Jair Bolsonaro: Far-right candidate wins Brazil poll

[dalton99a]

22. Very bad news

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election.html

Reeling from the deepest recession in the country’s history, a corruption scandal that tarnished politicians across the ideological spectrum, and a record-high number of homicides last year, Brazilians picked a candidate who not only rejected the political establishment but at times also seemed to reject the most basic democratic tenets.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s victory caps a bitter contest that divided families, tore friendships apart and ignited concerns about the resilience of Brazil’s young democracy.

Many Brazilians see authoritarian tendencies in Mr. Bolsonaro, who plans to appoint military leaders to top posts and said he would not accept the result if he were to lose. He has threatened to stack the Supreme Court by increasing the number of judges to 21 from 11 and to deal with political foes by giving them the choice of extermination or exile.

He accomplished little in his long legislative career, but his roster of offensive remarks — he said that he’d rather his son die than be gay and that women don’t deserve the same pay as men — was interpreted by many as bracing honesty and evidence of his willingness to shatter the status quo.

“The way he’s run his campaign is very clever,” said Matias Spektor, a professor of international relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas University. “He has managed to align himself with the institutions that Brazilians still believe in: religion, family and armed forces.”

Mr. Bolsonaro, the patriarch of a family from Rio de Janeiro that includes three sons who are also lawmakers, ran an insurgent campaign that defied the political playbook that brought his predecessors to power.

A year ago, Mr. Bolsonaro’s bid was widely regarded by political veterans in Brasília as fanciful in a nation renowned for the cordiality and warmth of its people. Some of the candidate’s remarks were so offensive the country’s attorney general earlier this year charged him with inciting hatred toward black, gay and indigenous people. In a country where most of the population is not white, this alone might have seemed to disqualify him.