Jair Bolsonaro and the Rise of Brazilian Right-Wing Politics
By: Nabila Talitha
Tags: Brazil, Bolsonaro, Latin America

The transformation from Left to Right

Before the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to his current position of president, the political climate of Brazil used to be dominated by the left. The status of Bolsonaro, who is widely known as a far-right president, has indeed raised many questions as to why Brazilians elected a leader who is from the opposite political spectrum from what they usually choose, despite the fact that he proposed several controversial policies, including ones that might harm the minority populations and the environment (Kirby, 2019). The possible reasons behind the Brazilians’ decisions in electing Bolsonaro can be seen from the economic and social aspects.

Economically, Brazil faced a severe economic crisis. It is even known that in the previous administrations, many of the politicians were involved in numerous corruption scandals and led them to jail. The Mensalão scandal was one of the scandals in Brazil that sent many politicians behind bars (Bento, 2018). It is defined as the act of vote-buying meant to bring victory to the presidency in 2003 that was done by the Workers’ Party (The Economist, 2018).

In order for the Latin American countries to be integrated, there should not be any countries left behind due to poor economic performance, whether it is caused by corruption scandals by the government administrations or other reasons. Therefore, choosing a leader from the right-wing party may become one of the steps for Latin American countries, including Brazil, to recover from economic downturns and become integrated.

Massive Political Reform in Latin America

An elected Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president is believed to cause an alteration in Latin America’s political direction and marks the end of leftist government and the “pink tide” wave not only in Brazil but in many Latin American countries. The reason why the role of Brazil is important in triggering a massive political reform in Latin America is that in the past, Brazil is one of the “pink tide” initiators and has shown a good example of how a leftist government could successfully bring prosperity to the people by adopting a moderate leftist approach. Countries that use a moderate leftist approach, such as Brazil and Chile, have industriously maintained checks and balances on the majority rule of liberal democracy and tried to achieve social equity while preserving economic growth and development (Silva, 2011).

In this case, Brazil had successfully become a role model of a good leftist government in the past, before corruption hit the country badly, and an elected Jair Bolsonaro will once again make Brazil an appropriate role model for rightist government because he promises to combat corruption, crimes, and ending economic downfall amid economic and political turmoil in leftist Latin American countries, such as Venezuela and Bolivia.

Jair Bolsonaro as 2018 newly elected Brazil President

Nonetheless, Jair Bolsonaro is not the only triggering factor of upcoming massive political reform in Latin America, there is another thing that feels to have a more significant impact on Latin America’s politics, which is the people. A study conducted by Latin America Economic Outlook in 2018 showed that three out of four Latin Americans show little or no confidence in national government and have very low confidence in the government institutions (Riggirozzi, 2018).

Other than that, the people also have more trust towards armed forces rather than political parties, the figure is 42% over 15% (Riggirozzi, 2018). This notion will hamper the state of democracy in Latin America by favoring more military personnel to occupy government seats, as demonstrated by Bolsonaro’s ambition to restore military-style orders and laws. Further, the aspiration of the people, as reflected by the study of Latin America Economic Outlook, has allowed more conservative figures to run the government in most of the Latin American countries, namely Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.

The idea of post-neoliberalism is closely related to “pink tide” as it tries to fundamentally challenge the role of states stated in Washington Consensus by advocating more states intervention in the market to ensure social welfare (Gruggel and Riggirozzi, 2012). However, the social welfare and the countries’ economy will be disrupted if oil price fluctuates, which is the downside of the post-neoliberal system, as most of the Latin American countries rely heavily on oil.

This consideration has made the right-wing leaders pursue austerity policies, supported by the citizens’ demand to have a protective government which not only cares about the industry but also education, health care, and etc. in order to bring back their trust in the government (Collit, 2018). Hence, regional integration efforts, such as the Union of South American Nations, will not only be limited to economic cooperation in the future as many leaders have decided to shift their focus to take care of corruption, human security, and etc., and not merely industry.