Brazil election: is Jair Bolsonaro preparing to stage a coup?
Opposition candidate now ‘clear favourite’ to win, but Bolsonaro’s behaviour is still cause for alarm
Is Jair Bolsonaro preparing to stage a coup? It’s starting to look that way, said Fernando de Barros e Silva in Folha de São Paulo. Last week, Brazil’s far-right president marked his country’s independence day by staging a huge rally in São Paulo. Addressing 140,000 supporters, he repeated his previous attacks on the integrity of Brazil’s electronic voting system, and lashed out at the Supreme Court, vowing to no longer follow its rulings.
He also launched a bitter verbal assault on one of the court’s justices, who incurred his wrath by authorising several probes into his conduct, including to examine whether he has committed a crime by spreading fake news about the risk of fraud in next year’s presidential elections. But it was his uncompromising language that really set alarm bells ringing. “I will never be jailed,” vowed the 66-year-old former army captain. “Only God will oust me.”
I wouldn’t worry too much about his rantings, said Ricardo Kertzman in Istoé (São Paulo). Sure, they might help rally his predominantly white, older, “well-nourished” base, but the people at his speeches don’t represent most Brazilians, 51% of whom are black or brown, and 25% of whom are aged 15-29. As for rumours that his supporters might storm the Supreme Court in an echo of January’s Capitol Hill riots in Washington – well, that didn’t happen.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Most Brazilians are more preoccupied with the country’s 14% unemployment rate, soaring food prices, and the government’s egregious mishandling of the pandemic than with Bolsonaro’s populist bluster. And his poll ratings are plummeting: just 24% of voters approve of him, the lowest level since he took office in 2019.
The opposition candidate, the left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is now “clear favourite” to win next year’s vote, said Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly (New York). Yet Bolsonaro’s behaviour is still cause for alarm. His ability to attract large crowds shows his supporters buy into his claims that he is not to blame for Brazil’s ills. And his “all-or-nothing strategy” (he recently said he has “three alternatives... being arrested, getting killed or winning”) risks plunging the country into a constitutional crisis if he refuses to relinquish power.
Luckily, there’s no sign that Brazil’s generals would back efforts by Bolsonaro to return the country to a military dictatorship of the kind that ruled from 1964 until 1985, said The Economist. But it’s clear he won’t shy away from challenging next year’s results, perhaps by deploying “angry mobs” with “cavalier” attitudes towards democracy.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Quiz of The Week: 18 – 24 OctoberQuiz Have you been paying attention to The Week’s news?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Will Grace Wales Bonner change Hermès for the better?Podcast Plus will nuclear fusion deliver us from climate change? Is humour the best way to take on Trump?
-
The week’s best photosIn Pictures A fluffy hug, a toppled tower, and more
-
What is Donald Trump planning in Latin America?Today’s Big Question US ramps up feud with Colombia over drug trade, while deploying military in the Caribbean to attack ships and increase tensions with Venezuela
-
Gaza’s reconstruction: the steps to rebuildingIn The Spotlight Even the initial rubble clearing in Gaza is likely to be fraught with difficulty and very slow
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
-
Remaking the military: Pete Hegseth’s war on diversity and ‘fat generals’Talking Point The US Secretary of War addressed military members on ‘warrior ethos’
-
Russia is ‘helping China’ prepare for an invasion of TaiwanIn the Spotlight Russia is reportedly allowing China access to military training
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
Brazilian ‘bandit bill’ prompts mass protests over potential Bolsonaro pardonIN THE SPOTLIGHT Efforts to evade consequences for an attempted coup and civic unrest have pushed thousands into the streets
-
Passing sentence in Brazil: the jailing of Jair BolsonaroIn the Spotlight In convicting Brazil’s former president, its Supreme Court has sent a powerful message about democratic accountability – but the victory may be only temporary