Latin American political economy has been shaped by cycles of populism, militarism and democracy, leading up to the present.  Though traditional military rule has not been seen since the late 1980s, in some countries the armed forces continue to play an important political role.  Today, we see the tension between democracy and populism where the failures of democratic governance and representation have led to the emergence of populist governments (left or right) which are responding and taking advantage of the growing public/societal dissatisfaction with corrupt and incompetent democratic regimes.  Public attitudes in support of democracy has reached its lowest levels since the period of democratic transition in the 1980/90s.  Answer the following questions:

1. Why has democratic rule remain fragile and precarious in Latin America?  What are the conditions that lead to non-democratic governance, such as populism and militarism?

2. What are the unique conditions or common themes in Argentina, Brazil and Chile that contributed to the back and forth between populism, military and democracy since 1930?

• 400 – 500 words
• You must cite (on the text) the sources used/consulted
• MUST use BOTH attached files as sources as well as BOTH websites below

The Politics of Chile’s New Constitution

After the Default: Argentina’s Unsustainable “20/80” Economy

Argentina: Peronism Returns

María Victoria Murillo, S.J. Rodrigo Zarazaga

Journal of Democracy, Volume 31, Number 2, April 2020, pp. 125-136 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI:

For additional information about this article

[ Access provided for user ‘samijo1’ at 14 Feb 2021 21:38 GMT from Florida International University ]

https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0026

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/753199

https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0026

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/753199

ArgentinA:
Peronism returns

María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

María Victoria Murillo is professor of political science and interna-
tional and public affairs and director of the Institute of Latin American
Studies at Columbia University. Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J., is director of
the Center for Research and Social Action (CIAS) and researcher at
the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)
in Buenos Aires.

The headline news, the main takeaway, from Argentina’s 2019 gen-
eral election is encouraging for democracy despite the dire economic
situation. Mauricio Macri, a president not associated with the country’s
powerful Peronist movement, became the first such chief executive to
complete his mandate, whereas two non-Peronists before him had failed
to do so.1 Macri would not repeat his term, however. He lost the 27
October 2019 election and then oversaw a peaceful handover of power
to his Peronist rival, Alberto Fernández, who won by 48 to 40 percent
and whose vice-president is former two-term president Cristina Fernán-
dez de Kirchner (no relation). Strikingly, even the economic hard times
gripping the country—they are the worst in two decades, and they sank
Macri at the polls—could not ruffle the orderliness of the transition.

Peaceful changes of administration tend to be taken for granted in
democracies, but they are in fact major achievements anywhere. For Ar-
gentina, with its turbulent history, to have handled such a turnover with
so much aplomb despite a grave economic crisis is an impressive feat.

Peronism is back, but in a new coalitional format, and amid larger
circumstances of political stability that suggest the maturing character
of Argentine democracy itself. Alberto Fernández’s victory represents
the return of Peronism to power in a country whose politics have for
decades been played out in the long historical shadow of President Juan
Perón (1946–55; 1973–74). Fernández, a 60-year-old attorney and vet-
eran political operative, had served as cabinet chief (in effect, a sort
of prime minister) under Cristina Fernández’s late husband, President

Journal of Democracy Volume 31, Number 2 April 2020
© 2020 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press

126 Journal of Democracy

Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007), and for a time under Cristina Fernández
herself during the first of her two terms (2007–15).

The very thing that made Alberto Fernández’s victory possible—his
and Cristina Fernández’s ability to rally the divided Peronists into a

single grand electoral coalition—
suggests the governance challenges
that lie ahead. He will have to keep
a movement known for factionalism
united in support of his policies even
as international markets and inves-
tors remain wary of Peronist popu-
lism and the country struggles under
a mammoth US$335 billion foreign
debt that equals 90 percent of GDP.2

Four years earlier, the center-right
Macri’s winning of the Argentine presidency had been seen as the start
of a rightist electoral wave in Latin America. His defeat amid a tide of
bad economic news suggests that the end of the commodities boom that
opened the twenty-first century has brought sharper electoral competi-
tion to Argentina and perhaps the region.

Macri had run in 2015 as a promoter of prosperity, but the economy
during his time in office fared poorly. Over his four-year term, GDP
shrank more than 3 percent while inflation totaled 240 percent and the
poverty rate rose.3 That Macri in the end ran only eight points behind Al-
berto Fernández (48 to 40 percent) suggests that the long-running grand
cleavage of Argentine politics—for or against Peronism with its compli-
cated blend of populism, nationalism, trade-unionism, and redistributive
efforts accompanied by a pragmatic and broad ideological appeal—re-
mains dominant in many voters’ minds across this country of 45 million
in South America’s Southern Cone.

The swing voters who decided the 2019 race were less concerned with
traditional political divides than with economic performance. In 2015,
this pivotal section of the electorate had punished the incumbent Per-
onists (or at least the dominant Peronist faction led by the Kirchneri-
sta camp) for high inflation, lagging growth, and Argentina’s economic
isolation. Four years later, they also penalized Macri for the economy.
The beneficiaries of Macri’s problems were the now-united Peronists.
In 2015, an intra-Peronist split had put a pair of rival Peronist tickets on
the presidential ballot and created a path to the Casa Rosada for Macri,
a former mayor of Buenos Aires with a background in engineering and
business. Four years out of office had concentrated Peronist minds on the
prospect of retaking power, however, and had led to the formation of a
loose pan-Peronist coalition named the Frente de Todos (Front for All).
Frente de Todos proved an effective electoral vehicle for Alberto Fernán-
dez after Cristina Fernández persuaded him to run and joined his ticket.

In 2015, swing voters
punished the incumbent
Peronists for high
inflation, lagging growth,
and economic isolation.
Four years later, they
penalized Macri.

127María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

Macri had been elected in 2015 at the head of a broad anti-Peronist
coalition called Cambiemos (Let’s Change). He won by a slim margin
(51 to 48 percent) in the first presidential runoff in Argentine history.
International markets and foreign governments, distrustful of left-leaning
Kirchnerista populism, greeted Macri’s election with enthusiasm.4 Cris-
tina Fernández had succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner, by winning
the 2007 election, and had won reelection in 2011 after his death the year
before from heart disease. Constitutionally barred from running in 2015,
she finished her second term with the economy mired in stagflation (high
unemployment plus high inflation) as corruption scandals engulfed her
administration.

Litigation barred Argentina from international financial markets as
bondholders continued to sue over Néstor Kirchner’s 2005 foreign-debt
restructuring (following a default that pre-dated his presidency). Capital
flight and a run on the Argentine peso forced Cristina Fernández’s ad-
ministration to impose exchange-rate controls and tighten trade restric-
tions to defend dwindling Central Bank reserves. As poverty rebound-
ed (after shrinking during years of up to 8 percent growth in the early
2000s) and the government manipulated official statistics to hide infla-
tion, the state became the main engine of job creation. Daniel Scioli, the
Peronists’ 2015 candidate, lost the runoff to Macri.

Macri had campaigned in 2015 on promises of reinvigorated growth,
cleaner government, renewed poverty reduction, and an end to the po-
larization that had marked the later Cristina Fernández years. Facing
reelection in 2019 without a strong economy to run on, Macri himself
turned to polarizing appeals. He blamed Peronism for the Argentine
economy’s long-term decay and highlighted corruption charges against
Kirchnerists—Cristina Fernández herself faces a number of criminal
proceedings, including a case stemming from her alleged misuse of pub-
lic contracts. The weak economy and a unified Peronist ticket proved
too much for Macri to overcome, however, and voters gave Alberto
Fernández the presidency.

Peronism Unified

In Argentina as elsewhere, institutions shape behavior. The key ele-
ments of the country’s electoral system include a two-round presidential
contest, with a runoff decreed if the candidate with the most votes fails
to receive either 45 percent outright, or 40 percent with a margin of at
least ten points over the first runner-up. Since 2009, moreover, all politi-
cal parties have been required to hold open, simultaneous, and obliga-
tory primaries (PASO). From 2015 to 2019, the incentives flowing from
these institutions shifted direction.

In 2015, there were two Peronists running for the presidency. One,
Daniel Scioli, was handpicked by Cristina Fernández. The other, Sergio

128 Journal of Democracy

Massa, represented right-leaning Peronists who opposed her. The Per-
onist split gave Massa 21 percent and allowed Macri to finish the first
round just three points shy of Scioli’s 37 percent. Macri then rallied
enough anti-Kirchnerist Peronists to his side to gain his narrow runoff
win.

