an austerity budget that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/07/brazil-government-rolling-women-rights-160704090348170.html">reversed many progressive policies</a> enacted under Rousseff and her predecessor, Workers Party founder Luís Inácio “Lula” da Silva. </p>
<p>The move decimated funding for agencies and laws that protect <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-proposed-policies-will-hurt-womens-equality-and-be-bad-for-men-too-68214">women</a>, people of color and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/brazil-rightwing-government-michel-temer">very poor</a>. </p>
<h2>Racism in Brazil</h2>
<p>In Brazil, these three categories – women, people of color and the very poor – tend to overlap.</p>
<p>Brazil, which has more people of African descent than most African nations, was the largest slaveholding society in the Americas. Over 4 million enslaved Africans <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/23/brazil-struggle-ethnic-racial-identity">were forcibly taken to the country</a> between 1530 and 1888. </p>
<p>Brazil’s political, social and economic dynamics still reflect this history. </p>
<p>Though Brazil has long <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brazils-colour-bind/article25779474/">considered itself colorblind</a>, black and indigenous Brazilians are <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/even-it-brazil/brazil-extreme-inequality-numbers">poorer</a> than their white compatriots. Black women also experience <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2016/07/14/politica/1468512046_029192.html">sexual violence</a> at much higher rates than white women – a <a href="http://portaldepublicacoes.ufes.br/temporalis/article/viewFile/8214/6157">centuries-old abuse of power</a> that dates back to slavery.</p>
<p>Afro-Brazilians – who make up just over half of Brazil’s 200 million people, according to the 2010 census – are also <a href="http://blogueirasnegras.org/2018/09/26/representatividade-politica-no-brasil-um-abismo-entre-brancos-e-nao-brancos/">underrepresented in Brazilian politics</a>, though sources disagree on exactly how few black Brazilians hold public office.</p>
<p><a href="https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2018/04/05/representatividade-dos-negros-na-politica-precisa-aumentar-defendem-debatedores">Three Afro-Brazilians</a> serve in the Senate, including <a href="https://odia.ig.com.br/brasil/2018/07/5561691-mulheres-negras-excluidas-do-poder.html">one woman</a>. In the 513-member lower Chamber of Deputies, about 20 percent <a href="https://www.geledes.org.br/partidos-investem-tres-vezes-mais-em-candidaturas-de-deputados-brancos-do-que-de-negros/">identify as black or brown</a>. <a href="http://www.camara.gov.br/internet/agencia/infograficos-html5/BancadaFeminina/index.html">Women</a> of <a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2018-07/mulheres-negras-se-mobilizam-para-ampliar-presenca-na-politica">color</a> hold around <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/brazil-sees-black-female-candidates-surge-after-of-rising-star?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true">1 percent of seats in the Chamber of Deputies</a>.</p>
<h2>Black women step into the fray</h2>
<p>That could change on Sunday.</p>
<p>This year, 9,204 of the 27,208 people running for office across Brazil are women, which reflects a law requiring political parties to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/02/brazil-votes-on-sunday-and-brazilian-women-have-a-better-chance-at-reshaping-its-politics-than-ever-before/?utm_term=.9063005fcc6b">nominate at least 30 percent women</a>. About 13 percent of female candidates in 2018 are <a href="https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/amp/eleicoes/rio-de-janeiro-e-o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-negras-concorrendo-em-2018/">Afro-Brazilian</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239185/original/file-20181003-52681-wq5q8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A campaign ad for Rio city council member Talíria Petrone, who is running for Congress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/41839011_1521466661287831_5118544815654436864_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&oh=33d6018e83cf701104c81c2e572d17dc&oe=5C1A6DF4">Facebook</a></span>
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<p>In most Brazilian states, that’s a marked increase over Brazil’s <a href="http://www.inesc.org.br/noticias/biblioteca/textos/inesc-lanca-o-perfil-dos-candidatos-as-eleicoes-2014-em-seminario-na-proxima-sexta-19-9">last general election</a>, in 2014, according to the online publication <a href="https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/amp/eleicoes/rio-de-janeiro-e-o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-negras-concorrendo-em-2018/">Congresso em Foco</a>. </p>
<p>In São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, 105 black women ran for office in 2014. This year, 166 are. In Bahia state, there are 106 black female candidates for political office, versus 59 in 2014. The number has likewise doubled in Minas Gerais, from 51 in 2014 to 105 this year.</p>
<p>As in the United States, Brazil’s black wave may be a direct response to alarming social trends, including sharp rises in <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-biggest-problem-isnt-corruption-its-murder-78014">gang violence and police brutality</a>, both of which disproportionately affect black communities.</p>
<p>But many female candidates in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city, say one specific event <a href="https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/amp/eleicoes/rio-de-janeiro-e-o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-negras-concorrendo-em-2018/">inspired them to run</a>.</p>
<p>In March, Marielle Franco, an Afro-Brazilian human rights activist and Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/assassination-in-brazil-unmasks-the-deadly-racism-of-a-country-that-would-rather-ignore-it-94389">assassinated</a> – the <a href="http://www.brasilwire.com/not-only-marielle-10-human-rights-activists-assassinated-in-last-5-months/">11th Brazilian activist to be murdered</a> since November 2017. </p>
