Rio de Janeiro with its harbour like a fallen star
…and the curve of its beaches with their names like songs…
…Flamengo, Botafogo, Copacabana
Rio isn’t what it was
These days it’s a city emblematic of a country in trouble
There are signs of corruption everywhere
From the football stadium…
…rebuilt for the World Cup with dirty money…
…to the bay choked with pollution…
…because corrupt officials never cleaned it
Then there’s the violence
Last month, 28 were shot dead by the city’s police…
…in the bloodiest favela raid in Rio’s history
And to top it off…
…the city’s hospitals are struggling to cope with covid-19
This is just one city in a country of more than 211m people
But the problems it faces are felt nationwide
I think it’s going to be a really complicated and tense couple of years
It’s something that…
…the whole world should be paying attention to
Despite all this.…
…thousands of Brazilians were on the street last month…
…to show their support for right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro
A former army captain, famous for his racist…
…sexist and homophobic comments
His actions are now threatening not only Brazilian democracy…
…but one of the world’s most important natural resources
So why are his followers still so faithful?
Bolsonaro
And could the country withstand…
…another four years of his leadership?
Coronavirus has taken a terrible toll on Brazil
In April the country suffered the highest rate…
…of covid deaths of any nation on earth
And many blame President Jair Bolsonaro for letting it get this bad
He famously dismissed the virus as nothing more than flu…
…that wouldn’t affect a strong man like him
And as hospitals ran out of oxygen…
…he refused to order lockdowns…
…and even joked the vaccine could turn people into crocodiles
Bolsonaro’s early response to the covid crisis was to shrug it off…
…to say that, you know, covid wasn’t a big deal
And of course, that hasn’t proved to be true…
…and covid has killed one in every 500 Brazilians
The number is absolutely catastrophic
Despite this, in the early months of the pandemic…
Bolsonaro’s popularity soared
This was because his government issued emergency payments…
…to keep people out of poverty
It was one of the biggest welfare programmes in Brazil’s history
Without it, the number of people living on the breadline…
…would have more than doubled
Whereas by the end of 2020…
…a million people had been lifted out of poverty
These policies led to almost God-like worship…
…of Bolsonaro among some people
This is Barra de Pojuca
A town near Salvador in the north-east of Brazil
It’s one of the poorest parts of the country…
…with the highest rates of unemployment
But that doesn’t matter to senhor Antônio
His family runs the town fish stall and he is a local politician
…and passionate Bolsonaro supporter
Senhor Antônio is just one of the tens of millions of Brazilians…
…who voted for Bolsonaro in 2018…
…when he was elected with 55% of the vote
But just ten years ago it would have been unthinkable…
…that someone like Bolsonaro would take power here
Brazil was riding high
The country was led by a progressive government…
…headed by a woman, Dilma Rousseff
It was slated to host the upcoming World Cup and Olympics
And touted as a future economic powerhouse…
…alongside the other BRICS economies…
…Russia, India, China and South Africa
The economy was booming
Over the course of 2010…
…GDP grew by 7.5% and poverty was falling
But then things started to change
In 2014 the country fell into a deep and lasting recession…
…partly caused by the end of the commodities boom…
…and financial mismanagement by Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ Party
The main consequence of the economic crisis…
…was this perception, this increased perception…
…that the political class was inefficient…
…and didn’t have the capacity to deal with those problems
Alongside this, the Workers’ Party…
…or PT was engulfed in a huge corruption scandal…
…known as Lava Jato or “car wash”…
…after the petrol station where it was first uncovered
You know, it wasn’t a huge surprise to people…
…that there was corruption going on
But what was a massive shock was the scale of it
Dozens of companies were bribing the state oil firm Petrobras…
…to get government contracts…
…and that that money was then being funnelled…
…to all sorts of different political parties
Into this came Bolsonaro
A little-known congressman…
…who made much of his military credentials…
…as a former army captain
He promised to bring back order to the corrupt system
What elected him in the end…
…wasn’t so much the policies that he promised
But really this rebellion against…
…what had been there before him
We are going to drain the swamp
Bolsonaro also borrowed heavily from Donald Trump’s playbook
Drain the swamp, drain the swamp
Like Trump, he used social media…
…to rally support and position himself…
…as a plain-speaking man of the people
Even if his views were deeply offensive
He appealed to conservative voters…
…by promising to restore family values
And key to his election success were evangelical churches
