Beef, Bible and bullets: Brazil in the age of Bolsonaro

Bolsonaro has plenty in common with controversial politicians such as France’s Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini of Italy and Nigel Farage, the British maverick nationalist and conservative politician who formed the UK Independence Party and perhaps did more than anyone else to stoke popular enthusiasm for the eventually successful campaign for the Uni

Early in January 2021 Bolsonaro seemed to rule out the possibility of doing anything at all about these fiscal difficulties. Quizzed by a follower as to why he couldn’t follow through on promises made during his campaign,…

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Bolsonaro’s infatuation with the army was, in a way, surprising. Born in 1955, he was the second child of Percy Geraldo ‘Gerardo’ and Olinda Bolsonaro, Brazilians of largely Italian descent, and had grown up in modest circumstances. Gerardo made a living repairing and extracting teeth and making dentures, although he had never obtained the professi

By the nineteenth century, when Brazil became an independent country, corruption was endemic. As a popular satirical verse of the time put it: “Quem furta um pouco é ladrão, quem furta muito é barão, quem mais furta e mais esconde, passa de barão a visconde” (the person who steals a little is a thief, those who steal a lot are barons, but the one w

Franco’s murder – committed during the first weeks of a military intervention into the state’s security that had been ordered by President Temer and was designed to tackle rising violence among the drug gangs – seemed to epitomise the militias’ impunity. As both a lesbian and a black woman Franco represented a new kind of identity politics that, al

6.25 hectares. 2019 started relatively quietly, but monthly data showed steadily escalating amounts of deforestation as the April–November dry season got underway. By August, when the black clouds were drifting towards São Paulo, the Deter data indicated that deforestation was running at three times the rate of the previous year. Inpe’s ‘deforestat

Loyal to the military regime’s nationalist economic policy, Bolsonaro had opposed the privatisations of state companies piloted through in the late 1990s by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and had even suggested that Cardoso should be shot for having sold off the publicly owned telecoms company, as well as stakes in the state-owned mining and

In the last two decades, however, one particular controversy has served to radicalise conservative opinion in Roraima: the creation of the indigenous reserve of Raposa Serra do Sol in the north of the state in 2005 and the expulsion from that area of a handful of farmers who had been very successfully cultivating rice. The affair has became somethi

While opinion polls showed that Brazil’s Congress and political parties were generally disliked, many Brazilians thought favourably of the armed forces. The military’s prestige was enhanced during the 2000s as a result of its participation in the Haiti peacekeeping mission and interventions in Brazilian cities, where the armed forces were invited b

In 2014 Sales was contracted to oversee the family’s social media network, while Bolsonaro’s sons established a close connection with Olavo de Carvalho, a controversial journalist-cum-philosopher, whose own internet success added momentum to the Bolsonaro campaign. Olavo de Carvalho’s influence The US-based Carvalho is widely regarded as an intelle