Cristina Fernández’s clever maneuvering foreclosed such a situation
in 2019. Alberto Fernández had been her critic, having quit as cabinet
chief early in her first term due to her intransigency in confronting a
widespread farmers’ revolt against a tax on soybean exports. The con-
flict divided the country for months, bringing not only farmers but also
most of the media and much of the middle class into a confrontation with
her administration. In 2015, he had served as Massa’s campaign manag-
er. His positioning as presidential candidate with Cristina Fernández in
the vice-presidential slot—a surprising move by the former president—
brought the Peronist factions together. The shrewdness of this strategy
was confirmed in the August 11 PASO voting, when the Fernández tick-
et trounced Macri and his breakaway-Peronist running mate 49.5 to 33
percent. In effect, PASO proved to be a kind of presidential first round.
It drew 76 percent turnout among Argentina’s 34 million registered vot-
ers, and suggested to Macri how heavy a drag the economy was on his
reelection bid (see the Table).

In both 2015 and 2019, Macri’s support was stronger in the richer
provinces, where agriculture and industry concentrate, and in the urban
centers, where the middle class resides. Poorer voters and residents of
poorer provinces were less likely to prefer him. In 2015 and 2019, these
poorer voters supported Scioli and Fernández, respectively. Typically,
these core Kirchnerist voters were the beneficiaries of redistributionist
public policies. This voter base included public employees, workers in
the informal sector, the unemployed, and slum dwellers.5 In 2015, when

2019
Candidate mauricio macri Alberto Fernandez roberto Lavagna

Coalition Pro+uCr+CC
Kirchnerism+

non-K Peronism –

PAso 2019 Vote (%) 32.9 49.5 8.4
1st-round Vote (%) 40.3 48.2 6.2

2015
Candidate mauricio macri Daniel scioli sergio massa

Coalition Pro+uCr+CC Kirchnerism
non-K

Peronism
PAso 2015 Vote (%) 30.1 38.7 20.6
1st-round Vote (%) 34.2 37.1 21.4
runoff (%) 51.3 48.7 –

Table—ResulTs of aRgenTina’s PResidenTial
and Vice-PResidenTial elecTions, 2019 Vs. 2015

Note: PRO = Republican Proposal; UCR = Radical Civic Union; CC = Civic Coalition.

129María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

Peronism split, traditional blue-collar, labor-union constituents had
been more likely to prefer Massa. Some of these voters resented redis-
tributionist measures, seeing them as subsidies paid to “lazy” informal
workers.6 Many such voters had switched to Macri in the 2015 runoff,
but “came home” to the Alberto Fernández–Cristina Fernández ticket in
2019. Thus did Cristina Fernández’s 2019 unification strategy succeed
in bringing formal-sector workers and redistribution beneficiaries back
into the same electoral coalition.

Macri came into office without a legislative majority. His coalition
controlled 91 of 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and just 15 of 72
Senate seats. He gained domestic and international support by acting
decisively once inaugurated in December 2015. One of his first moves
in office was to end exchange-rate restrictions. When a run on the dollar
did not ensue, his popularity shot upward. The polling firm Poliarquía
reports that his approval rating reached a peak of 71 percent in January
2016.7 Within days of being sworn in, he eliminated trade restrictions
such as export and import permits, and ended most export taxes. These
steps drew enormous business support.

Macri took advantage of Peronist infighting to win over a number
of the 24 provincial governors and other dissident Peronists, including
Massa allies and even some erstwhile Kirchnerists. He passed a crucial
law that allowed him to negotiate with holdout creditors and thereby
restore the access to international financial markets that Argentina had
lost under Cristina Fernández. Relying on foreign credit, he followed
a gradual approach to reducing a fiscal deficit that stood at 7 percent
of GDP when he took office. The economy recovered and his coalition
won more than 40 percent of the vote in the 2017 midterms, growing its
Chamber caucus to 107 seats and doubling its share of the Senate.

In May 2018, shock waves from the Turkish financial and debt crisis
hit Argentina and cost the peso much of its value. Macri responded by
obtaining the largest IMF bailout in history, worth US$57 billion. In
order to get a loan that big, he had to promise to cut the primary fiscal
deficit to zero. The resulting austerity measures pushed the economy
into a deepening recession that by the end of Macri’s term had driven
the poverty rate to around 35 percent, with almost 10 percent unemploy-
ment.8

Argentina’s economy is strongly tied to the U.S. dollar, so a four-
fold rise in its value relative to the peso forced Macri to reestablish
exchange-rate restrictions. Inflation, already high, doubled to 50 percent
by the end of his term. The 3 percent economic contraction in 2019
made Argentina Latin America’s worst performer aside from Nicaragua
and Venezuela.9 Macri’s electoral prospects seemed so poor in early
2019 that some among his own allies wanted him to step aside for an-
other candidate. The spectacle of his weakness gave the rival Peronist
factions even more incentive to put aside their differences and coalesce.

130 Journal of Democracy

Cristina Fernández’s decision to seek a rapprochement with Alber-
to Fernández and recruit him to run for president put the Peronists on
the path back to power. As Néstor Kirchner’s political broker, Alberto
Fernández had formed contacts with all Peronist factions. Even Sergio
Massa returned to the fold and agreed to lead the legislative ticket in
Buenos Aires Province, a crucial battleground that is home to more than
a third of the electorate.

While Macri emphasized republican values and denounced Kirchner-
ist corruption, Alberto Fernández focused on the economy. On August
12, financial markets that feared a return of Kirchnerist populism re-
acted poorly to his yawning sixteen-point lead over Macri in the previ-
ous day’s primary. Argentine bond prices collapsed, the peso lost value,
country risk skyrocketed, and dollars fled the banking system. Macri at
first berated voters for not grasping how their decisions affected finan-
cial markets. Then he swiftly halted adjustment measures while seeking
to boost middle-class consumption.

Macri’s campaign also shifted to the right, seeking the support of
minor parties emphasizing an iron-fist security message, opposition
to abortion, and the negative incentives generated by cash-transfer
programs for the poor. This strategy seems aligned with public opin-
ion, if we focus on support for the signature cash-transfer program for
families with children—a program that had in fact expanded during
Macri’s administration. According to a recent survey, backing for this
social policy plummeted sixteen points (57 to 41 percent) among Mac-
ri voters from 2015 to 2019, while it dropped only slightly (84 to 80
percent) among Scioli and Fernández voters over the same period.10 By
contrast, Alberto Fernández was cautious after the primary, seeking
to keep his lead. Cristina Fernández, meanwhile, spent the campaign
keeping a low profile.

Surveys taken after the primary predicted a Fernández landslide,
but voters had a surprise in store. They behaved strategically, holding
Fernández at 48 percent and raising Macri from 32 to 40 percent. Macri
gained the support of voters who were seeking to force a runoff. In the
primary they had supported smaller right-wing parties or Roberto La-
vagna, the 77-year-old former economy minister who had helped to steer
Argentina out of its last big economic crisis back in the early 2000s. His
vote share slipped from 8.4 percent in the primary to 6.2 percent in the
general election. As in 2015, higher socioeconomic status continued to
make one more likely to be a Macri voter, while voters lower down the
socioeconomic ladder went for Fernández as they had gone for Scioli
four years before.11

With turnout rising from 76 to 81 percent from the PASO round to
the general, Macri gained close to 2.7 million votes nationwide. Most
of these new votes came from wealthier provinces across the middle of
the country: Buenos Aires (city and province), Córdoba, Mendoza, and

131María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

Santa Fe. This central belt holds the richer agricultural areas as well
as many middle-class voters who swallowed their disappointment with
Macri’s economic performance and preferred him based on their rejec-
tion of the Kirchneristas� policy agenda, worldview, perceived moral
standards, and even cultural aesthetic.

Middle-class Argentines felt that too large a share of their (high) pay-
roll taxes had been going into programs for the poor, and disapproved of
the corruption associated with the Kirchners. The media covered the cor-
ruption angle heavily during the campaign as Cristina Fernández herself
continued to battle charges. Her opponents sought to link her to the sus-
picious January 2015 death by gunshot of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor
who had accused her of covering up the connection between Iran and the
deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.12

Alberto Fernández’s heaviest support was concentrated in eight mu-
nicipalities surrounding the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. These
poor suburbs are home to a third of low-income Argentines. Joining
them in the Kirchnerist voter base were seven less-developed northern
and northwestern provinces (Catamarca, Chaco, Formosa, Misiones,
Salta, San Juan, and Santiago del Estero). These areas had all supported
Scioli in 2015. Additionally, there were the formal-sector, blue-collar
voters who had gone for Massa in 2015 but returned to the Peronist uni-
ty ticket. Thirteen governors also publicly backed the Fernández ticket
during the campaign.