<p>Franco’s murder remains unsolved, but she was an outspoken critic of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/caught-between-police-and-gangs-rio-de-janeiro-residents-are-dying-in-the-line-of-fire-83016">military occupation</a> of Rio’s poor, mostly black favela neighborhoods. The ongoing police investigation <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Politicians-Involved-in-Murder-of-Brazilian-Activist-Marielle-Franco-Security-Minister-20180811-0001.html">has implicated government agents in the shooting</a>, which also killed her driver.</p>
<p>Her death unleashed an avalanche of <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=45677">activism among black women</a> in Rio de Janeiro, with new groups offering fundraising and political training for female candidates of color. </p>
<p>On Sunday, 231 black women from Rio de Janeiro state will stand for election in local, state and federal races – <a href="https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/amp/eleicoes/rio-de-janeiro-e-o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-negras-concorrendo-em-2018/">more than any other state in Brazil</a> and more than double the number who ran in 2014.</p>
<h2>Black representation from Rio to Atlanta</h2>
<p>Black women may have been historically excluded from Brazil’s formal political arena, but they have been <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6ACA0ZqWwbgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=negras+in+brazil&ots=DYdpFPh_Si&sig=F2-wMwPUDIN_IfmwOxkrM371Cqw#v=onepage&q=negras%20in%20brazil&f=false">a driving force for social and political change</a> since the country’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422295">transition from dictatorship to democracy</a> in 1985. </p>
<p>Decades before #MeToo, Brazilian women of color were <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-metoo-brazilian-women-rise-up-against-racism-and-sexism-89117">on the front lines of activism around issues</a> like gender-based violence, sexual harassment and abortion.</p>
<p>Brazil has hundreds of black women’s groups. Some, including <a href="https://www.geledes.org.br/">Geledes</a>, a center for public policy, <a href="https://www.revistas.ufg.br/fchf/article/viewFile/9102/6274">are mainstays</a> of the Brazilian human rights movement. The founder of the Rio de Janeiro anti-racism group <a href="http://criola.org.br">Criola</a>, Jurema Werneck, is now the director of Amnesty International in Brazil. </p>
<p>The fact that thousands of black women, both veteran activists and political newcomers, will appear on the ballot on Sunday is testament to their efforts. </p>
<p>As in the United States, black Brazilian women’s demand for political representation is deeply personal. They have watched as their mostly male and conservative-dominated congresses chipped away at hard-won protections for <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/equal-rights-amendment-illinois-constitution/">women</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/us/voting-rights-minorities.html">people of color</a> in recent years, exposing the fragility of previous decades’ progress on race and gender. </p>
<p>Black women in Brazil and the U.S. know that full democracy hinges on full participation. By entering into politics, they hope to foster more inclusive and equitable societies for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kia Lilly Caldwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Brazil, a record 1,237 black women will stand for office in Sunday’s general election. As in the US, their campaigns reflect deep personal concern about rising racism and sexism in politics.Kia Lilly Caldwell, Professor, African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022832018-08-30T13:42:59Z2018-08-30T13:42:59ZBrazil’s democracy is on the ropes – and now a dreaded election begins<p>This year’s Brazilian election is entering a decisive phase. With official television advertising beginning on August 31, voters will be bombarded by electoral messages for 50 minutes every evening, forcing them to think about their options for president, governor, and members of congress and the state legislatures from now until October 4. And the choices are far from easy.</p>
<p>The most popular presidential candidate, former president <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/05/world/americas/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-fast-facts/index.html">Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva </a>, is serving prison time on corruption charges and unlikely to be allowed to run; the next most popular candidate, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-presidential-candidate-trump-parallels">Jair Bolsonaro</a>, has been compared to none other than Donald Trump, a comparison he seems almost to embrace. Observers worry that he could not only finish in the top two in the first round of the election on October 7, but even win the runoff three weeks later to capture the presidency.</p>
<p>But disturbing as Bolsonaro might be, he is not the root cause of Brazil’s democratic atrophy. His emergence owes a lot to the disastrous developments of the last few years, and is indicative of a deepening democratic crisis.</p>
<p>In their book, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/jan/21/this-is-how-democracies-die">How Democracies Die</a>, the political scientists Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that democracies depend on informal rules of mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. Mutual toleration ensures that candidates and other political actors recognise each other as legitimate rivals, not existential threats; institutional forbearance is restraint from using one’s full legal or organisational prerogatives so as not to endanger the system, respecting the spirit as well as the letter of the law. And like other beleaguered democracies, Brazil has seen both of these dwindling in recent years.</p>
<p>One example that sticks out is the behaviour of the losing candidate in the last presidential election, Aécio Neves. After the incumbent president, Dilma Rousseff, won <a href="https://theconversation.com/victorious-rousseff-must-now-pull-together-a-deeply-divided-brazil-33032">a narrow victory</a> in the second round runoff, Neves refused to accept the result; through his party, the PSDB (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy), he demanded that the Supreme Electoral Court conduct an audit of the vote count. The court found no fraud, and a year later, Neves’ own party reached the same conclusion – but a dangerous precedent had been set.</p>
