Latin Analysis: The Fall of Jair Bolsonaro
Andressa Anholete
In mid-February, ex-president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was formally charged with engineering an attempted coup alongside thirty-three other individuals, to remain in power after the 2022 election. Despite accusations by Bolsonaro himself that this was nothing more than political persecution, the Supreme Court decided at the start of this week to proceed with his trial. This strategy involved the planned poisoning of Bolsonaro’s successor and current president, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and the murder of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. This plot aimed to “bring down the systems of the powers and the democratic order” in the so-called ‘Green and Yellow Dagger’ plan, which had Bolsonaro’s support. The objective of this was clear; prevent Bolsonaro from having to leave office and overturn the result of the 2022 election. But why did this come about? How has Jair Bolsonaro had such a fall from grace?
October 2022- the trigger:
The 2022 presidential election, which was the catalyst for the attempted coup, signaled the beginning of the end for Jair Bolsonaro’s career in public office. Lula da Silva marginally secured victory in the second-round run-off in October, winning 50.9 per cent of the vote compared to 49.1 per cent for Bolsonaro. Although this election result was “the smallest difference ever recorded in Brazilian history since 1989”, Bolsonaro became the first president of Brazil since the reelection model was introduced in 1998 to not win a second term. It appeared that Lula’s platform of protecting the vulnerable, championing indigenous rights, and cracking down on deforestation was more popular with voters, in comparison with Bolsonaro’s religiously conservative, culture war agenda.
It seems that Bolsonaro was preparing for his eventual loss for some time, frequently stoking fears about electoral fraud and spreading misinformation to undermine the veracity of Lula da Silva’s victory during the campaign. Then, faced with the reality of a new Lula-led administration, many feared that Bolsonaro would refuse to concede. However, after days of silence following Lula’s victory speech, Bolsonaro made a two-minute speech in which he stated that “[a]s president and as a citizen, I’ll continue to follow our constitution” and then disappeared.
As well as the plot to take out Lula da Silva and the Supreme Court Justice, widespread civil disobedience erupted in the aftermath of the election result. Roadblocks were erected in all but two states in the country by Bolsonaro’s supporters, which were described as posing significant risk to national security, disruption to public life as well as food supply chains. Defying orders by the Supreme Court to clear the blockades, protestors surrounded a regional military facility, calling on the armed forces to reimpose Bolsonaro. At one point during the protests, Bolsonaro’s supporters “threatened to paralyze the country with more than 1,000 blocked highways and roads”, even though many of the key allies of the ex-president had already conceded his defeat.
Why did Bolsonaro miss out on a second term?
The impact of Bolsonaro, the so-called ‘Trump of the Tropics’, cannot be underestimated. Despite only surviving one term, his footprints have left deep imprints on Brazilian public life. He is most likely, however, to be remembered for his Covid-19 response. Over 600,000 Brazilians died during the pandemic, but research has demonstrated that thousands of these fatalities were avoidable.
President Bolsonaro opposed mask-wearing, social distancing, continued to interact closely with the public, and spread dangerous misinformation about the virus. He ignored World Health Organization guidelines and attempted to block congressional and local government attempts to adopt covid measures. Offers of vaccines were ignored, with unproven drugs sent out for use on patients. At the end of 2020, federal bodies in the Amazonas state pleaded with the central government to restock rapidly waning oxygen supplies, but this was not provided, leading to many deaths. Indigenous communities were also provided with these unapproved drugs, and no strategy was implemented to protect these groups until the Supreme Court demanded that the government do something. The health system was on the verge of collapse, hundreds of patients died on trolleys and hospital floors, with some patients being tied up for intubation due to a lack of anesthetics. Meanwhile, the President told people to “stop whining”.
It seems that Bolsonaro’s irresponsible and negligent pandemic response was motivated by his desire for herd immunity by rapid contagion, but this came at a heartbreakingly high price for the population, disproportionately affecting black Brazilians and the poor. Alongside an almost non-existent public health policy, there was little economic support for the public, with income support programs ending just as the pandemic accelerated. This created the perfect storm, leaving many Brazilians destitute.
Total Covid Deaths in brazil (Thousands of deaths)
Another key part of Bolsonaro’s legacy will be his penchant for authoritarian and conservative governance, which may be unsurprising given the affinity he often expressed for the previous Brazilian military dictatorship. There was a significant roll-back in LGBTQIA+ rights and gender equality under his premiership, accompanied by his explicitly homophobic political rhetoric. There was an increase in homophobic attacks during the Bolsonaro years, with a survey by Gênero e Número tracking violence against LGBTQ during the 2018 presidential campaign demonstrating that “[a]t least 92% [of participants] claimed that such violence increased following the election of president Bolsonaro.” Jean Wyllys, one of the country’s first openly gay congressmen, resigned from his post and fled Brazil following Bolsonaro’s victory fearing for his life. In terms of his authoritarian style of leadership, he encouraged Brazil’s police force to “kill with impunity” to reduce violent crime rates, causing police killings to skyrocket. For example, “in the first four months of 2020, Rio police, by their own count, killed 606 people”, with this increase in police brutality disproportionately impacting the black male population.
Despite increasingly authoritarian and violent governance and policing, as well as his negligent covid policies with such high human costs, Bolsonaro only lost out to Lula by a tiny margin. Thus, it is possible that the election was decided by small issues, such as the organization of Bolsonaro’s campaign. One the one hand, Lula constructed a broad coalition with wide-ranging support across the political spectrum. In contrast, Bolsonaro ran a “remarkably undisciplined campaign and failed to reach out to core constituencies.” For example, Bolsonaro utilized his wife Michelle to win support from female voters, but then attacked a well-known female journalist during the campaign, as well as making inappropriate comments about underage girls during an interview. Many comment that this – in all likelihood- put off many Brazilian women from supporting the conservative candidate. Bolsonaro failed to reach those outside his circle of defenders, which, combined with his complex and dark legacy, cleared the way for Lula’s victory.
Bolsonaro has not given up on his dream of returning to power in Brazil, taking comfort in the recent comeback of Donald Trump in the United States. However, the path to the presidency appears to be long and complex for Bolsonaro, especially given the current criminal charges and a ban preventing him from seeking office again until 2030. Additionally, his support base appears to be waning. A few weeks ago, he called for a million of his supporters to gather in protest of the judicial proceedings he was being faced with. However, it was reported that the rally was noticeably smaller than a similar event held the year before. Without mass support, it will be nigh on impossible for the ‘Trump of the Tropics’ to bounce back from the events of the last few years. However, given recent political events, anything could happen.
