How bad could it get? America’s ugly election

Lexington

Contrary to what some fearful Democrats believe, law-and-order looks unlikely to decide this election

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The Economist

September 5th 2020

35

1

J

air bolsonaro

, Brazil’s president, ought

to be in trouble. His is one of the coun-

tries worst affected by covid-19. It has had

nearly 4m confirmed cases, second only to

the number in the United States, and

123,780 known deaths. That is largely the

president’s fault. He has downplayed the

pandemic, railed against lockdowns and

promoted unproven cures.

A crusader against corruption before he

became president, Mr Bolsonaro is sur-

rounded by scandal. One of his sons is the

target of a corruption investigation. The

justice minister, Sérgio Moro, quit in April,

accusing the president of interfering with

the probe. And yet Mr Bolsonaro is gaining

political strength. The share of Brazilians

who deem his performance “good” or

“great” is 37%, its highest since he took of-

fice at the beginning of last year, according

to Datafolha, a pollster.  

This is a side-effect of covid-19. While

Mr Bolsonaro has done little to contain it,

he has spent generously to shield poor Bra-

zilians from its economic effects. At the

same time, he has strengthened his weak

position in Congress. His tiny Alliance for

Brazil, formed last November, has teamed

up with the 

centrão

, a big bloc of centre-

right parties. That will help the govern-

ment pass legislation and, perhaps, shield

him from impeachment. The 

centrão

is

blocking 49 impeachment motions stem-

ming from the scandals and the mishan-

dling of the pandemic.

But as Mr Bolsonaro grows stronger, his

commitment to keeping his promises be-

comes weaker. The alliance with the 

cen-

trão

employs the grubby dealmaking that

Mr Bolsonaro once denounced. Friends of

centrão 

politicians have got plum govern-

ment jobs. Also in doubt is Mr Bolsonaro’s

pledge to reform the economy, which had

encouraged some bankers and business-

men to overlook his authoritarian views. 

Mr Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is

not an economic reformer by instinct. Eco-

nomic liberals have put their faith in Paulo

Guedes, the economy minister (pictured

left), who favours small government and

free markets. He justified their confidence

last year by helping to reform the pension

system, whose lavish benefits would have

led to crippling debt. But Mr Guedes is vis-

ibly uneasy about the spending provoked

by the pandemic. In late August two of his

top aides quit, prompting a fall in the

stockmarket and pushing the real to its

lowest level against the dollar since May. 

Whatever happens to Mr Guedes, Mr

Bolsonaro’s presidency has entered a new

phase. In its proneness to scandal, its cyni-

cal deal with Congress and its generosity to

poor voters, it is coming to resemble past

administrations. Mr Bolsonaro’s govern-

ment has “some similarities” to that of the

left-wing Workers’ Party (

pt

), which gov-

erned from 2003 to 2016, says Arminio

Fraga, a former head of the central bank.

No one would have said that before the

pandemic. The government had trimmed

Bolsa Família, the 

pt

’s flagship welfare pro-

gramme, which transfers cash to families

that promise to send their children to

school and to clinics for check-ups. Last

year the Bolsonaro government cut the

number of families enrolled by 1.2m to 13m. 

With the pandemic the penny-pinching

has stopped. The government has spent

213bn reais ($39bn), about 2% of 

gdp

, on an

emergency handout of 600 reais a month

to Brazilians who earn the minimum wage

of 1,045 reais a month. That benefits 67m

people, a third of the population. The

payout lifted out of extreme poverty 72% of

families in that condition. Among the ben-

eficiaries are recipients of Bolsa Família,

who get a much larger sum than the pro-

Brazil