<h2>The slippery slope</h2>
<p>A year or so later, the opposition set about impeaching Rousseff. In a series of manoeuvres that were legally permissible but of dubious legitimacy, the opposition impeached the president on the grounds that she had <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-brazilian-president-dilma-rousseffs-real-crime-59363">violated the law in administering the federal budget</a>, even though she only did what many others in similar positions had done.</p>
<p>Decided in August of 2016 by a vote in the senate and upheld by the president of the Supreme Court, Rousseff’s ultimate <a href="https://theconversation.com/dilma-rousseff-two-views-of-democracy-and-the-battle-for-brazils-future-63668">impeachment and removal from office</a> looked like a punishment for her economic incompetence and loss of a congressional majority, with the budgetary malfeasance a mere pretext. Her successor was her own vice-president, Michel Temer – a man who has gone on to become <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/26/michel-temer-brazils-unpopular-president-avoids-corruption-trial">one of the most unpopular presidents in recent Brazilian history</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s not just elected representatives who’ve shown a lack of toleration and forbearance. The so-called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/brazil-operation-car-wash-is-this-the-biggest-corruption-scandal-in-history">Operation Car Wash</a>, a massive anti-corruption investigation that uncovered a large-scale kickback scheme in the state-owned oil company Petrobras, has empowered a new set of judges, prosecutors, and police investigators, some of whom are overstepping the bounds of their authority in their zeal to root out corruption.</p>
<p>Back in March 2016, Sergio Moro, the federal judge who eventually convicted Lula of corruption in 2017, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/release-tapped-phone-calls-lula-rousseff-deepens-brazil-chaos">released a phone conversation</a> between Rousseff and Lula that had been recorded after the warrant authorizing the wiretap had expired. And in July 2018, when an appeals court judge ordered that Lula be released (a ruling that was quickly overturned) Judge Moro <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/brazil-appeals-court-orders-president-lula-release-180708162958434.html">insisted that the decision was incorrect</a>, despite having no authority to rule on the matter. He may not have violated the letter of the law, but he has behaved more like a partisan politician than an impartial adjudicator of legal cases.</p>
<p>Still, the Workers’ Party also shares the blame for this democratic decline. When campaigning for the presidency, Dilma Rousseff worked hard to frighten poor voters into thinking that her opposition would take away their benefits if she lost; once elected, her government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/14/brazil-taxes-spending-cuts-recession-economy">imposed austerity measures</a>.</p>
<p>More than that, the Workers’ Party has not attempted to distance itself from the systematic corruption that appears to have taken place under its administration from 2003 to 2016, and it has taken no serious steps to repair and renew itself as a political force after an abject few years.</p>
<p>The upshot is the most wide open (and perhaps the most dreaded) presidential contest in Brazil since 1989.</p>
<h2>In the running</h2>
<p>With Lula almost certainly ruled out, the most likely Workers’ Party candidate is current vice-presidential candidate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/06/brazil-workers-party-backup-jailed-presidential-candidate">Fernando Haddad</a>, a former minister of education and mayor of São Paulo. The Workers’ Party will have to introduce Haddad to an electorate that doesn’t know him well, and convince them that he’s Lula’s preferred candidate. The PSDB, meanwhile, is represented by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-psdb/brazils-psdb-picks-sao-paulo-gov-alckmin-to-lead-it-into-2018-race-idUSKBN1E30NA">Geraldo Alckmin</a>, former governor of São Paulo and head of the broadest multi-party coalition in the race. He will have to distance himself from the unpopular Temer and present his administrative experience and lack of charisma as assets rather than liabilities.</p>
<p>Running outside the three major parties (the third being the PMDB of President Temer), former environment minister and senator <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-election-marinasilva/brazil-environmentalist-marina-silva-to-run-for-president-in-2018-idUKKBN1DW0NX">Marina Silva</a> will try to convince voters that she is not only honest but can get things done, while <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-gomes/brazil-presidential-contender-gomes-would-reverse-privatizations-idUSKCN1GS2IL">Ciro Gomes</a>, former governor of Ceará and minister of national integration, will try to reassure voters that he has the temperament to govern.</p>
<p>And then there’s Bolsonaro. A former army captain, he’s a polarising figure: nostalgic for the dictatorship of 1964-85, an advocate of police violence, and hostile to Afro-Brazilians, women and gays. Were he to win, the decline of tolerance and forbearance in Brazilian politics might well accelerate dramatically.</p>
<p>Still, because a presidential candidate must win a majority of the valid votes, forcing first-round winners with less than a majority into a second round runoff, Bolsonaro’s ultimate victory looks less probable. And unlike Donald Trump, Bolsonaro doesn’t have an effective party machine backing him to help get out the vote. But even if Brazil is spared a Bolsonaro presidency, few people will celebrate.</p>
<p>The new government will find itself in a fiscal and political straightjacket, forced to deal with the same old party leaders in Congress and a disgruntled, polarised population. Any new president will inevitably begin to disappoint the electorate as soon as he or she is inaugurated on January 1 2019; their best hope may be to simply try to muddle through.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Pereira has received funding from the Economic and Social Research (ESRC) of the UK and FAPESP, the research council of the state of Sao Paulo.
