page_title: Jair Bolsonaro
section_title: Presidential campaign (2018)
hierarchical_section_title: Jair Bolsonaro / Political career / Presidential campaign (2018)
caption_attribution_description: Português: (Brasília - DF, 25/04/2019) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro chega ao local da solenidade. Foto: Marcos Corrêa/PR
context_page_description: Jair Messias Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who is the 38th president of Brazil. Elected in 2018 as a member of the conservative Social Liberal Party before cutting ties with them, he has been in office since 1 January 2019. He previously served in the country's Chamber of Deputies, representing the state of Rio de Janeiro between 1991 and 2018.
  Bolsonaro was born in the town of Glicério, in the state of São Paulo. He graduated from the Agulhas Negras Military Academy in 1977 and served in the Brazilian Army's field artillery and parachutist units. He became known to the public in 1986, when he wrote an article for Veja magazine criticizing low wages for military officers, after which he was arrested and detained for fifteen days. One year later, he was accused by the same magazine of planning to plant bombs in military units, which he denied. After a first degree conviction, he was acquitted by the Brazilian Supreme Military Court in 1988. He joined the reserve army in 1988 with the rank of captain and ran for the Rio de Janeiro City Council that same year, being elected while a member of the Christian Democratic Party.
context_section_description: On 22 July 2018, Bolsonaro was officially nominated by the Social Liberal Party (PSL) as its presidential candidate for the 2018 election. Bolsonaro was also endorsed by the Brazilian Labour Renewal Party. His coalition name was "Brazil above everything, God above everyone" (Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos). Though contested by two lawsuits, the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil deferred them and his candidacy was made official on 6 August. Bolsonaro announced in August that Antônio Hamilton Mourão, a retired army general, would be his running mate for the upcoming election.
  According to political pundits, early in the campaign, Bolsonaro moderated his tone, taking a less aggressive and confrontational style. Economically, he started to support the idea of less government intervention in the economy (in contrast to what he had stated in the past, when he defended developmentalists policies). On the other hand, he maintained his tough stance on crime and his defense of "traditional family values". Bolsonaro also said he planned to cut taxes across the board, particularly on inheritances and businesses, in order to generate growth and tackle unemployment. He also promised more austerity measures and cuts in government spending, but had difficulty naming the areas where he would make these cuts. He also mentioned he would work to diminish the size and bureaucracy of the federal government by enacting a wide variety of deregulation measures. Bolsonaro's promises to restore security amid record high crime and to stamp out the country's rampant political corruption won him huge popular support. In October, Bolsonaro announced he would name liberal economist Paulo Guedes to serve as his finance minister.
  On 9 August 2018, he attended the first presidential debate of the year, organized by the TV network Rede Bandeirantes. A week later, there was another debate at RedeTV!. On 28 August, he gave an interview to Jornal Nacional, Brazil's best rated prime time news program, at Rede Globo.
  Jair Bolsonaro was the first candidate for the presidency to raise over R$1 million in donations from the public during the 2018 campaign. In the first 59 days, he amassed an average of R$17,000 per day in donations.
  After the Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was arrested in April 2018, Bolsonaro became the front-runner, according to all major opinion polls, for that year's presidential election. A Datafolha poll from September, for instance, showed Bolsonaro as the leading candidate in the first round with 28% of vote intentions; however, run-off scenarios showed Bolsonaro losing to opponents Geraldo Alckmin, Fernando Haddad and Ciro Gomes and tying with Marina Silva. Another poll from Datafolha, conducted in the week leading up to election day, showed a considerable surge for Bolsonaro, who had 40% of vote intentions, or 36% when null or blank vote intentions were included. Fernando Haddad came in second with 25%, and Ciro Gomes in third with 15%.
  The first round of the election occurred on 7 October 2018. Bolsonaro finished in first place with 46% of the popular vote (or 49.2 million people). Since he failed to win overall 50% of valid votes needed to win outright, he faced the second most voted, Fernando Haddad from the Workers' Party, in a runoff held on 28 October 2018.
  After the first round, when his victory looked certain, Bolsonaro gave a speech by videolink to thousands of supporters who gathered at Paulista Avenue, in São Paulo. In the speech, he threatened to arrest, purge or kill "reds" and "petralhas" (a derogatory term for Worker's Party's members), and promised that members of the social movements MST and MTST would be treated as "terrorists". He said: "This time, the clean-up will be even greater. This group ["reds"], if they want to stay, will have to abide by our laws ... These red outlaws will be banned from our homeland. Either they go overseas, or they go to jail ... Petralhada, you all go to the edge of the beach. It will be a cleaning never seen in the history of Brazil". The "edge of the beach"
caption: Bolsonaro is known for his finger-gun gesture, which he used during the presidential campaign.
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