Challenges for Argentine Democracy

Macri’s ability to finish his term is a sign of the maturing of Ar-
gentine democracy. When he handed power over to Alberto Fernández
on 10 December 2019, it marked a second straight orderly turnover of
presidential power from one party to a rival. Despite the hard times,
Macri’s watch saw no social explosion such as detonated in neighbor-
ing Chile, where rightist president Sebastian Pi~nera had to contend with
massive protests that broke out in October 2019 despite a growing Chil-
ean economy.

Alberto Fernández comes in at the head of a stronger legislative co-
alition than Macri had, but still without a Chamber of Deputies major-
ity. Indeed, Macri’s Cambiemos coalition, formed around his Repub-
lican Proposal (PRO) party, has 116 seats—just four behind the 120
controlled by the Frente de Todos. In the Senate, the Peronist caucus
controls 43 of 72 seats while Cambiemos holds 29. The Figure shows
the division of power between Peronism and Cambiemos in each house
of Congress. The Peronists need 129 seats for a lower-house majority.
Four Cambiemos deputies defected just before Fernández’s inaugura-
tionc, but only one joined the Peronist caucus. The remaining three cre-
ated their own caucus, which supported Fernández’s initial legislative

132 Journal of Democracy

proposals. These numbers make legislative coalition building increas-
ingly important.

The Peronist coalition is a heterogeneous affair. Alberto Fernández
spent the first part of his campaign working to win over the more con-
servative Peronist factions, which had long opposed Cristina Fernán-
dez’s left-of-center populism. This conservative camp within Peronism
is also a very diverse group. Its members include most labor unions plus
ten governors as well as the faction (based in Buenos Aires Province)
that had backed Sergio Massa in 2013. In the new administration, these
groups will be vying for influence with the social movements, the dis-
sident unions, and La Cámpora (the powerful Peronist youth wing led
by the Kirchners’ son, 43-year-old Máximo Kirchner). The Peronists in
both houses of Congress reflect this heterogeneity.

The Fernández government itself is a balancing act that reflects the
coalitional nature of this new Peronism. The Kirchnerists dominate key
legislative posts, though non-Kirchnerist Sergio Massa is presiding of-
ficer of the lower house. Like Macri at the time of his inauguration,
Alberto Fernández has expanded the cabinet from 12 to 21 ministers,
reflecting both his ambitious policy goals and his need to keep all Per-
onist factions happy.13

His finance minister, Martín Guzmán, is a young U.S.-trained econo-
mist who worked with Columbia University’s Joseph Stiglitz on the topic

PRO, 13, 18%

UCR, 16, 22%

Kirchnerism, 17,
24%

Non-K
Peronism, 26,

36%

PRO, 54, 21%

UCR, 47, 18%

CC, 15, 6%
Others, 21, 8%

Kirchnerism, 58,
23%

Non-K Peronism,
51, 20%

Massism, 11, 4%

figuRe—comPosiTion of aRgenTina’s congRess
(seaTs Held and seaT sHaRe by facTion/PaRTy)

Chamber of Deputies Senate

PRO, 13, 18%
UCR, 16, 22%
Kirchnerism, 17,
24%
Non-K
Peronism, 26,
36%

Frente de todos

PRO, 13, 18%
UCR, 16, 22%
Kirchnerism, 17,
24%
Non-K
Peronism, 26,
36%

Cambiemos

PRO, 54, 21%
UCR, 47, 18%
CC, 15, 6%
Others, 21, 8%
Kirchnerism, 58,
23%
Non-K Peronism,
51, 20%
Massism, 11, 4%

others

Note: Figures following faction and party names report seats and share of chamber held.
PRO = Republican Proposal; UCR = Radical Civic Union; CC = Civic Coalition.

133María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

of debt restructuring, an urgent need for Argentina. Guzmán is follow-
ing Fernández’s campaign promise to make restarting the economy, not
structural adjustment, the top priority. Matías Kulfas, another Peronist
economist close to Alberto Fernández, has been named production min-
ister. His task is to frame a national social and economic pact that will
bring key economic actors on board with the administration’s policies.

Argentina is a federal country and the Peronists have traditionally
controlled most provinces. As Alberto Fernández starts his mandate,
he can count on the loyalty of fourteen governors (including Peronists
and governors from allied provincial parties). Six other provinces are
governed by figures who are close to Cristina Fernández. The remaining
four governors are with Cambiemos.

The current broad Peronist coalition has no formal conflict-resolution
mechanism. Indeed, even by the historical standards of Peronism—which
has long relied on leaders’ ad hoc management of factional tensions—to-
day’s Frente de Todos seems informal in its workings. The task of con-
taining infighting may be made harder by the sway that Cristina Fernán-
dez holds. The presidency of Argentina comes with ample powers, but
Alberto Fernández owes his post to Cristina Fernández’s decision to put
him atop the ticket, and to the votes that she delivered. He holds the higher
office and presidential powers, but her electoral support gives her a strong
veto power over specific policies and she has shown her influence in the
initial executive appointments. Still facing the court cases against her,
she enjoys continued immunity from arrest by virtue of holding the vice-
presidency, just as she had immunity while a sitting senator (2017–19).

During the commodities boom, Argentine soybeans (the leading
export) could pay for both higher wages and social-welfare programs.
In post-boom Argentina, things are tougher. Unions and formal-sector
workers had long been the backbone of Peronism. Since the 2001 crisis,
however, social movements representing informal workers and the un-
employed—the natural constituents of redistributionist programs—have
grown in influence. These, moreover, are the Kirchnerist base.

As a recession rages and a huge foreign debt looms, tensions are ris-
ing between the social-welfare policies on which so many Argentines
depend and the painful squeeze that taxes put on the falling real wages
of formal workers. Add to this mix the competing demands of two-dozen
governors seeking to defend provincial budgets and priorities, and we
can see the enormous challenges that await the Fernández administration
as it begins the work of governing.

These tensions are heightened by the economic emergency, which
dominated the new administration’s first month. To control the fiscal
deficit, President Fernández decreed a freeze in pension indexation and
passed new taxes on exchange-rate activities and exports. To restrain
inflation, he established a temporary freeze on public-utility tariffs
along with price controls while demanding that labor unions restrain

134 Journal of Democracy

their wage demands. He also increased agricultural-export taxes, which
caused farmers to launch strikes less than three months into his term.
His explicit goal of “calming down” the economy was reinforced by a
bond swap to extend the maturity of domestic bonds with the goal of
making it easier to renegotiate with the IMF and private bondholders the
terms surrounding Argentina’s foreign debt. Fernández needs to deliver
strong economic performance in order to expand his electoral support
and his power within the Peronist coalition. In the meantime, he is re-
lying on initiatives with little fiscal cost, such as promises to legalize
abortion and to reform the judiciary.

The opposition will no doubt try to exploit internal Peronist tensions,
but must do so while handling its own contradictions. The opposition’s
coalition, like the government’s, is a broad front. It consists of three po-
litical parties, but the rift that divides it does not run along party lines.
Instead, the big split is over how to deal with the Fernández administra-
tion and Peronism more generally. Former president Macri heads the
most strongly anti-Peronist camp. More moderate figures want to craft
a working relationship with the new administration in order to make a
name as responsible opposition leaders whom voters will consider for
the presidency in 2023. The opposition could affect internal Peronist
dynamics depending on policy options, but a strategy of splitting incum-
bent ranks will require reversing the longstanding trend by which oppo-
sition lawmakers have been more likely to defect to the government than
vice-versa, thanks to the wide powers over spending that the federal
president enjoys. These powers brought Macri legislative successes, and
may do the same for Fernández.

Argentine Democracy and Latin American Unrest

Argentina’s 2019 election came at a time of immense political unrest
in South America. Argentine democracy was weathering serious eco-
nomic problems but, to the surprise of many, held a hotly contested elec-
tion without major street protests. Argentina and Uruguay (which held
its presidential election the same day) saw polarized competition but
smoothly conducted voting and pacific turnovers of power. Elsewhere
in the region, the last quarter of 2019 brought major popular protests in
Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. Peru’s president closed Congress in late
September. In Bolivia, a disputed election in October led to President
Evo Morales’s forced resignation in November. In December, Chile
called a plebiscite on constitutional reform, to be held in April 2020.

Falling commodities prices and slowed economies have put the re-
gion on edge. Social media make protests easier to organize, but the
triggers in South America have been government actions ranging from
unpopular tax hikes to electoral manipulations (as in Bolivia). In other
words, it was incumbents’ decisions that brought out the angry crowds.

135María Victoria Murillo and Rodrigo Zarazaga, S.J.

In Argentina and Uruguay, by contrast, voters used the ballot box to
remove incumbents. With an open electoral path, there seemed little
reason to seek change in the streets. Argentina’s long history of massive
social protests did not weigh heavily in 2019.

