Author: YANG Chuqiao (Master of International Relations, Campinas State University, Brazil / PhD candidate, Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, Macau University of Science and Technology)
On October 28, 2018, "political amateur" Bolsonaro defeated Labor Party rival Fernando Ada with 55.13% of the vote, becoming Brazil's first far-right president since the restoration of civilian rule in 1985. Since his campaign, Bolsonaro has held high the banner of "Antipetismo," criticized the Workers' government, socialism and Marxism, and made the United States a top diplomatic priority in his international affairs. Because of his outstanding personal style and radical governing policies, Bolsonaro has also been dubbed "Brazilian Trump" by Brazilian and foreign media. On October 30, 2022 local time, Bolsonaro defeated Lula in the new presidential election, missing the presidential throne, Trump and "Brazilian Trump" both withdrew after four years in power, and the strong wind of "left in right retreat" swept Latin America again, and Latin American politics sounded the horn to turn left.
Throughout the four years of Bolsonaro's administration, Brazil has become increasingly conservative in politics, economics and diplomacy, and has been criticized by the international community, but it is undeniable that Bolsonaro still has a wide range of supporters among the Brazilian people, and he won more than 58 million votes in this election, losing by only 2 million to Lula, the "son of Brazil" with strong political capital, setting the closest record in the history of the second round of voting in the Brazilian presidential election. After four years in power, what are the successes and failures of Bolsonaro's domestic and foreign affairs? What causes such a divided Brazilian society? With the election result decided, where will Bolsonaro go?
Politically, Bolsonaro, a graduate of military academy and served in the army, admired Brazil's military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, and regarded the far-right theorist Olavo de Carvalho as his spiritual mentor. In his campaign, Bolsonaro positioned himself as an "outsider" — unlike established politicians like Lula, who had no corruption scandals and won the support of right-wing voters in the anti-labor party. Brazil's fight in Brazil was thrown into chaos when the global coronavirus crisis erupted during Bolsonaro's administration, linking the pandemic to politics, dismissing Health Minister Henrique Mandetta, who disagreed with him over the pandemic, and Nelson Teich, an oncologist who took over as health minister, resigned after only one month on the job. In this regard, the world-renowned academic journal "Nature" published an editorial saying that Bolsonaro followed in the footsteps of his "populist colleague" (that is, Trump), ignored the warnings of the scientific community about the new crown virus, questioned the safety and effectiveness of the new crown vaccine, and opposed vaccination. In 2021, under pressure from the centrist party in Congress, Bolsonaro shuffled his cabinet, replacing six key cabinet members, including the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of the Secretariat of the Government of the Presidential Administration. In addition, the day after the dismissal of Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense announced the resignation of the commander of the navy, land and air force, and it is rare for the defense minister and the generals of the three services to resign at the same time before the expiration of their terms, which also means that Bolsonaro is no longer close to the Brazilian military during his administration, and does not bridge the "civil-military relationship" or "the relationship between the military and civilian politics" in the Brazilian democratic political process.
On the economic front, first of all, the Bolsonaro government promoted the privatization of state-owned enterprises. In recent years, the Brazilian economy has continued to decline, and corruption has led to an economic crisis, with the real depreciating by as much as 25.3%. Early in his tenure, Bolsonaro continued the Temer government's Investment Partnership Program, which aims to reduce government investment and debt spending and increase government revenues. In March 2019, Brazil's Civil Aviation Authority auctioned concessions for 30 years of operation at 12 of the country's airports, winning bidders with foreign investors, and then Economy Minister Paulo Guedes announced further privatization of large state-owned enterprises such as National Post and Electricity Braer. Unfortunately, since 2020, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the progress of privatization has lagged behind and failed to meet the government's expectations.
Second, promote social security reform and reduce pension expenditures. Brazil's pension system, known as the "most generous" pension system on the planet, has created huge public deficits for the country's economy and exacerbated social inequality. Bolsonaro submitted a pension reform bill to Congress that raised the retirement age to 65 for men and 62 for women, compared with the average retirement age of 56 and 53 for Brazilian men and women, respectively. In October 2019, after months of negotiations, the Senate voted to pass the pension reform bill, making significant progress on the reform agenda that has plagued successive governments for 30 years, thanks to which the Brazilian government will save about BRL 800 billion in fiscal expenditure over the next 10 years.
