Jair Bolsonaro advances to a runoff in Brazil elections that will present a stark contrast
I’ve previously written at some length about Bolsonaro (“Brazil’s Trump”) here.
Bolsonaro has now advanced to a run-off against left-wing Workers’ Party candidate, Fernando Haddad. Neither managed to get the 50% total needed to have won outright in this first round of the presidential election. The next round is on October 28, and polls supposedly show them even.
More:
Mr Bolsonaro’s once insignificant Social Liberal Party (PSL) is poised to become the largest force in Congress following legislative elections held alongside the presidential vote, in what analysts have described as a seismic shift in Brazilian politics.
The politician and the PSL have ridden a wave of rising anger at the Workers’ Party, which their supporters blame for a prolonged recession, rising violent crime and widespread corruption in South America’s largest economy.
In his victory speech, broadcast live on Facebook and uploaded on to Twitter, he said Brazilians could take the path of “prosperity, liberty, family, on God’s side” or the path of Venezuela…
Across Latin America this has become a popular campaign strategy: don’t vote for the left or you will end up like Venezuela.
Gee whiz, I can’t imagine why they’d think that was a good political ploy. Maybe because people can readily see the terrible example of Venezuela right before their very eyes? Who are they going to believe, though: Fernando Haddad, or their lying eyes?
I remember when CNN was running stories about how great Brazil’s economy was and what we could learn from them. As they say, “Consider the source”.
– Milton Friedman
OK, Hugo Chavez’s daughter Maria would likely disagree. She’s purportedly worth a few billion $US.
Then there’s the Ministry of Truth that ensures that the record of history is an infinitely malleable and frequently hidden thing.
Reports are that the vote for Bolsonaro was especially heavy in the states bordering Venezuela. Not here, they say!
There’s an old saying: Brazil is the country of the Future and always will be.
IThe danger though is that Bolsonaro will rule by fiat, not that he is far right.
That was what set Venezuela down the spiral — like all strongly Left parties, they refused to give up power democratically. If Venezuelans had been able to vote out the Left they wouldn’t have got to where they are now.
Brazil hasn’t had success with authoritarian rule from the right. It starts populist and ends up being dictatorial. The rule by the military using the bogeyman threat of the Communists in the Twentieth Century didn’t go very swimmingly. Better than a far left rule, for sure, but stifling, corrupt and inefficient all the same.
What’s required are real democrats. Slightly leftist ones aren’t as much danger as populist strongmen. Some parts of central America manages to have elections where the Left accepts a loss.
American foreign policy for a long time was to support anyone, no matter how hideous, provided they were anti-communist. It tended to blow up in their face though — Iran for example.
Actually, Brazil’s Trump was Lula.
He was portrayed as extremist and radical, but at the end of the day his policies happened to be quite moderate and extremely pragmatical. He was portrayed as authoritarian but he wasn’t. He boosted the economy and solved problems, in a nutshell he improved the country. And he has been chased by the deep state. His trial was anything but a parody.
With the exception of the final trial (for now), the whole paragraph can be applied to both Lula and Trump.
Bolsonaro, on the contrary, looks like a real fascist. I mean, the real deal. Kind of similar to Peron in Argentina. Problem is: the word ‘fascist’ has been so abused that nobody raises an eyebrow anymore. It’s the old tale of Peter and the Wolf. Not sure, but I guess this could be very well the real wolf.
Reports are that the vote for Bolsonaro was especially heavy in the states bordering Venezuela. Not here, they say!
The recent Presidential elections in Venezuela followed the same trend. The Department of North Santander borders Venezuela. Its capital of Cúcuta is Colombia’s main frontier crossing with Venezuela. Gustavo Petro, the leftist candidate, got 18% of the vote in North Santander. That was Gustavo Petro’s worst result.
The Departments where Gustavo Petro did the best were located the farthest from Venezuela, in the far southwest near Ecuador: Putmayo (69.6%), Cauca (65%) and Nariño (63.9%). Absence from Venezuela does make the Colombian heart grow fonder for leftist candidates. Gustavo Petro used to belong to M-19, a.k.a. 19th of April Movement. That made Gustavo Petro’s repeated denunciations of bloody hands on this part of his political opponents more than hypocritical.
Colombian presidential election, 2018.
Neo, I think your sarcasm is too subtle here at the end:
“Gee whiz, I can’t imagine why they’d think that was a good political ploy. Maybe because people can readily see the terrible example of Venezuela right before their very eyes?”
Who is thinking what is a political ploy?
My take: Bolsonaro is “prosperity, liberty, family, on God’s side” instead of Venezuela. I think this is a huge positive, and the Left guy, Haddad is a ” trusted candidate for those who baulk at Mr Bolsonaro’s style and rhetoric [and] … to reduce inequality and to achieve social justice.” He’s the Venezuela-style SJ guy, and very likely to lose; too bad Bolsonaro didn’t win in the first round.
All the world should be spending much much more time on Venezuela than almost any other story. Rich, democratic, capitalist country going to ruin. Because of social justice policies with terrible results.
It IS happening in Venezuela. It can happen in any democracy, in any market economy. Perhaps more and worse destruction than a war.
(Had Brazil been a plurality “most votes” wins election, it would be closer to US Districts. And the third party candidate causes his closest ally to lose — this is part of why I’m no longer a Libertarian.)
Fascists don’t lower taxes and reduce regulations. But those actions improve virtually any gov’t. The Deranged media calls anybody who is not socialist “far-right”. His actions will show how much like Trump he is AFTER he’s elected.
Haddad, the candidate for Lula’s Workers’ Party, has been circumspect in his comments about Venezuela. Haddad: Brasil deve ajudar Venezuela a encontrar caminho pela democracia (Google Translate, as my Portuguese skills are not that great- though I can generally understand the gist of a face to face conversation in Brazilian Portuguese.)
Mediation attempts in Venezuela have not had any success, as the Chavista mode of “negotiation” is “My way or the highway.” As such, I consider Haddad’s statements about mediation to be nonsense- public relations fluff.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the President of the Workers’ Party, by contrast, has been rather blunt in her support of Maduro. Why does Brazil’s Workers’ Party still support the Maduro regime in Venezuela? (2017)
This may be an example of the head of the party making more extreme, more candid statements than the country’s President associated with that party. I am reminded of Carlos Altamirano, who was head of Allende’s Socialist Party when Allende was President of Chile. Altamirano could be depended on to make as extremist a statement as possible. For example, several days before the coup, he admitted in public that he was behind a failed naval mutiny the previous month. Military people do not like mutinies, it has been observed. Allende, by contrast, was much more careful in his statements.
Though the article I linked to considers Hoffman’s statement more of a tactic to keep support from extreme left of the Workers’ Party, as Hoffman is from the moderate sector of the Workers’ Party.