I am a member of the Council of the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce of Great Britain. </span></em></p>A dejected public and a crowded, unpopular field of candidates make for an unhappy election.Anthony Pereira, Director, King's Brazil Institute, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968452018-08-06T10:38:56Z2018-08-06T10:38:56ZBrazilian evangelicals, swinging hard to the right, could put a Trump-like populist in the presidency<p>Even as the <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/">overall population of Christians in the United States declines</a>, evangelicals have <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/evangelicals-back-donald-trump-in-record-numbers-despite-earlier-doubts-1478689372">become an energetic right-wing voting base</a>, helping President Donald Trump win the presidency in 2016. </p>
<p>In Brazil, where Pentecostal and other <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2013/october/charismatic-renewal-movement.html">charismatic Christian churches</a> are <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/">rapidly gaining members</a>, evangelical voters are only beginning to flex their electoral muscle.</p>
<p>In 1970, 90 percent of Brazil’s population identified as Roman Catholic. By <a href="https://www.ibge.gov.br/estatisticas-novoportal/sociais/populacao/9103-estimativas-de-populacao.html?=&t=destaques">2017</a> just under <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/o-ibge-e-a-religiao-cristaos-sao-86-8-do-brasil-catolicos-caem-para-64-6-evangelicos-ja-sao-22-2/">65 percent</a> did. Evangelicals now make up an estimated <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-lidera-entre-eleitor-evangelico-com-ou-sem-lula-candidato/">27 percent</a> of Brazil’s 208 million people.</p>
<p>As their numbers have grown, so has the evangelical influence over Brazilian politics. My <a href="http://www.cedeplar.ufmg.br/demografia/alunos/231-2016">demographic research in Brazil</a> indicates that this constituency will be a formidable political force in Brazil’s October 2018 presidential election. </p>
<p><iframe id="nWpKU" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nWpKU/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Disillusioned with politics as usual</h2>
<p>Brazil has been in <a href="https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/06/08/brazils_burgeoning_crisis_should_matter_to_americans_103298.html">deep political and economic crisis</a> for three years, leaving many voters fed up with politics as usual.</p>
<p>Shortly into the second presidential term of Dilma Rousseff, in late 2015, a conservative faction in the Brazilian Congress began pushing to <a href="https://theconversation.com/facing-unemployment-austerity-and-scandal-brazil-struggles-to-keep-it-together-71663">impeach the leftist leader</a> on charges of mismanaging the federal budget. In August 2016 Rousseff – the hand-picked successor of the popular progressive president <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva</a> – was officially removed from office.</p>
<p>Her ouster came during a nationwide anti-corruption investigation called <a href="https://infograficos.oglobo.globo.com/brasil/todas-as-fases-da-operacao-lava-jato.html">Operation Car Wash</a>, which has implicated dozens of prominent Brazilian politicians, including Lula. In 2016, the leftist ex-president was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/20/brazil-petrobras-oil-bribery-scandal-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva">charged</a> with accepting a bribe while in office and <a href="https://theconversation.com/presidential-corruption-verdict-shows-just-how-flawed-brazils-justice-system-is-90794">jailed, after appeal, in 2018</a>. </p>
<p>Evangelicals in Brazil’s Congress — who were the driving force behind Rousseff’s ouster — used the allegations against Lula to insinuate that Rousseff’s administration was also corrupt. At Rousseff’s impeachment trial, a <a href="https://apublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Bancadas.html">326-member congressional caucus alliance</a> known as the “<a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2015/10/27/politica/1445980653_786437.html">BBB</a>” for its support of bullets, beef and bibles – in other words, guns, agribusiness and Christianity – voted unanimously to unseat the president. </p>
<p>Their <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-69092018000100501&script=sci_abstract&tlng=pt">reasoning</a>: her administration was an assault on “God, family and the Brazilian people.” </p>
<h2>What the BBB believes</h2>
<p>The BBB caucus has diverse ranks. It includes members of the right-leaning Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, Brazilian Communist Party and even of Rousseff’s own left-wing Workers Party. </p>
<p>But BBB members share some core values. Many attend the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God or the Assemblies of God, two of Brazil’s largest evangelical churches. And all its evangelical caucus members are ardent opponents of <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/11/09/politica/1510258493_477218.html">abortion</a> and <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2017/04/1876035-adao-e-evo-nao-pode-diz-novo-presidente-da-bancada-evangelica.shtml">LGBTQ rights</a>.</p>
