Brazil’s Hard Right Turn Under President Jair Bolsonaro
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On New Year’s Day 2019, Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil’s 38th president. He promised to free his country from “socialism and political correctness,” while vowing to tackle corruption, crime, and economic mismanagement in Latin America’s largest nation. While he pledged to obey the Constitution and respect democratic norms, he later stood before a Brazilian flag next to his vice-president, an ex-general, promising Brazilians his eternal allegiance to the “colors green and yellow” (of the Brazilian flag) and “never the color red, I swear upon my own blood.” The crowd shouted in support of “the Captain,” and he replied with his campaign’s rallying call: “Brazil above all, and God above all things.” A retired captain in the Brazilian Army, the sixty-three-year-old served 27 rather undistinguished years in the lower chamber of the Brazilian Congress. He won one of the most polarized elections in Brazilian history, capitalizing on the fact that seven out of ten voters expressed their distrust for politicians, driven by their disgust for the manifest corruption of the political class. Pundits, analysts, and academics weighed in with interpretations of what Bolsonaro’s presidency could portend for Brazil.
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