Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is back in Brazil, now in a tempest of political forces and legal circumstances that bestow him with some power but constrain his choices and actions.
In many ways, he is in a position as both a king and a pawn, a duality reflective of the complex and fraught circumstances in which he left the country after his defeat in last year’s presidential elections that also won a plurality of 99 deputies to congress, a feat that entitles his Partido Liberal (PL) to R$205.8 million (USD 40.6 million) from the electoral fund to finance electoral campaigns.
ALSO READ: Bolsonarismo, a Trumpian feat of monumental impact
Of the uncertain mix of messages coming from Bolsonaro and the PL, the image of intentions is forming clear: The party, flush with the electoral money is attempting to build a permanent alliance with Bolsonaro and to shape public opinion around the party and the Bolsonarian ideology, seeking to consolidate its position today into a permanent true political party, finally with an ideology that can provide a clear and coherent set of principles to guide its policy development and actions. Bolsonaro would in turn, get a political base.
That is why the party has been actively luring him back from Florida and offering him an honorary PL presidency and party leadership, which he declined before leaving Orlando making it clear he did not intend to lead the opposition to the Lula government. He did, in the end, settle to become an adviser to the party “as a person with experience.” However, he went on to shoot down prospects of his wife Michelle being postulated as a candidate for vice-president. “She does have the experience for a position in the executive branch.”
Since its founding in 1975, Brazil’s Liberal Party has been staggering around like a drunk explorer trying to navigate the shifting waters of Brazilian politics in an Amazonian tropical storm. With a fluctuating ideology and desperate opportunism, they have struggled to find a firm foothold in the political jungle. The iterative swings begin with its initial attempt to brand itself as a centrist party, “away from extremism either on the right or left.” In 2002, the party sought power in forming a coalition with Lula’s Workers’ Party, PT by its Portuguese initials. Then, it supported the government of Dilma Rousseff, only to shift in the opposite direction later and be responsible for half the votes to impeach her.
Like the Israelites wandering the desert for 40 years in search of the Promised Land, the PL journeyed through the political wilderness until Bolsonaro, then a partyless president, joined it in 2021. When he delivered an impressive number of allies elected in the first round of the general 2022 election and with them substantial electoral funds, PL president Valdemar Costa Neto could see the Promised Land on the far-right side of the spectrum.
With Bolsonaro in its ranks, the “anti-extremist Liberal Party,” then, is coming to define itself for its allegiance to the extreme conservative right that shifts away from libertarianism toward an authoritarian bend and a penchant to praise the country’s brutal military dictatorship that disappeared as many as 20,000 Brazilians.
It is not a strategy without peril, but Costa Neto may be counting on keeping Bolsonaro close in order fold Bolsonarism into its ranks. Calls for accountability may end up leaving Bolsonaro declared ineligible to run for office; those have already resulted in investigations into Bolsonaro’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that left Brazil, a country with the 11th largest population, with the second-highest death rate in the world.
Mounting are accusations of genocide for allowing illegal miners into protected Yanomami territory and causing tens of thousands of indigenous deaths; inquiries into his role in inciting the January 8 anti-democratic riots that attacked and destroyed parts of Brazil’s Presidential, Legislative and Supreme Court palaces; and a potential case of corruption related to the apparent misappropriation of millions of dollars of jewels gifted to Brazil by Saudi Arabia and allegedly attempted to be smuggled into the country as an alleged gift for his wife. That is a case that can be easily understood by the general public and threatens to undermine the law-abiding-against-thievery image of himself he projected at campaign rallies.
If Bolsonaro is declared ineligible, Costa Neto may see himself in a position to take over the presidential candidacy for a party now imbued with a conservative agenda and an extremist Bolsonaro legacy that includes anti-environmental, anti-indigenous, anti-gay, anti-immigrant policies and anti-democratic rhetoric coupled with a pro-gun and pro-privatisation agenda.
During his term, Bolsonaro dismantled many of Brazil’s environmental protections and actively promoted deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon rainforest. He promoted the interests of agrobusinesses over the rights of indigenous communities and pushed for the integration of indigenous peoples into what he defined as mainstream society.
In the end, Bolsonaro managed to gain considerable power that many argued he misused but set up a more lasting legacy by electing large numbers of supporters to office. He successfully appealed to populist sentiments of the Brazilian electorate, but he showed himself subject to personal whims, making him a controversial and divisive figure who has inspired both disdain and a loyalty that kept hundreds of supporters journeying daily to greet him and be in his presence at Alvorada Palace, the Brazilian president’s official residence, during much of his term.
That those crowds were far thinner than the PL expected in its planned “massive” welcome for the man who received nearly half the votes in the election late last year may indicate that the populism that put him in office has begun to wane, or it may be a signal that the jewel scandal and what many perceived as his abandoning their movement by leaving for the United States have taken a toll on his appeal.
The Brazilian public may not yet have tired of political polarisation, but the Partido Liberal may have found in the ex-president a useful pawn to keep their game going, crowning him with glory, while giving its base a Bolsonarist framework to stay in power.