<p>The social teachings of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/noticias/2016/01/160120_intolerancia_religioes_africanas_jp_rm">evangelical leaders</a> in Brazil, both in politics and society, are typically provocative. Pentecostal pastors may demonize other religions, particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-brazil-religious-gang-leaders-say-theyre-waging-a-holy-war-86097">traditional Afro-Brazilian faiths</a>. Some have called <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/09/19/politica/1505853454_712122.html">homosexuality a “disease.”</a> </p>
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<p>To combat Brazil’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-biggest-problem-isnt-corruption-its-murder-78014">violent crime rate</a>, which is among the worst in the world, evangelical leaders advocate using the military to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-43079114">police city streets</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-brazilians-believe-that-criminals-have-no-rights-but-a-startling-number-do-75987">punishing drug dealers and other criminals with death</a>.</p>
<p>My recent research confirms studies suggesting that this <a href="http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ts/v29n2/1809-4554-ts-29-02-0009.pdf">strong law-and-order stance</a> has partly driven the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718510000795">growth of evangelical churches</a> in poor urban neighborhoods most affected by crime and the drug trade.</p>
<p>Ostensibly, Brazilian evangelicals are also <a href="https://theconversation.com/mapping-brazils-political-polarization-online-96434">anti-corruption</a> and major supporters of Operation Car Wash. In practice, however, the BBB caucus tends to condemn progressives accused of impropriety while <a href="https://noticias.gospelprime.com.br/feliciano-takayama-evangelicos-favor-temer/">rallying behind conservatives who face corruption charges</a>, including Brazil’s current president Michel Temer.</p>
<p>As a result, many Brazilians consider Rousseff’s ouster more <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-dilma-rousseffs-impeachment-a-coup-or-brazils-window-of-opportunity-59362">coup</a> than impeachment – an ideologically driven attempt to impose a conservative evangelical agenda on Brazilian politics.</p>
<h2>Evangelicals make political inroads</h2>
<p>Evangelicals’ Bible-based pledges to shake up Brazil’s political scene holds some appeal for Brazilians disgusted with years of crime and economic crisis.</p>
<p>In 2016, Rio de Janeiro elected a former evangelical bishop, <a href="https://theconversation.com/rio-de-janeiros-new-evangelical-mayor-could-threaten-the-citys-famed-diversity-68138">Marcelo Crivella</a>, as its mayor. </p>
<p>Brazil’s second-largest city is a famously open place, with a thriving gay scene and active Afro-Brazilian community. Crivella, on the other hand, once referred to Afro-Brazilian religions as “demoniac doctrines” and homosexuality as “a terrible evil.” He has since apologized for those remarks.</p>
<p>In São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, evangelical representation in local government has <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2016/10/bancada-evangelica-quase-dobra-na-camara-municipal-de-sao-paulo.html">nearly doubled</a> in recent years. Today, 13 of 55 São Paulo city council members are evangelical, up from seven in 2015. </p>
<p>Evangelical leaders are now hoping to carry this momentum into the 2018 presidential election.</p>
<p>Their candidate of choice: Rio de Janeiro’s seven-term congressman, <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/10/04/politica/1507147016_167469.html">Jair Bolsonaro</a>. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro is a conservative Catholic, but he <a href="https://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,bolsonaro-mira-em-evangelicos-em-agenda-politica,70002285315">spends a considerable amount of his time on his campaign</a> organizing with evangelical pastors and their congregations.</p>
<p>In line with Congress’s BBB bloc, Bolsonaro <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/03/debate-sobre-armas-projeta-bolsonaro-e-racha-presidenciaveis.shtml">favors easier gun access</a>, which was <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Leis/2003/l10.826.htm">restricted under President Lula</a>, and <a href="https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/bolsonaro-defende-agenda-pro-mercado-mas-nao-detalha-propostas-em-debate/">supports removing regulations on business</a> to boost the economy. </p>
<p>His policy proposals are vague – Bolsonaro himself <a href="https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/exclusivo-nao-entendo-mesmo-de-economia-afirma-jair-bolsonaro-22908268">professes total ignorance on economic affairs</a> – but they have <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/04/ruralista-troca-alckmin-por-bolsonaro-e-diz-que-tempo-de-tucano-passou.shtml">garnered the support</a> of Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector. </p>
<h2>Echoes of Trump</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro is most famous for being inflammatory. </p>
