The 2018 Brazilian elections and the global challenge to democracy

Abstract

Prospects for democracy are looking increasingly grim. With echoes of developments elsewhere, the 2018 Brazilian general election appears to be the latest front in a global challenge to liberal democracy from an emboldened far-right. In a second-round runoff on 28 October, Brazilians elected as their new president, with 55.13 per cent of the vote, Jair Bolsonaro. Ensconced in the country’s Chamber of Deputies for the past three decades, the former army captain managed to paint himself as a political outsider ready to bring about much-needed change. His victory was in part a result of timing, the native Paulista riding a wave of momentous discontent with the current political order. But it was all the more striking – and worrying – for the inflammatory rhetoric and extremist policy positions he and his Social Liberal Party adopted. Hailed in 2009 by The Economist for its impressive economic “take off” in spite of the financial crisis battering other leading economies, Brazil was by 2014 in the midst of its worst recession in three decades. Mired in a severe economic crisis, with 13 million unemployed, growing fiscal deficit, debt-to-GDP and inflation, deterioration of public services, increasing regional polarization and political antagonism, high profile scandals showcasing endemic corruption, and rampant criminality, Brazil was fertile ground for the emergence of a populist political voice. Bolsonaro offered one in a distinctly far-right register. He appears to have learnt the lessons of his antecedents elsewhere: Duterte in the Philippines, Trump in the United States, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orbán in Hungary. Labelled “Trump of the Tropics” by some, he employed many of the same tactics: foment anger at the status quo, mobilize an electoral base through fear, and offer easy, but never fully explained, solutions. In particular, Bolsonaro was skilful in appealing to the political imaginary captured in the motto emblazoned on the country’s flag: “order and progress” were elusive values for many Brazilians and the candidate promised their return. Bolsonaro’s electoral appeal rested on three key issues. First, the economic crisis. Tapping into voters’ justifiable anxieties over the moribund state of the country’s economy and its impact on their daily lives was straightforward enough. Yet his choice of neoliberal Chicago-trained Paulo Guedes as right-hand advisor, soon to be his “super minister” of economy and finance, proved opportune. Guedes promised free-market reforms: privatize publicly-owned enterprises such as Petrobras, Electrobras, and the Bank of Brazil; enact tax cuts; and reform government spending, in particular the pension scheme, identified as the main culprit for the deficit. With such pledges, Bolsonaro saw national and international business elites warm to his candidacy. Capital’s stamp of approval was evident when the stock market soared in the wake of his election victory (in sharp contrast with its reaction to Mexico’s election of the social democratic government of “Amlo”). Bolsonaro’s own record of support for state intervention in the