Brazil is the world’s largest Catholic country
But evangelical Protestantism…
…is predicted to become the biggest religion here…
…in just over ten years time
Back in Barra de Pojuca…
…worshippers at one local church…
…are among the many evangelicals who voted for him
Cremilda is senhor Antônio’s sister-in-law…
…and has been a member of the church since she was seven
And she was proud to vote for Bolsonaro as a man of faith
But now he’s been in power for a few years…
…Cremilda is starting to question…
…if Bolsonaro is the best man to lead Brazil
Particularly given how he has handled the pandemic
Cremilda is not alone in her assessment
In recent months Bolsonaro’s popularity rating…
…has dropped to below 30%…
…the lowest since he came to power
This is partly because the economic aid…
…of the early days of the pandemic has now dried up
And the reality of Brazil’s economic situation is setting in
Despite GDP recovering more strongly than expected…
…unemployment has hit a 17-year high of 14.7%
And now that the government payments have stopped…
…the poverty rate is higher than it has been for over a decade
But Bolsonaro shows little enthusiasm…
…for the kind of interventions needed…
…to get the economy back on track
So, in Bolsonaro’s first year in office…
…they did manage to do a really important pensions reform…
…but then after that, the other reforms sort of stalled
And he was done doing unpopular economic proposals
And so this whole economic agenda…
…really just stayed on the table
But Bolsonaro’s policy decisions do not just affect Brazil
Some have a bearing on the welfare of the entire planet
Brazil is home to the Amazon rainforest
And although deforestation in the Amazon…
…had been rising since 2012, it shot up when he took office
A lot of the damage that has been done, it’s irreparable
He cut the budget of the environmental ministry
He forced out a lot of the most competent staff
And then he also sent a really, you know, really powerful message…
…to people who are involved in deforestation…
…which was that “it’s OK with me”
And the effect of that has just been catastrophic
His record on corruption is equally dire
Two of his sons are being investigated for corruption
This has led him to abandon anti-corruption reforms…
…and make deals with parties tainted by the Lava Jato scandal…
…in the hope this will save his sons from prison…
…and himself from impeachment
The question is, is this damage that can be reparable?
Is this, you know, the kind of a situation…
…that someone else can come in…
…and, sort of, fix what he has broken?
And I think that this is really the main question going forward
Brazil’s democracy is still young…
…and there are positive signs that it will survive Bolsonaro
The country’s institutions have managed to hold him in check…
…congress and the supreme court…
…have blocked some of his more extreme proposals…
…such as allowing gun-owning Brazilians…
…to openly carry firearms
And the pandemic has left him looking particularly vulnerable
Congress is now investigating his handling of covid-19…
…which could hurt Bolsonaro in the next election
And people are on the streets calling for his impeachment
I don’t think Bolsonaro is going to be able to…
…to undermine democratic institutions in the country…
…because what we’ve been observing is that he…
…as he attacks democracy and opposes democratic institutions…
…he also is getting progressively more isolated
He’s having a really hard time governing
Bolsonaro has tried to shore up his power through the military
But they may soon have to choose…
…between him and democracy
The next election in 2022 promises to be a political showdown…
…as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva…
…or Lula—the most popular Brazilian president to date…
…has hinted he will run again
But Bolsonaro has already indicated…
…that should he lose the election he would not go quietly
And the events that played out on Capitol Hill earlier this year…
…could be repeated in Brazil
When you ask, could what happened in the US…
…at the Capitol building happen in Brazil?
I think the answer is absolutely
And what we don’t know is whether it would turn out…
…the same way, whether in the end the democratic institutions…
…would be able to, sort of, take control
So, while Brazil has so far survived Bolsonaro’s onslaught…
…the greatest challenge to its democracy may well be yet to come
And those on the ground…
…are simply praying that things will get better
His legacy is going to be, you know, a tragic one
I hope that it’s one that Brazil can recover from…
…that Brazilian institutions can start to pick up the pieces…
…and heal from this
I think they will
But I think it’s going to be…
…a really complicated and tense couple of years
And, you know, it’s something…
…that the whole world should be paying attention to
Hi, I’m Sarah Maslin, I am the Brazil correspondent…
…for The Economist
If you would like to learn more about Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro…
…please click the link to my special report…
…and don’t forget to subscribe