<p>He verbally assaulted <a href="https://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/pela-terceira-vez-bolsonaro-e-condenado-a-indenizar-maria-do-rosario">a congresswoman who disagreed with him</a>, saying, she didn’t even “deserve to be raped” by him because she was “terrible and ugly.” Bolsonaro has repeatedly <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/pgr-denuncia-deputado-jair-bolsonaro-por-racismo.ghtml">denigrated black Brazilians</a> and said that <a href="http://rr.sapo.pt/especial/103851/pro-tortura-misogino-homofobico-bolsonaro-pode-ser-presidente-do-brasil">he would rather</a> his son be dead than be gay. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro has also <a href="https://www.revistaforum.com.br/jair-bolsonaro-erro-da-ditadura-foi-torturar-e-nao-matar/">proclaimed that Brazil’s military dictatorship</a>, which lasted from 1964 to 1985, should have killed rather than merely tortured dissenters. He applies the same hard-line theory to how Brazilian police should fight crime. </p>
<p>Such remarks would seem to contradict the evangelical creed of moral conduct. </p>
<p>But Bolsonaro’s “tough guy” demeanor has actually attracted a dedicated following of evangelical supporters, much as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-evangelicals-idUSKCN1280WE">Donald Trump did during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign</a>. The more media backlash Bolsonaro’s non-traditional campaign receives, the more his voters <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/es/2018/07/27/opinion-pires-jair-bolsonaro-brasil/?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyt-es&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection">rally behind him</a>. </p>
<h2>A presidential race up in the air</h2>
<p>Bolsonaro is currently polling in third place for the presidency, with <a href="http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2018/06/1971537-sem-lula-bolsonaro-so-e-superado-por-brancos-e-nulos.shtml">roughly 19 percent total voter support</a> and <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-lidera-entre-eleitor-evangelico-com-ou-sem-lula-candidato/">strong evangelical backing</a> of up to 28 percent.</p>
<p>“Null vote” – a common form of abstention in Brazil, where voting is mandatory – is in second place in the polls. Ex-president Lula, who will likely not be allowed to stand for election from jail, is still consistently polling in first place. </p>
<p>If Lula does not appear on the ballot, <a href="https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/sem-lula-bolsonaro-mantem-lideranca-na-corrida-presidencial/">several polls</a> show Bolsonaro <a href="https://www.poder360.com.br/datapoder360/datapoder360-bolsonaro-lidera-com-20-mas-tem-65-de-rejeicao/">leading</a> in October’s election. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro has struck a more <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/631952886/dictatorship-was-a-very-good-period-says-brazil-s-aspiring-president">conciliatory tone</a> of late, as his campaign has gained strength. But he continues to paint himself as an outsider who will challenge the political status quo, despite his nearly three decades in Congress. </p>
<p>For many fed-up Brazilian voters, vague promises of economic growth, clean government and a crime crackdown may be enough to win him the presidency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96845/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter David Arnould Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brazil’s evangelical Christians are an increasingly powerful political force. These conservative, faith-based voters are now backing a divisive firebrand known for racist remarks for the presidency.Peter David Arnould Wood, Postdoctoral Fellow in Demography, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956342018-05-16T10:27:00Z2018-05-16T10:27:00ZBrazilian candidate still crushing his rivals from jail<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218856/original/file-20180514-100716-1ppd2gf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With over a dozen candidates and an incarcerated front-runner, Brazil's 2018 presidential election has political analysts shrugging their shoulders.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Leo Correa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It would be hard to overstate the prominence of former president <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/05/world/americas/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-fast-facts/index.html">Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva</a> in Brazil. The founder of the left-wing Workers’ Party, this former union leader – who goes by “Lula” – has dominated Brazilian politics for the last 30 years. </p>
<p>Lula was a top contender in the 1989, 1994 and 1998 elections. He <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2002/10/27/actualidad/1035669603_850215.html">won the presidency in 2002</a> and was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election/brazils-lula-wins-second-term-with-landslide-idUSN1233058620061029">re-elected by a landslide in 2006</a>. Leaving office with an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-12-19/brazil-s-lula-leaves-office-with-83-approval-rating-folha-says">80 percent approval rating</a>, he helped get his protege Dilma Rousseff <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president">elected to succeed him</a> in both 2010 and 2014. </p>
<p>Now Lula is a <a href="https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticias/2018/03/06/lula-lidera-pesquisa-aponta-cntmda-sem-petista-bolsonaro-fica-em-1.htm">clear favorite</a> for Brazil’s October 2018 presidential election. There’s just one problem: He’s in jail. </p>
