WHAT’S THE STORY?
HE has been dubbed “the Trump of the Tropics” by critics but won 55% of support at the polls.
Yesterday Brazil’s new president-elect Jair Bolsonaro promised to unite a country where divisions have deepened as a result of his election.
WHO IS BOLSONARO?
ONCE derided as a joke for his extreme views, the former army captain, torture supporter and Augusto Pinochet fan ran on an anti-corruption ticket and has pledged to cut crime, despite suggesting that he will relax gun ownership laws to ensure that every “honest citizen” can have one.
Pro-life and pro-business, he has also indicated that he will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Accord on climate change, sparking fears for the future of the Amazon rainforest.
That position changed last week, but the u-turn has done little to assuage concerns over land use, protection for forests and more.
However, much of his newly-carved international reputation rests on his incendiary remarks.
LIKE WHAT?
WHERE to begin?
The long list has attracted derision and condemnation over sexist, racist and homophobic content.
The father-of-five said the birth of his daughter was a result of a “weakness” and, in 2014, told federal deputy Maria do Rosario: “I would not rape you because you are not worthy of it.”
He stated that he would “hit” any men he saw kissing in the street and, in 2011, declared that he would prefer that his son “die in a car accident than be gay”.
In a campaign speech last year, he criticised the weight of Brazilians of African descent, continuing: “They don’t do anything. They don’t even serve to reproduce.”
In 1998, Bolsonaro opined that Chilean dictator Pinochet “should have killed more people”, and, on his country’s own political history, he stated: “The situation of the country would be better today if the dictatorship had killed more people.”
SO THE TRUMP COMPARISON?
IT’S based on that same right-wing orientation, outspoken nature and seeming disregard for the concerns of his political critics, including ordinary citizens – after all, Trump is the president who would “grab ‘em by the pussy”.
But Brazilian writer Alex Hochuli argues that his country’s new leader is “worse than Trump”.
In a piece for NBC News, Hochuli stated: “His idolisation of violence and promises to greenlight extrajudicial killings brings him closer to the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte than to the current US president.
“An editorial in the New York Times put Bolsonaro and Trump in the same league, but the US is led by a politician who still enacts policy within the bounds of the law, in and through American institutions. ‘Trump of the Tropics’ is a gross misnomer.”
WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL REACTION TO THE ELECTION RESULT?
THE “Bolsonaro of the North” has responded very positively. Trump tweeted: “Had a very good conversation with the newly elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who won his race by a substantial margin. We agreed that Brazil and the United States will work closely together on Trade, Military and everything else! Excellent call, wished him congrats!”
The UK’s Independent title declared “fascism has arrived” in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.
And at home, Monica Iozzi, former host of political humour programme CQC, said her team was wrong to give him so much airtime as he built his support base.
On Instagram, she said they had invited him on “so that people could see the very low level of parliamentarians we were electing”. She said: “We never imagined that many people would identify themselves. I regret having interviewed him so often.”
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