The contrast with neighboring Chile is particularly dramatic. Since
that country’s 1989 transition to democracy, Chilean political parties
have been able to negotiate policy. In 2019, however, protests against
higher public-transit fares quickly expanded, going on for weeks and add-
ing many new demands. The scale of the unrest, plus targeted violence
by anarchist groups, took a toll on the Chilean economy. The “wildcat”
nature of the protests deprived the government of an interlocutor with
which to negotiate: There were no organizations behind the demonstra-
tions, and the political parties found themselves sidelined, though they
eventually arranged a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution.

In Argentina, unlike in Chile, there are many organizations represent-
ing those with economic demands. As a result, even as Macri imposed
stringent adjustment measures, no large protests flared. The government
could talk to organized social movements, and could provide financial
support and temporary-employment programs to vulnerable groups. The
streets stayed calm.

The Fernández administration includes many of those social movements
in its coalition, so channels for avoiding public protests remain open. Still,
if inflation and contraction bite hard enough, no one can be sure what
might happen. Fernández seems to be taking no chances. He underlined
the needs of the vulnerable in his inaugural address, and followed up by
making one of his first official acts an urgent program to combat hunger.

Peronism’s ties with social movements and labor unions are of long
standing, but the economic challenges ahead and the contradictory de-
mands from various factions of the governing coalition put limits on
what can be done. According to Latinobarómetro and LAPOP polling,
Argentines are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with democracy
and the unmet promises of elected governments. The former survey
finds support for democracy at its lowest level since about the time of
the last big economic crisis almost two decades ago. The latter finds a
level of democracy support similar to what was found in 2008, when
Cristina Fernández clashed with farmers over export taxes and the coun-
try experienced road blockades, a long agricultural strike, food short-
ages, and middle-class protests.14

Argentina’s ability to achieve a peaceful turnover of power amid re-
gional unrest and deep political polarization at home is good news, but
it should not hide the challenges ahead. Argentines went to the polls to
bring about the change they wanted, but if their expectations remain
unmet their patience may wear out. Argentine democracy has shown a
heartening sign of maturity at a difficult time in the region, but political
stability will depend on economic outcomes and the public’s perception

136 Journal of Democracy

of the new government’s responsiveness. When voters speak, they must
be heard.

NOTES

1. In 1983, Raúl Alfonsín of the Radical Civic Union defeated a Peronist candidate for
the first time in free elections, but neither Alfonsín nor his fellow Radical Fernando de la
Rúa (1999–2001) was able to complete his mandate—the former left five months early and
the latter resigned after just two years in office.

2. Yemeli Ortega and María Lorente, “Fernández Walks Tightrope as He Celebrates
First Month in Office,” Buenos Aires Times, 9 January 2020, www.batimes.com.ar/news/
argentina/fernandez-treading-a-tightrope-as-he-celebrates-first-month-in-office.phtml.

3. Manuel Alcalá Kovalski, “Lessons Learned from the Argentine Economy Un-
der Macri,” Brookings Institution, 5 September 2019, www.brookings.edu/blog/up-
front/2019/09/05/lessons-learned-from-the-argentine-economy-under-macri.

4. José Natanson, “¿Hegemonía Macrista?” Le Monde Diplomatique Online, Sep-
tember 2017, www.eldiplo.org/219-la-clase-media-en-tiempos-de-macri/hegemomia-
macrista/#n_2.

5. Noam Lupu, “Why Does Wealth Affect Vote Choice?” in Lupu, Virginia Oliveros,
and Luis Schiumerini, eds., Campaigns and Voters in Developing Democracies: Argentina
in Comparative Perspective (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019), 72–88.

6. Rodrigo Zarazaga, “‘Todos unidos triunfaremos . . .’: nuevas dificultades para la
unidad electoral peronista,” Revista SAAP 13, no. 1 (2019): 11–42.

7. Encuesta Nacional de Poliarquía Consultores, Buenos Aires, December 2019.

8. For data on poverty, see www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/eph_
pobreza_01_19422F5FC20A . On joblessness, see www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/in-
formesdeprensa/mercado_trabajo_eph_3trim19BCC9AAAD16 .

9. The economic data come from the Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLAC), “Balance Preliminar de las Economías de América Latina y el
Caribe 2019,” Santiago de Chile, December 2019.

10. Noam Lupu, Virginia Oliveros, and Luis Schiumerini, Argentine Panel Election
Study, 2019. Data shared with authors via personal communication from administrators of
Argentine Panel Election Study.

11. Voters with more years of schooling preferred Macri while those with fewer years
preferred Alberto Fernández. See Ernesto Calvo, “Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has
Changed,” presentation at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Har-
vard University, 22 October 2019.

12. Mark Dubowitz and Tony Dershowitz, “Argentina’s New Leadership Carries Old
Baggage of Corruption and Conspiracy Allegations,” NBC News, 23 December 2019,
www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/argentina-s-new-leadership-carries-old-baggage-cor-
ruption-conspiracy-allegations-ncna1103556.

13. Macri had initially increased his cabinet to 21 ministers in order to accommodate
his electoral coalition, but as a sign of his dedication to spending restraint he cut back to a
dozen toward the end of his administration.

14. For LAPOP data, see http://datasets.americasbarometer.org/database/index.php;
for Latinobarómetro data, see www.latinobarometro.org/latContents.jsp.

www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/fernandez-treading-a-tightrope-as-he-celebrates-first-month-in-office.phtml

www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/fernandez-treading-a-tightrope-as-he-celebrates-first-month-in-office.phtml

www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/09/05/lessons-learned-from-the-argentine-economy-under-macri

www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/09/05/lessons-learned-from-the-argentine-economy-under-macri

www.eldiplo.org/219-la-clase-media-en-tiempos-de-macri/hegemomia-macrista/#n_2

www.eldiplo.org/219-la-clase-media-en-tiempos-de-macri/hegemomia-macrista/#n_2

www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/eph_pobreza_01_19422F5FC20A

www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/eph_pobreza_01_19422F5FC20A

www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/mercado_trabajo_eph_3trim19BCC9AAAD16

www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/mercado_trabajo_eph_3trim19BCC9AAAD16

www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/argentina-s-new-leadership-carries-old-baggage-corruption-conspiracy-allegations-ncna1103556

www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/argentina-s-new-leadership-carries-old-baggage-corruption-conspiracy-allegations-ncna1103556

http://datasets.americasbarometer.org/database/index.php

www.latinobarometro.org/latContents.jsp

Bolsonaro and Brazil’s Illiberal Backlash

Wendy Hunter, Timothy J. Power

Journal of Democracy, Volume 30, Number 1, January 2019, pp. 68-82 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI:

For additional information about this article

[ Access provided for user ‘samijo1’ at 14 Feb 2021 21:39 GMT from Florida International University ]

https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2019.0005

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/713723

https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2019.0005

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/713723

Bolsonaro and Brazil’s
illiBeral Backlash

Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

Wendy Hunter is professor of government at the University of Texas at
Austin. Her works include The Transformation of the Workers’ Party
in Brazil, 1989–2009 (2010). Timothy J. Power is head of the Oxford
School of Global and Area Studies and professor of Latin American
politics at the University of Oxford. Most recently, he is coauthor of
Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presi-
dents in Multiparty Systems (2018).

On 28 October 2018, Brazilian voters delivered a sweeping victory
to presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, putting the far-right populist
at the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy. After a raucous
campaign in which the former army captain demonized his political op-
ponents and promised to save the country from total ruin, Bolsonaro
handed a stinging defeat to the left-leaning Workers’ Party (PT), which
had governed Brazil from 2003 to 2016. Social media, along with net-
works of Pentecostal churches, helped to disseminate Bolsonaro’s in-
cendiary messages and organize his broad multiclass following.

After nearly clinching the presidency in the October 7 first round
with over 46 percent of valid votes, Bolsonaro received 55.13 percent of
the vote in the runoff (see Table on p. 70). The remaining 44.87 percent
went to PT candidate Fernando Haddad—a last-minute substitute during
the first round for popular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
who had been imprisoned since April 2018 on corruption charges linked
to Brazil’s mammoth Operaç~ao Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) scandal.
In keeping with the polarizing tone of the campaign, the share of voters
who cast ballots for each candidate closely approximated the share who
expressed a strong antipathy toward the opposing candidate. Concurrent
elections for the 513-member Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of
the bicameral National Congress, saw a surge by Bolsonaro’s hitherto
minuscule Social Liberal Party (PSL): This party went from winning
only a single seat in 2014 to claiming 52 seats and the highest share of

Journal of Democracy Volume 30, Number 1 January 2019
© 2019 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press

69Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

popular votes in 2018. Bolsonaro had joined the PSL—previously one
of the nondescript “parties for rent” that help to populate Brazil’s fluid
system—in 2018 merely to qualify for a place on the presidential ballot.

