October 2018

1-The context

2-The far-right wing candidate: Jair Bolsonaro

3-The campaign

1-The context

Prolonged recession, rising crime rates and widespread corruption scandals were the social, economic and political components which surrounded the last General Elections in Brazil. The results: after one of the most polarizing and violent political campaigns in the country’s history, the candidate Jair Bolsonaro (extreme right party) defeat his opponent, the leftwing candidate Fernando Haddad.

2-The candidate antecedents

Jair Bolsonaro has a long career in the Brazilian Congress, where he endorsed practices against the Democratic System, supporting the military dictatorship (1964-1985), considering tortures as “heroes”. According to J. Bolsonaro, the mistake they did was not killed prisoners; police should have “carte blanche” to kill them.

3- The presidential campaign

The new Brazilian president won the elections based on a message built on pure violence: he said that “we will shoot” Workers Party supporters and told “leftist outlaws” to either leave the country or find themselves in jail. Between his promises, during his presidency he will act against civil society organizations and penalize critical media.

Through the presidential campaign, he attacked to limits never seen in the history of this democratic country, ethnics, gender issues and media; his targets were lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, women, and Afro-Brazilians. According to the Human Watch Report, more than140 journalists were openly threatened.

Source: The Guardian, CNN, The Human Rights Watch