<p>On July 21, 2018, a Brazilian appeals court sentenced the former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/presidential-corruption-verdict-shows-just-how-flawed-brazils-justice-system-is-90794">to 12 years in prison for corruption</a> – a polarizing and controversial verdict Lula supporters see <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">as a politically motivated</a> attempt to derail his campaign.</p>
<p>In theory, Lula can still run. Brazil’s “Clean Slate” statute forbids candidates with criminal convictions upheld on appeal to run for office, but <a href="https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/03/26/politica/1522086274_176444.html">conflicting legal interpretations</a> leave some room for doubt. The Superior Electoral Court has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-brazil-lula-politics-20180126-htmlstory.html">not yet vetoed his candidacy</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582007000200002">Brazilian</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=hXzvfn8AAAAJ&hl=pt-BR">political scientists</a>, however, we believe Lula’s chances of actually competing in October are slim. With <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-08/free-market-champions-bid-for-brazil-presidency-as-left-reels">12 candidates</a> and no front-runner, this is Brazil’s most unpredictable election since it <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21636059-investigation-human-rights-abuses-names-culprits-far-too-late-final-reckoning">transitioned from dictatorship to democracy</a> in the 1980s.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>Brazil has a <a href="http://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-brazils-political-parties-watch-2018">high number of political parties</a> – 35 at last count. Even so, presidential elections here have traditionally been rather predictable. </p>
<p>The two-round election counterbalances the centrifugal forces of the country’s multiparty system, allowing <a href="http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/esd/esd01/esd01e/esd01e01">parties to regroup around the two leading candidates for the run-off</a>. In the last six presidential elections, the two biggest parties – Lula’s Workers’ Party and the conservative Social Democratic Party of Brazil – have ultimately faced off.</p>
<p>With October’s election approaching quickly, the Workers’ Party faces a serious dilemma. </p>
<p>Party leaders could continue to back Lula’s candidacy as long as the electoral court allows it. If he is ultimately disqualified, they could then ask his base to shift their support to a replacement candidate. </p>
<p><a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/datafolha-aponta-que-29-votariam-em-candidato-indicado-por-lula.ghtml">Polls show that two out of three</a> Lula supporters would vote for whoever he endorses. But if Lula is disqualified late in the campaign, Workers’ Party voters would have little time to get to know whomever is tapped to replace him.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the party could decide that Lula’s candidacy is a lost cause and ask the former president to endorse another candidate now. We believe that is improbable, though, since Workers’ Party leaders would be leery of showing their base a sign of weakness. </p>
<p>The strongest candidate with any chance of appealing to Lula voters is <a href="http://www.americasquarterly.org/content/10-candidates-who-could-become-brazils-next-president">Ciro Gomes</a>, of the centrist Democratic Labor Party. But Gomes, a maverick, seems determined to distance himself from the Workers’ Party and its towering founder.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s unpredictable race</h2>
<p>The Workers’ Party isn’t alone in struggling this campaign season.</p>
<p>President Michel Temer, who rose to power after Dilma Rousseff’s 2015 impeachment and has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/world/americas/brazil-temer-corruption-janot.html">also been charged with corruption</a>, is <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/04/temer-e-reprovado-por-70-dos-brasileiros-mesmo-com-esforco-por-popularidade.shtml">extremely unpopular</a>. Almost half of the population saw <a href="https://www.ocafezinho.com/2017/11/15/pesquisa-ibope-confirma-que-impeachment-foi-golpe/">Rousseff’s impeachment as a coup d'etat</a> orchestrated by him. Temer’s painful austerity measures, pushed through during a deep recession, alienated pretty much everyone else. </p>
<p>With an approval rating in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/latin-america-s-most-unpopular-presidency-grinds-to-standstill">single digits</a>, the president <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/de-olho-na-presidencia-meirelles-se-filia-ao-mdb-de-temer/">will likely not run for re-election</a>.</p>