The dramatic ascent of this far-right fringe figure and longtime legis-
lative backbencher caught many by surprise. Brazilian presidential elec-
tions since 1994 had been marked by a virtual duopoly, with the left-
leaning PT and the center-right Party of Brazilian Social Democracy
(PSDB) as the predictable finalists. Taken together, these two parties
consistently won between 70 and 90 percent of the vote. The three presi-
dents elected in this period—Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2003)
of the PSDB, followed by Lula (2003–11) and his chosen successor
Dilma Rousseff (2011–16) from the PT—had all won second terms in
office, lending an air of seeming stability to party politics.

Yet viewed in the context of the multiple crises afflicting Brazil since
2013, travails for which Brazilians widely blame the establishment par-
ties, the Bolsonaro backlash begins to make sense. The once-formidable
PT, which had won four consecutive presidential contests, was blamed
for the serious downturn in the economy after 2013; the massive corrup-
tion scheme uncovered since 2014 by the Lava Jato investigation; and
the unprecedented levels of crime on the streets of Brazil. Lula, the PT’s
standard-bearer since 1980, might have been able to overcome these
inauspicious circumstances and carry the day. In fact, he was the front-
runner in the polls until being disqualified at the end of August 2018 due
to his corruption conviction. His popularity as a candidate, however, de-
pended critically on his strong base of personal support (lulismo), which
was much broader than partisan support for the PT (petismo).1 With Lula
out of the mix, all the PT’s “baggage,” together with its choice to nomi-
nate Lula’s understudy at the eleventh hour, ultimately left the party
unable to draw enough center-left support to elect Fernando Haddad.

2

At the same time, overwhelming popular rejection of incumbent
president Michel Temer tainted the two major center-right parties as-
sociated with his government: the PSDB and Temer’s own Brazilian
Democratic Movement (MDB, known until December 2017 as the Par-
ty of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, or PMDB). Temer, Rous-
seff’s vice-president from 2011 to 2016, assumed the presidency in the
wake of her controversial impeachment. His ongoing and unsuccessful
struggle to turn around the economy, defend himself against charges
of malfeasance, and control crime in Brazil’s major cities kept his
approval ratings low and discredited the parties that supported him.
It did not help that the PSDB nominated as its candidate a bland es-
tablishment figure, four-term S~ao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin
(who had lost badly to Lula in 2006). In the 2018 first round, Alckmin
took less than five percent of the vote, while MDB candidate Hen-
rique Meirelles, a former finance minister who ran on Temer’s record,
barely topped one percent. With the implosion of the MDB and PSDB,

70 Journal of Democracy

a broad political space from the center to the far right became vulner-
able to a hostile takeover.

Bolsonaro seized the opportunity with gusto, sounding a “law and
order” and anticorruption message that resonated strongly with the pub-
lic. His emphasis on his role in the army under Brazil’s former military
dictatorship (1964–85) enhanced his credibility as a strong leader who
would come down hard on crime. In a country in which one out of three
members of Congress was under either indictment or investigation for
criminal activity, Bolsonaro’s previous political insignificance proved a
boon: Never having held (or even run for) executive office or party leader-
ship had shielded him from opportunities to reap the fruits of corruption.
And while Bolsonaro offered little tangible proof of his professed com-
mitment to open markets (much less his qualifications to preside over
a major economy), Brazil’s business community—at first dubious about
the candidate’s purported free-market conversion—later swung behind
him when faced with the binary choice between Bolsonaro and the return
of the statist PT. In the end, the meteoric rise of Brazil’s next president
was made possible by a combination of fundamental background condi-
tions (economic recession, corruption, and crime), political contingencies
(most notably, the weakness of rival candidates), and a shakeup in cam-
paign dynamics produced by the strategic use of social media.

A Multidimensional Crisis

What we refer to as a “perfect storm” in Brazil broke due to at least
four simultaneous crises: an economic crisis caused by a prolonged re-
cession, a political crisis of rising polarization and falling trust in estab-
lished parties, a corruption crisis brought to the fore by the Lava Jato
investigation, and the deterioration of an already dismal public-security
environment. Taken together, these four crises led to a plunge not only
in government legitimacy—with the Temer administration growing

Candidate (Party) 1st Round Runoff
Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) 46.03 55.13
Fernando Haddad (PT) 29.28 44.87
ciro Gomes (PdT) 12.47 –
Geraldo alckmin (PsdB) 4.76 –
Jo~ao amoedo (novo) 2.50 –
cabo daciolo (Patriota) 1.26 –
henrique Meirelles (MdB) 1.20 –
Marina silva (rede) 1.00 –
other candidates (5) 1.50 –
Totals 100.00 100.0

0

Table—brazil’s 2018 PresidenTial-elecTion resulTs
(% of Valid VoTes)

Source: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, http://www.tse.jus.br.

71Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

MaP—brazil

BoliVia

MaTo
Grosso

MaTo Grosso
do sUl

rio Grande
do sUl

sanTa
caTarina

S�AO PAULO

ParanÁ

rondÔnia

GoÍas Minas
Gerais

Bahia

TocanTins

PiaUÍ

serGiPe

esPÍriTo
sanTo

rio de Janiero

alaGoas

PernaMBUco

ParaÍBa

rio Grande
do norTecearÁMARANH�AOParÁ

aMazonas

roraiMa

aMaPÁ

acre

PerU

coloMBia
VenezUela

GUY.
s

Ur.

Fr.
GUY.

arGenTina

c
h

il
e

ParaGUaY

Ur.

Brasilia

Belo
horizonte

s~ao Paulo
rio de Janiero

ATLANTIC
OCEAN

PAC.
OCEAN

massively unpopular over 2017–18—but in regime legitimacy as well.
Since 1985, Brazilian democracy had had its ups and downs, but never
before had it performed so poorly for so long.3

The brutal recession spanning the Rousseff administration and Temer
interregnum followed a protracted expansion of the Brazilian economy
between 2004 and 2013. This growth was driven by the international
commodities boom and buoyed by new domestic stimuli such as higher
minimum wages and the advent of Bolsa Família (a family-welfare initia-
tive that has become the world’s largest conditional cash-transfer pro-
gram). The clouds began to darken in 2014, with the economic slowdown
threatening Rousseff’s reelection bid that year. She eventually prevailed
by a margin of 3.28 percentage points over the PSDB’s Aécio Neves, but
had the election been held even a few weeks later, the sharply worsening
economic indicators could have changed the outcome. Even then, hardly
anyone foresaw what was coming next: the worst recession in Brazilian
history. Over the next two years, nearly 8 percent of Brazil’s GDP—a sum
almost equal to the entire GDP of Peru—vanished into thin air. Rousseff’s
belated appointment of pro-austerity finance minister Joaquim Levy (who
lasted eleven months in office) came too late to stop the bleeding. By
2017, Temer’s first full year in office, misery was widespread. Unemploy-
ment had increased to a record 12.7 percent and underemployment af-
fected an additional 23.8 percent of the economically active population.4

72 Journal of Democracy

The end of the recession in 2017 was an imperceptible technicality, with
the economy expanding less than 1 percent in that year.

Eroding support for the Rousseff government had been evident even
before the full onset of economic contraction. In June 2013, street
marches originating in opposition to a fare hike for S~ao Paulo public
transportation morphed into a nationwide protest movement that is-
sued demands of all types, but focused mainly on corruption and the
poor quality of public services. Although diffuse and disorganized,
the protests put Rousseff on defense. They also revealed two emerg-
ing trends: 1) a deepening sentiment of rejection and hostility toward
the PT (known colloquially as antipetismo);5 and 2) the presence of a
small but visible far-right fringe openly expressing nostalgia for the “or-
der” and “clean government” of the military dictatorship. Both these
trends would drive demonstrators to the streets again in 2016, when
Rousseff was impeached on charges of violating federal budgetary laws.
Against a backdrop of full-blown recession and daily street protests,
Rousseff’s large and heterogeneous cross-party alliance in Congress—
sure-footedly assembled by her mentor Lula a decade earlier—quickly
fell apart. Legislators paid little heed to Rousseff’s legal defense, and
moved quickly to oust her: She was forced to relinquish the government
to Vice-President Temer (PMDB) in May 2016 and was finally con-
victed and removed from office in August. The PT and the left viewed
Rousseff’s removal as a golpe (parliamentary coup d’état) and Temer’s
successor government as illegitimate.

1.1

4

5.7

6

3.

20

3.96

6.06

5.09

-0.13

7.54

3.99

1.93

3.01

0.51

-3.55 -3.47

0.9

8

1.

