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Bolsonaro Lost Brazil, But His Brand of Conservatism Lives On
(Bloomberg) -- During the closing stages of the presidential election campaign, Jair Bolsonaro stopped in at the Fraternal Convention of the Assemblies of God in Sao Paulo to tell believers of his prayers, “that our people never suffer the pains of communism.”
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The same day, the implicit target of his address, two-times former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was across town attending a Catholic service for the blessing of dogs to mark the day of Saint Francis of Assisi, protector of animals.
The fact that both candidates kicked off their respective campaigns for the runoff in churches was testament to Brazil’s religiosity, but also to Bolsonaro’s success in fighting the election on his own terms: “God, homeland and family,” was his campaign motto.
Bolsonaro’s half-admission that he’d lost the election almost 48 hours after the fact — “I’ll continue to follow the constitution” — masks an uncomfortable reality for his successor. Yes, Bolsonaro was defeated on Oct. 30, but his brand of right-wing identity politics is now deeply anchored in Brazil.
The fact that Lula won by the narrowest margin in the country’s history shows the deep well of conservative values that pervades Brazilian society, posing the most glaring challenge to his ability to govern for a third term.
“Brazilians are massively conservative, and always have been,” said Nara Pavao, a politics professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Yet until Bolsonaro came along and ran for the presidency in 2018, the elite felt a sense of shame about declaring themselves right wing, she said.
Not any longer. Lula, 77, led in virtually every opinion poll since even before he declared his candidacy, and yet Bolsonaro closed the gap to less than two percentage points, for all his complaints about the electoral system. The result is a Congress stacked with Lula opponents and the country’s three most populous states in opposition control, political realities that will force Lula’s hand.
“The right wing has really emerged in our country,” Bolsonaro, 67, said in his brief appearance on Tuesday. “Our robust representation in Congress shows the strength of our values.”
Brazil’s improving economic outlook undoubtedly played in his favor, with unemployment falling for seven consecutive months and inflationary pressures easing. As the election approached, Bolsonaro reduced taxes, especially on fuel, increased cash handouts paid under a social program, and announced an extra payment for women benefiting from the program in 2023, measures that will prove hard for Lula to unwind.
Negotiations between Lula’s coalition and parties from the bloc that currently supports Bolsonaro are in any case key to building agreements in Congress, which will have a conservative majority from 2023.
Back in 2002, when Lula won the presidency for the first time, the former labor union leader penned an open letter to calm the economic elite frightened by the rise of a leftist candidate. This time, sensing the threat to his comeback, he issued a “Letter of Commitment to Evangelicals,” attempting to assuage fears stirred by Bolsonaro’s campaign that he would corrupt Christian values, stating his personal opposition to abortion and guaranteeing freedom of worship.
It was a belated recognition that the appeal of the religious right has grown under Bolsonaro, in a mixture of politics with religion that Pavao of Pernambuco’s Federal University called a path of no return. That extended to spreading fake news on the campaign, with assertions that Lula would close churches, persecute priests and nuns, and impose a communist system. In his victory speech, Lula repeated his prior assurances on religion.
“Bolsonaro, in addition to conservative issues, brings something of order and progress,” Bia Kicis, a lawmaker from the conservative caucus who was reelected in early October, said before the runoff. “Bolsonaro has awakened in people a sense of patriotism that we never had before.”
“Bolsonarismo is here to stay”
That’s despite the fact his four-year term was hardly plain sailing. Discussion of Brazil’s legions of poor or of his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in more deaths than any other country except the US took a back seat during the campaign. Lula used his victory speech to pledge that Brazil will stop deforestation of the Amazon and end its international isolation, partly self-imposed by the Bolsonaro administration.
During his time in office, Bolsonaro also engaged in a series of brash political stunts that could border on the absurd. In a bid to reverse the first-round deficit, his campaign team advised the president to downplay his characteristic abrasiveness in favor of a more polite and calm demeanor to appeal to moderate voters — guidance with which he evidently struggled to comply.
On Oct. 17, he arrived at the Palacio da Alvorada, his official residence, surrounded by a dozen country singers who took turns at the microphone to declare their support and make suggestions for his re-election. He then held a cabinet meeting with the stars in the presidential palace library, where they discussed campaign strategy for more than three hours, all live-streamed on social media.
That kind of political theater may be a thing of the past. But in an interview two days later with the news website O Antagonista, Bolsonaro struck a more realistic tone, saying there are plenty of supporters willing to defend his values and that he was convinced what he called “this great legacy” will be left for everyone in Brazil. Some 58 million votes is a powerful argument for him to run again in 2026 if he so chooses, especially since Lula has said he’ll only serve for four years.
Bolsonaro is a leader “in terms of antidemocratic politics,” as well as for what he represents, said Federico Finchelstein, a professor of history at the New School for Social Research in New York and an expert on fascism, who sparred with Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo on Twitter during the campaign.
“Bolsonarismo is here to stay,” Finchelstein said.
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