<p>Former São Paulo governor Geraldo Ackmin, who is representing Brazil’s mainstream conservative <a href="https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/psdb-entregara-programa-de-governo-temer-que-preve-parlamentarismo-19215825">Brazilian Social Democratic Party</a>, is languishing, too. He scored <a href="http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2018/04/1965039-preso-lula-mantem-lideranca-em-disputa-pela-presidencia.shtml">just 8 percent in the latest poll</a>. Ackmin and other key party figures are enmeshed in the <a href="https://www.cartamaior.com.br/?/Editoria/Politica/14-escandalos-de-corrupcao-envolvendo-Aecio-o-PSDB-e-aliados/4/32017">same nationwide corruption scandal that took down Lula</a>, though none have been convicted or arrested. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218860/original/file-20180514-100716-30kr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brazil’s deeply unpopular President Michel Temer, who has been accused of corruption, is a liability for any candidate associated with him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eraldo Peres</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even the Brazilian media, which typically <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0094582X18767429">throws its weight behind the leading candidate</a>, is scrambling this election season. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, most newspapers seemed to settle on a popular talk show host, Luciano Huck, who was <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/02/1954910-aliados-ja-trabalham-pela-candidatura-luciano-huck-a-presidencia.shtml">eyeing a presidential bid</a>. But in early February <a href="http://www.valor.com.br/politica/5324685/huck-desiste-de-ser-candidato-presidencia">he dropped out of the race</a>.</p>
<p>Then columnists began <a href="http://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/politica/noticia/7404356/bolsonaro-lidera-corrida-presidencia-cenario-sem-lula-mostra-pesquisa-marina">praising former Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa</a>. He became something of a media star a few years back when he convicted several Workers’ Party officials in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20764518">a high-profile corruption case</a>. </p>
<p>But in early May, Barbosa, too, <a href="https://veja.abril.com.br/blog/radar/joaquim-barbosa-desiste-de-candidatura-a-presidencia/">withdrew his bid</a>.</p>
<h2>A reminder of the dictatorship</h2>
<p>If any candidate really stands out from the crowd, it is Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a staunchly pro-gun, anti-abortion <a href="http://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/noticias/tudo-o-que-voce-sempre-quis-saber-sobre-bolsonaro-mas-tinha-medo-de-perguntar/">former military commander</a>. But the media seems to view him as too outrageous to rally behind. </p>
<p>In April, Bolsonaro was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/world/americas/brazil-president-candidate-hate.html">charged</a> with “inciting hatred” for his verbal attacks on women, gay people and minorities. He often speaks with nostalgia of the military dictatorship that governed Brazil from 1964 to 1985. </p>
<p>The Economist has <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21731190-can-right-wing-demagogue-win-next-years-election-jair-bolsonaro-hopes-be-brazils-donald">dubbed Bolsonaro</a> “Brazil’s Donald Trump.”</p>
<p>Throughout the campaign, Bolsonaro has trailed only Lula. Roughly 15 percent of Brazilians say they <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election-poll/brazils-presidential-race-up-for-grabs-with-lula-out-poll-shows-idUSKBN1FK1HA">plan to vote for him</a>. </p>
<p>Lula’s exit should give him a boost. But Bolsonaro’s greatest weakness is his extremism. In a two-round electoral process like Brazil’s, as history shows, the candidate who <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp7561.pdf">captures the middle wins</a>. </p>
<h2>Enter the outsider?</h2>
<p>In an election year when both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/brazil-operation-car-wash-is-this-the-biggest-corruption-scandal-in-history">mainstream parties are battling corruption allegations</a>, some candidates are conspiring to paint themselves as outsiders.</p>
<p>Marina Silva, an evangelical environmentalist <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election-marinasilva/brazil-environmentalist-marina-silva-to-run-for-president-in-2018-idUSKBN1DW0NZ">now in her third presidential bid</a>, has long presented herself as a political outsider who could bring change to Brazil. Even Bolsonaro, who has served in Congress for 30 years, touts his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-presidential-candidate-trump-parallels">credentials as a military man</a>.</p>
<p>That’s a reasonable electoral strategy this year. But since neither Silva nor Bolsonaro is backed by a mainstream political party, they will lack the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-election/brazil-election-campaign-fund-not-big-enough-judge-says-idUSKBN1CC037">funding</a>, TV and radio <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/americas/brazils-politicians-often-play-the-clown-in-ads.html">ad time</a> and campaign infrastructure to reach all Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest country. </p>
<p>After four years <a href="http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-41780226">of protracted political crisis</a>, many hope the 2018 election – when Brazilians will choose not just their president but also congressional representatives and governors – will give Brazilian democracy a much-needed restart. </p>
<p>But, given the circumstances, that seems like a long shot.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95634/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leftist former President Lula da Silva is the clear favorite in Brazil’s 2018 presidential race, leading his closest rival — a firebrand conservative — by 15 points. The only problem: He’s in jail.João Feres Júnior, Professor of political science, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)Fabio Kerche, Political science researcher, Fundação Casa de Rui BarbosaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.