40

2.40

-4

-2

0
2
4
6
8

Lula
Dilma Temer

Dilma/
Temer

figure 1—brazilian gdP growTh, 2003–19 (%)

Sources: Data for 2003–17 are from the World Bank (data.worldbank.org). Data for
2018 and 2019 are projections made in September 2018 by the Central Bank of Brazil
(www.bcb.gov.br).

Projected

73Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

The sharp rise in political polarization between 2013 and 2016 was vis-
ible at both the mass and elite levels. Street protests dominated the nation’s
TV screens, and Rousseff’s impeachment—featuring a naked intracoali-
tional betrayal led by Temer—showed the political class at its worst. As
Temer prepared to serve out the final two-and-a-half years of Rousseff’s
second term, the political atmosphere could hardly have been more toxic.

The daily revelations from Lava Jato, the largest corruption investiga-
tion in the world, added fuel to the fire. Lava Jato initially focused on mon-
ey laundering through auto-service stations. As the operation expanded,
however, investigators stumbled onto a much larger bribery and kickback
scheme involving rigged bids by leading construction firms for contracts
with Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil giant, and the recycling into illegal
campaign donations of the profits these firms made by overcharging. In its
first four years (2014–18), Lava Jato produced nearly one-thousand arrest
warrants and 125 convictions, with the guilty verdicts falling on politicians
and private businesspeople alike. Although the investigation ensnared pol-
iticians from fourteen different political parties (including Eduardo Cunha,
a powerful former PMDB speaker of the lower house), many of the most
important names were linked to the PT. Lava Jato led to the jailing of sev-
eral past PT party presidents and treasurers before finally reaching former
president Lula himself, who was sentenced in 2017 to nine years in prison
for accepting a bribe in the form of a beachfront apartment from the con-
struction firm OAS. This initial sentence was increased to twelve years by
a regional court in early 2018 and was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
Lula’s unsuccessful legal appeals were front-page news throughout 2018,
and his eventual exclusion from the presidential race may have changed
the course of history. Yet Lava Jato’s impact on the election was not sim-
ply a “legal” question: Revelations of pervasive corruption hardened both
antiestablishment and (fairly or not) antipetista sentiment within the elec-
torate, eventually working to Bolsonaro’s advantage.

Finally, alarming levels of violent crime and public insecurity were
pivotal to the outcome of the 2018 campaign. In 2017, seventeen of the
fifty most violent cities in the world were in Brazil.6 The preponderance
of these were located in the country’s north or northeast and formed part
of drug transit routes. In that same year, 63,880 people were murdered in
Brazil, up 3 percent from 2016, and the murder rate was 30.8 per 100,000
people—a figure that compares unfavorably even with homicide rates in
Mexico.7 That everyday policing is largely a state-level responsibility in
Brazil’s federal system, and not within the purview of presidents except in
emergency situations, was an academic point in the minds of most voters.
Heightened fear of crime cut across socioeconomic as well as ideological
lines, giving Bolsonaro another opportunity to build broad political sup-
port. In truth, his hard-line “eye for an eye” discourse, combined with the
view that human rights must be subordinated to public safety, was nothing
new: Bolsonaro had virtually “owned” this policy space since the 1990s.

74 Journal of Democracy

In the tense climate of 2018, however, such appeals struck a chord
with the electorate. Affluent sectors were drawn to the “law and order”
candidate despite their ability to afford private security measures such
as armed guards, armored vehicles, and gated communities. Poorer seg-
ments, who not only lack access to such options but also typically reside
in areas of greater crime, sought credible promises of protection as well.
The widespread view that recent governments had failed to keep the pub-
lic safe strengthened the appeal of a candidate who openly advertised his
willingness to combat crime by restricting due process, lowering the age
at which defendants could be charged as adults, loosening gun laws, and
giving the police more autonomy as well as greater firepower.

These four simultaneous crises took a heavy toll on support for both
the government and the regime. Latinobarómetro, an annual survey
of citizens in eighteen Latin American countries, found that Brazil’s
government had the lowest approval rating of any among this group in
2017 and 2018.8 In both years, only 6 percent of respondents said they
approved of the incumbent government (compared, for instance, to 18
percent in Mexico and 22 percent in El Salvador). Figures for regime le-
gitimacy are similar. In 2018 Brazil came in dead last in Latin America
in levels of satisfaction with the performance of democracy. Only 9 per-
cent of those surveyed reported being satisfied, a drop of 40 percentage
points when compared to 2010, the final year of Lula’s government. As
Figure 2 suggests, 2015 was an inflection point in Brazilians’ support
for democracy: The number of respondents who agreed that “Democ-
racy is preferable to any other system of government” started to fall,
while the view that “For people like me, it doesn’t matter whether we
have a democratic government or an authoritarian one” began gaining in
popularity. Although Brazil has routinely ranked comparatively low in
the region in satisfaction with democracy as measured by these indica-
tors, the downward trend and the current absolute level of indifference
and even skepticism toward democracy are alarming. Needless to say,
this situation bodes poorly for the chances of strong action by ordinary
Brazilians to defend democratic norms under the next president, whose
illiberal inclinations have been hidden in plain sight for thirty years.

Enter Bolsonaro

Prior to his spectacular presidential victory, Jair Messias Bolsonaro
was neither an outsider nor an insider in Brazilian politics. After sixteen
years as a cadet and paratrooper in the army, from which he retired as a
captain, Bolsonaro was first elected to the Rio de Janeiro City Council
in 1988. His original platform was mostly limited to improving military
salaries and advocating for military families and veterans. Beginning in
1990, he was elected to seven consecutive terms as a federal congressman
from the State of Rio de Janeiro, with his campaign rhetoric gradually

75Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

broadening to encompass a comprehensive far-right agenda. His victories
were consistently comfortable due to Brazil’s use of open-list proportional
representation with a high number of representatives per district (Rio has
46 seats in the lower house), a system that is friendly to niche candidates
with strong personal followings. During this period Bolsonaro appeared
acutely aware of his narrow base: He never attempted to run in a majori-
tarian election, such as those for mayor, governor, senator, or president.

Although this longtime officeholder was not truly an outsider, Bolso-
naro’s fringe status in national legislative politics meant that he was not
much of an insider either. In the 1990s and 2000s, Bolsonaro became a
well-known though irrelevant backbencher, building a reputation as a
gaffe-prone extremist and a cartoonish foil for the left. His ability to
provoke opponents and generate controversy was the stuff of legend,
and even led to legal cases against him. In 1999, Bolsonaro called for
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to be shot by firing squad as a
punishment for privatizations. Loud and intemperate, he insulted his
legislative colleagues on a regular basis. He infamously stated that PT
congresswoman Maria do Rosário Nunes was “not worth raping.” In a

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60

Democracy always preferable

Under some circumstances, authoritarianism

For people like me, doesn’t matter

figure 2—PoPular suPPorT for deMocracy in brazil, 1995–2018
(Three-year MoVing aVerage, %)

Note: Response options were “Democracy is preferable to any other system of government”;
“Under some circumstances, an authoritarian government might be preferable to a democratic
one”; and “For people like me, it doesn’t matter whether we have a democratic government
or an authoritarian one.” Each annual value corresponds to the average of that year and the
previous two years.
Source: www.latinobarometro.org.

76 Journal of Democracy

2011 interview with Playboy, Bolsonaro said that he “would be inca-
pable of loving a homosexual son” and would prefer that his son “died in
an accident” before “show(ing) up with some bloke with a moustache.”

In 2017, he claimed that quilombolas
(residents of communities formed by de-
scendants of escaped slaves) were “not
even good enough for procreation.” On
national television during the 2016 im-
peachment of Dilma Rousseff, a feverish
Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to the army
intelligence officer who oversaw her tor-
ture when she was a political prisoner in
1970. The list goes on and on.9

It is tempting to write off Bolsonaro’s
behavior as that of an unhinged provo-
cateur, but over time he acquired both a
highly committed following and a degree

of influence among the broader electorate. His longtime view that human-
rights activists “only defend the rights of criminals,” however ludicrous, is
overwhelmingly endorsed by the Brazilian public.10 His nostalgia for the
1964–85 military regime began to gain traction among voters clamoring for
safer streets and an end to corruption, finding particular resonance among
those too young to be able to compare life under authoritarianism with their
experiences of democracy. Moreover, Bolsonaro’s crude and inflammatory
speech during Rousseff’s impeachment—which lasted less than two min-
utes—put him in the public eye at the perfect time, allowing him to surf the
wave of rising anti-PT sentiment in the run-up to the 2018 election. Thanks
to Bolsonaro’s legions of followers on social media (to whom he is known
as O Mito, or “The Legend”), even those voters who had previously tried to
ignore Bolsonaro could not escape his growing national presence.

