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Jair Bolsonaro swept to power in Brazil’s presidential election Sunday, marking a hard pivot to the right that promises to open up the resource-rich economy to private investment, strengthen ties to the U.S. and unleash an aggressive crackdown on epidemic crime.
The former army captain trounced Fernando Haddad, a leftist former Sao Paulo mayor whose Workers’ Party became synonymous with graft, winning 56 percent of the vote to Haddad’s 44 percent with almost all votes counted. His supporters thronged public places throughout the fifth-largest nation, celebrating with flags, music and fireworks.
“I make you my witnesses that this government will be a defender of the constitution, of democracy and of freedom,” Bolsonaro told a crowd of supporters in Rio de Janeiro. “This is a promise, not from a party, not the words of a man, it’s an oath to God.”
A little-known lawmaker for almost three decades, Bolsonaro, 63, drew public attention with tough talk. He promised to suppress the nation’s lawlessness by meeting violence with violence, insulted minorities and women, waxed nostalgic for Brazil’s dictatorship and expressed doubts about the electoral process itself. His unforgiving politics places him among nationalists such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Donald Trump in America.
To many, however, he’s the best hope to revive an ailing economy and streamline an inefficient state.
“The biggest risk is an erosion of democracy, though I’m not apocalyptic," said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based network seeking to foster democratic governance and economic development. “The opportunity is that he could stop the economic hemorrhaging.”
His supporters on Sunday weren’t concerned with the finer points of political economy. A crowd surrounding his beachside home in Rio honked horns, sang the national anthem and waved the green-and-yellow flag. The music stopped abruptly when he spoke. One woman said to her husband, "look, the Myth is talking!" and they hustled toward a screen to watch.
“Liberty is a fundamental principle,” Bolsonaro said. “Liberty to walk freely in the streets throughout this country. Political and religious freedom. Liberty to inform and have opinions.”
“As a defender of liberty, I will guide a government that defends and protects the rights of the citizens.”
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