Finally, it is necessary to combat corruption and strengthen judicial investigations. Bolsonaro lashed out at corruption in the Workers' government, appointed Federal Justice Sérgio Moro, who presided over the massive anti-corruption investigation Lava Jato, as Minister of Justice, and launched a five-year anti-corruption plan in September 2020 that developed a series of systems of prevention, detection and accountability for corruption, and an OECD assessment of the public integrity of the federal executive branch, the results of which were approved by OECD Secretary-General Matthias M. Mathias Cormann's affirmation. At the same time, Bolsonaro signed a decree strengthening safeguards for whistleblowers to prevent reprisals by keeping their names, identities and home addresses secret under pseudonyms. It is reported that one year after the plan was promulgated, the Brazilian government has completed 60 of the 153 anti-corruption programs, accounting for 39% of the total.
On the diplomatic front, Bolsonaro, contrary to the foreign policy of South-South cooperation during the Labour Party's administration, reused Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, recommended by Oravao, to hold high the banner of radical right-wing populism and propose "Brasil em cima de tudo" (Brazil above all else). Some Brazilian scholars have called Bolsonaro's foreign policy an "ideological playground", believing that he broke Brazil's long-standing diplomatic tradition of multilateralism as the core, blindly followed the United States, and isolated Brazil from the international system. The foreign policy of the Bolsonaro government can be broadly divided into the following four points.
First, go all out to follow the United States. At the beginning of his presidency, Bolsonaro broke the diplomatic tradition of the Brazilian president's first visit to Argentina after taking office, but chose to visit the United States, signed a series of cooperation agreements with the Trump administration in agriculture, energy and science and technology, and provided visa-free treatment to American citizens, Trump also promised to support Brazil's accession to the OECD, and intended to give Brazil the status of "major non-NATO ally", further bringing Palestina-US relations closer. Brazil has viewed East Jerusalem as a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in its past foreign policy, and Bolsonaro followed the United States in his visit to Israel, promising to move the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which was strongly condemned by Palestine.
Second, draw ideological lines against Latin American integration. Bolsonaro has long been hostile to Venezuela and Cuba, and when he took office in the midst of the Venezuelan crisis, he repeatedly attacked the Maduro government, arguing that Venezuelan refugees had caused Brazil to "suffer the influence of the Venezuelan dictatorship", supported military intervention in Venezuela, and worked with the United States to "restore democracy" to Venezuela, and then dismissed under the opposition of Vice President Mourão and Brazil's military leadership; During the general debate of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Bolsonaro said Brazil would not continue its medical cooperation program with Cuba, which was signed by Rousseff's government in 2013 to bring in foreign doctors from Cuba and other countries to help alleviate the shortage of medical resources in remote and impoverished areas of Brazil. Bolsonaro's series of measures to isolate Cuba and Venezuela have had a negative impact on Latin American integration, and the international reputation and status of Brazil's Latin American regional powers should not be underestimated.
Third, China-Pakistan relations tend to be pragmatic. It is true that Bolsonaro campaigned for China as a "predator" trying to control the lifeblood of Brazil's national economy, but the election rhetoric is different from the government's discourse, China is Brazil's largest trading partner, the two countries are inseparable from trade, Bolsonaro still maintained good relations with China after taking office, and carried out a series of pragmatic cooperation with China in infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture. During his visit to China, Bolsonaro changed his previous attitude and proposed to abolish the visa requirements for Chinese businessmen to enter Brazil, find Chinese investors interested in acquiring the state-owned sector such as Electricity Braer, Petrobras and other state-owned companies for the privatization of Brazilian state-owned enterprises, and increase Brazil's agricultural and mineral exports to China.
Fourth, reject European and US sanctions against Russia and promote Pakistan-Russia relations. Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, Bolsonaro visited Russia despite the opposition of the United States, announced that he would further strengthen defense, energy and agricultural cooperation with Russia, and said that Brazil did not take sides in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and adhered to a neutral position. Foreign Minister França also criticized Western countries' expulsion of Russia from international multilateral institutions, believing that "unilateral and selective" sanctions against Russia will cause developing countries to suffer greater losses, especially to food security and political stability in developing countries.
In general, during Bolsonaro's administration, Brazil's political situation was unstable, a number of ministers resigned, and the double pressure of the century change and the century-old epidemic superimposed did not achieve a series of measures to improve the economy promised when he took office, but it is undeniable that the Bolsonaro government has also achieved certain results in pension reform, fighting corruption, etc., and has contributed to Brazil's economic development. However, in the face of China and Russia and other BRICS countries, they still maintain a more pragmatic attitude, taking economic and trade cooperation as the "stabilizer" of multilateral relations and seeking common development.
Source: Guangming Network - Academic Channel