A full year before the 2018 election, Bolsonaro was already boasting
15 to 20 percent support in opinion polls. He and Lula were the only
strong candidates in so-called “spontaneous mention” polling (in which
respondents are asked how they intend to vote without initially being pro-
vided with the names of parties or candidates), showing the motivation
and enthusiasm of their respective voter bases. Much like Donald Trump
(another perennial noncandidate) in the United States two years earlier,
Bolsonaro read the public mood well and chose the right year in which to
finally throw his hat in the ring. He accepted the nomination of the mi-
nuscule PSL, over which he knew he would have full operational control.
During the convention season in May and June, no major party nominated
a novel or appealing candidate who could challenge Bolsonaro from the
center-right. On the left, Lula, far more popular than his wounded PT,
continued to lead in all major polls right up until his removal from the
race. Under these circumstances, Bolsonaro’s easiest path to the presi-

Bolsonaro’s easiest
path to the presidency
lay in a runoff election
in which he would
face a candidate from
the weakened PT—but
not Lula himself. This
is exactly the scenario
he got.

77Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

dency lay in a runoff election in which he would face a candidate from the
weakened PT—but not Lula himself. This is exactly the scenario he got.

Bolsonaro’s actual participation in campaign activities was minimal.
After going to two televised debates during the first round, he was stabbed
in the lower abdomen while being carried on the shoulders of supporters
in Juiz de Fora on September 6.11 Narrowly escaping death, he underwent
several operations and never returned to the campaign trail (in a first for
Brazil, there were no debates in the runoff election). The massive media
attention given to the assassination attempt—a “hard news” event that fell
outside the purview of normal government regulation of candidate access
to TV and radio—helped to consolidate Bolsonaro’s position as the lead-
ing anti-PT candidate. With the final exclusion of Lula on September 11
and his understudy Haddad’s ascent to second place in the polls, the bi-
nary choice facing voters became clear, and Bolsonaro was able to secure
support from an even wider swath of anti-PT voters.

Polling during the runoff campaign showed that he had solidified
many of his strengths and limited some of his earlier weaknesses. By
October 2018, Bolsonaro—long perceived as a misogynist—even man-
aged to narrow the yawning gender gap that had plagued him throughout
the year. The four best predictors of support for Bolsonaro were income,
education, religious affiliation, and region of residence. Bolsonaro won
among all income groups except for the poor and very poor: Haddad
proved more popular among voters whose monthly earnings were less
than two times the minimum wage. Not only did Bolsonaro run away
with the vote of Brazil’s “traditional” middle class (households earning
more than ten times the minimum wage), he also prevailed among the
so-called “new” middle classes, whose emergence is often credited to
the economic growth and social-inclusion policies overseen by the PT.12
Education, which in Brazil is highly correlated with income, was also
a major factor. Despite Bolsonaro’s frequent contention that Brazilian
universities are hotbeds of “leftist psychos” (esquerdopatas), he scored
an overwhelming victory among college graduates.

He also took 70 percent of the votes of Pentecostal Christians, who
now make up a quarter of the Brazilian electorate. During the campaign,
tightly organized networks of Pentecostal pastors had provided a vital
communications channel for Bolsonaro, who has successfully sought to
attract Brazil’s evangelicals. The new president still describes himself as
a Catholic, but has an evangelical spouse and attends a Baptist church; in
2016, he underwent a public baptism in the Jordan River by a fellow poli-
tician who is an Assemblies of God pastor.13 Finally, patterns of regional
support were stark. Although he lost the poor northeast to the PT, Bolso-
naro performed spectacularly in the economically advanced states of the
south and southeast and in the Federal District (Brasília). He received
68 percent of the vote in Rio de Janeiro and S~ao Paulo, 70 percent in the
Federal District, and 76 percent in Santa Catarina, all areas with high

78 Journal of Democracy

levels of human development.14 With the exception of the very poor and
northeasterners, Brazil as a whole went heavily for Bolsonaro.

A Changing Party Landscape

Who were the main casualties of the October 2018 presidential elec-
tion? Suffering the greatest setbacks were the PT, the PSDB, and the
party system anchored since 1994 by these rival parties, a system that
had helped to consolidate Brazilian democracy. Even before the 2018
campaign began, the weaknesses of all three were already evident.

To say that Bolsonaro’s victory reflects poorly on the PT is an under-
statement. Leaving aside major failures in the areas of economic manage-
ment and administrative probity, the party’s defeat laid bare its tragicomic
dependence on Lula. The mythical status of Lula within the PT—evident
in the staunch support for his candidacy even after his conviction—came
at the expense of cultivating new political leaders. As far back as 2010, the
commanding role that Lula played in Rousseff’s presidential nomination
had foreshadowed this problem. Technocratic and severe, Rousseff had
been Lula’s energy minister (2003–05) and chief of staff (2005–10). She
had never held elected office and had no independent following or sway
within the PT, thus allowing Lula to preserve his influence after leaving
office. More recently, Lula’s insistence on remaining the PT’s candidate
in 2018 even once it appeared likely that he would be barred from running
raised fundamental questions about the party’s organizational strength
and capacity for evolution. Not even Lula’s disqualification could strike
him from the PT’s narrative: In a particularly graphic demonstration of
the party’s overreliance on the former president, PT electoral strategists
arranged for Fernando Haddad to don a Lula mask at campaign appear-
ances and filled the airwaves with the slogan, “Haddad is Lula. Lula is
Haddad.” Although Lula did ultimately manage to transfer much of his
popularity to Haddad, it was too little, too late. In any event, the party’s
future strategy cannot rest on invoking the legendary leader’s aura.

The 2018 results also revealed that the PT’s competitiveness in presi-
dential elections has become increasingly confined to Brazil’s northeast.
In his 2002 presidential bid, Lula was able to clinch an electoral major-
ity in every Brazilian state but one. In 2006, he deepened his foothold
in poor northeastern states but lost seven others, including the key state
of S~ao Paulo and several states in Brazil’s south and center-west.15 In
2010, Rousseff held onto the PT’s northeastern stronghold but lost three
additional states outside the region, and her vote totals in 2014 followed
a roughly similar pattern. Haddad’s performance in 2018 was even more
lopsided. Although he won every state in the northeast and two in the
north, he failed to carry a single state outside those regions. For the first
time ever, the PT lost its ability to command a majority in the populous
state of Minas Gerais, which borders Rio de Janeiro and S~ao Paulo. And

79Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

in many states, the PT candidate’s margin of loss was shockingly high.16
In short, the PT risks becoming a regional party. Moreover, even within
the party’s northeastern stronghold, support is uneven: Haddad did sig-
nificantly better in poor rural areas. With crime at record levels in urban
areas, he was able to carry only two northeastern capital cities. If the
PT’s narrative remains centered on Lula and its popularity confined to
the northeast, its prospects in future elections will be limited. To regain
its competitiveness, the PT will need to make rebalancing its regional
appeal a priority within a broader process of reflection and renewal.

The 2018 vote totals reflected even more poorly on the PSDB, the PT’s
principal rival in presidential elections from 1994 to 2014. In the six pre-
vious contests, the PSDB had secured on average almost 40 percent of
the vote. Yet the party once headed by renowned intellectuals and tech-
nocrats who championed democracy and free-market reforms alongside
redistributive social policies has now lost five straight presidential elec-
tions, with a particularly dismal showing in 2018. It secured only 29 seats
in the Chamber of Deputies (down from 54 in 2014) and will control only
three of 27 state governments. With its overdependence on S~ao Paulo and
with no promising young leadership emerging, the PSDB’s days as a ma-
jor national party appear numbered. The MDB, the PSDB’s main partner
in the Temer administration, has a questionable future as well. A peren-
nial source of support for both PT and PSDB presidents, this center-right
party had not run a presidential candidate of its own since 1994. In 2018,
however, the beleaguered Temer enlisted his finance minister Meirelles
to carry the government’s banner. The outcome was disastrous, with the
MDB floundering not only in the presidential race but in the Chamber as
well: The size of its delegation dropped from 66 members in 2014 to 34 in
2018. Overall, the spectacular self-destruction of the center-right (PSDB
and MDB) and the emergence of a new far-right option (the PSL) imply
major changes for the party system. On the left side of the spectrum, how-
ever, there is still no alternative to PT hegemony.

With high turnover in both houses and the major parties losing seats,
Brazil, which had set the world record for party-system fragmentation four
years earlier, has now topped its own record. Candidates from 30 different
parties (up from 26 at the end of the previous session) were elected to fill
the Chamber of Deputies. Nine similarly sized parties will hold between 28
and 39 seats apiece. Politicians representing 21 different parties (up from
17) were chosen to fill the 81-seat Senate. Notwithstanding rules intended
to lower the number of parties in Congress by disadvantaging smaller par-
ties—which will inevitably cause some party-switching in early 2019—
this fragmentation will complicate the formation of congressional coali-
tions conducive to efficient and effective governance. With a president
perceived as an ideological extremist, a dose of gridlock could be salutary.
Yet it could also be counterproductive, insofar as Bolsonaro may be tempt-
ed to find illiberal paths around routine institutional obstacles.

80 Journal of Democracy

Jair Bolsonaro did not “come out of nowhere” to win the presidency.
Rather, Bolsonaro has been hidden in plain sight during his thirty-year
career as a fringe defender of the defunct military regime, an advocate
of the lex talionis, and an antagonist of minorities and human-rights
activists. His election was possible only because Brazilian democracy

had done so much to clear a path for
him. Four simultaneous crises—cor-
ruption, recession, polarization, and
rising crime—paved the way, creat-
ing a favorable environment for an
incendiary populist. Corruption alle-
gations implicating a dozen political
parties discredited the political class.
Center-right forces allied with a tre-
mendously unpopular interim govern-
ment imploded, leaving vacant a wide
ideological space for Bolsonaro to fill.
The PT clung to an imprisoned former

president, opting for a strategy of victimization and drawn-out legal the-
ater rather than providing early backing to the creditable Fernando Had-
dad. Door after door was flung open wide for Bolsonaro.

In the end, Bolsonaro won the election by successfully exploiting two
major cleavages in the Brazilian electorate. One was the antiestablish-
ment cleavage, centering on a widespread sentiment of cumulative dis-
gust with politics and politicians as whole (“throw the rascals out”). The
other was the antipetista cleavage, which hinged on the determination
among many voters to inflict a belated punishment on the party that had
governed for over a decade (although the PT was no longer the incumbent
party in 2018, it was treated as if it still were). Some candidates were on
the winning side of one of these cleavages but not the other: Center-right
candidates Alckmin and Meirelles, for instance, were antipetistas but (le-
thally for them) card-carrying establishment insiders. Bolsonaro was the
only candidate who was on the right side of both cleavages. He energized
voters who detested the PT, and he energized voters who detested every-
one. When the electoral options were narrowed to Bolsonaro and a petista
whose name was not Lula, Bolsonaro won by a landslide.

The dynamics of the 2018 election have thus given Bolsonaro a strong
popular mandate. Public expectations for bold and energetic action from
the president are high. The multiple crises that first opened the door to
Bolsonaro will linger, strengthening his position. In 2019, he will stand
virtually alone at the apex of national politics: There is no single leader
or party with the authority to effectively challenge him. The once-for-
midable PT is diminished and the PSDB is a shadow of its former self.
Not only does Brazil lack a natural “leader of the opposition,” it lacks a
popular former president who is not in jail. Together with the polarized

Bolsonaro was the only
candidate who was on
the right side of both
cleavages. He energized
voters who detested the
PT, and he energized
voters who detested
everyone.

81Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power

atmosphere and Bolsonaro’s deeply illiberal inclinations, these opposi-
tion weaknesses have worrisome implications for Brazilian democracy.

Much like his populist predecessor Fernando Collor (president from
1990 until his impeachment and resignation in 1992), Bolsonaro lacks an
institutionalized party to catch his falls and see him through hard times.
As Collor’s short-lived presidency showed, early public support is no sub-
stitute for a strong and enduring party base. In dealing with the country’s
perennially fragmented legislature, Bolsonaro will be, mathematically
speaking, a minority Brazilian president like any other. His PSL, domi-
nated by inexperienced newcomers elected on his coattails, will make up
10 percent of the Chamber of Deputies and less than 5 percent of the Sen-
ate. Even anticipated support from the usual “parties for rent” may not
yield the coalition necessary to effectively confront the problems he has
pledged to solve. To make good on his bold promises and maintain his
“heroic” image, Bolsonaro is likely to resort to decree authority, and per-
haps to plebiscitary initiatives as well. As a former paratrooper who exalts
the military and is widely popular among police officers, Bolsonaro could
also pivot to the security sector. His choice of the blustery former general
Hamilton Mour~ao as his vice-presidential running mate suggests plans to
cultivate this power resource. As of this writing in December 2018, he has
already named seven current or former military officers to his cabinet,
one of whom will head the Ministry of Defense (created in 1999 with the
explicit intent of advancing civilian supremacy over the armed forces).
To put this in perspective, none of the five military presidents during the
dictatorship of 1964–85 included more than seven officers in their cabi-
nets. Drawing on the military for protection, if not actively deploying it to
shore up his power, would represent a significant break with the last five
Brazilian presidents, all civilians who had opposed the military regime.

Given the complex challenges Bolsonaro will encounter in trying to
reverse Brazil’s economic decline (an endeavor that will require him to
take up the difficult task of pension reform), he is likely to view anti-
crime and public-security projects as a more promising route to quick
and visible progress. Unleashing the police and even deploying the army
in urban areas, which Temer has already done in Rio de Janeiro since
February 2018, is a form of low-hanging fruit. By expanding these in-
terventions, Bolsonaro could boost his approval on a crucial issue that
matters to the public. Given the tremendous popularity that President
Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has managed to secure by playing
these cards, it would not be surprising if Bolsonaro followed suit, imper-
iling human rights and the rule of law in the process.

NOTES

1. See Wendy Hunter, The Transformation of the Workers’ Party in Brazil, 1989–2009
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

82 Journal of Democracy

2. Third-time presidential contender Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party
(PDT), to whom some looked during the first round for a center-left option not weighed
down by the PT’s badly damaged reputation, also floundered: For some voters he was too
much of an establishment figure, and for others he was compromised by his loyal service
as a minister in Lula’s cabinet. He ended up with 12.47 percent of valid votes.

3. On the crisis period, see Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, “A Fourth Decade
of Brazilian Democracy: Achievements, Challenges, and Polarization,” in Kingstone and
Power, eds., Democratic Brazil Divided (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).

4. “Entre 2014 e 2017, desemprego cresceu mais em Santa Catarina e no Rio,” Agên-
cia IBGE, 10 April 2018, https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-noticias/2012-
agencia-de-noticias/noticias/20118-entre-2014-e-2017-desemprego-cresceu-mais-
em-santa-catarina-e-no-rio-de-janeiro.

5. See David J. Samuels and Cesar Zucco, Partisans, Antipartisans, and Nonparti-
sans: Voting Behavior in Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

6. Angelo Young, “The Most Dangerous Cities in the World,” 24/7 Wall St., 11 July
2018, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/07/11/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-the-
world-2/2.

7. Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública 2018, www.forumseguranca.org.br/publi-
cacoes/anuario-brasileiro-de-seguranca-publica-2018.

8. Figures in this paragraph are drawn from “Informe Latinobarómetro 2018,” 9 No-
vember 2018, www.latinobarometro.org.

9. For English translations of these remarks, see Sam Meredith, “Who Is the ‘Trump
of the Tropics’? Brazil’s Divisive New President, Jair Bolsonaro—In His Own Words,”
CNBC, 29 October 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/10/29/brazil-election-jair-bolsonaros-
most-controversial-quotes.html; Mariana Sim~oes, “Brazil’s Polarizing New President, Jair
Bolsonaro, in His Own Words,” New York Times, 28 October 2018.

10. An April 2018 IPSOS poll of 1,200 Brazilians found that only 20 percent believed
that human rights benefited victims, while 66 percent believed that they benefited crimi-
nals. See André Shalders, “Dois em cada tr^es brasileiros acham que ‘direitos humanos de-
fendem mais os bandidos’, diz pesquisa,” BBC, 16 May 2018, www.bbc.com/portuguese/
brasil-44148576.

11. Preliminary investigations suggest that the attack was perpetrated by a mentally
unwell individual acting alone.

12. See Timothy J. Power, “The Reduction of Poverty and Inequality in Brazil: Politi-
cal Causes, Political Consequences,” in Ben Ross Schneider, ed., New Order and Prog-
ress: Development and Democracy in Brazil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

13. See Chayenne Polimédio, “The Rise of the Brazilian Evangelicals,” Atlantic, 24
January 2018.

14. On regional trends, see Kiko Llaneras, “Bolsonaro divide o Brasil: arrasa nas ci-
dades mais brancas e mais ricas,” El País, 30 October 2018.

15. Wendy Hunter and Timothy J. Power, “Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, So-
cial Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006,” Latin American Politics and Society 49
(Spring 2007): 1–30.

16. See map at www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46013408.