His motto: "Brazil above all, God above all." Exmilitar, nostalgic of the dictatorship and religious. This is the new president of the Latin American giant.
Son of a dentist without title. A controversial military career. Only two of his projects were approved in the 27 years he was in Congress. He once praised Hugo Chávez. This is the new president of the largest country in South America that in a matter of months was able to capture the indignation of voters in the face of corruption and transform the fear of citizens before the very high levels of insecurity that the country suffers in hope.
Little did the electorate import its homophobic, sexist and racist discourse, its nostalgia for the military dictatorship or its apology for torture. Brazil wanted a drastic change and found it in "its frank conservative ideas and its fight against crime," said Michael Lopez Stweart, political analyst and director of Arko Advice.
That's why in the first round his victory was devastating. Bolsonaro obtained 46% of the support compared to 29% of his contender the leftist Fernando Haddad. Trend that remained in the final round of this October 28: 55.34% against 44.66% of Haddad, which represents more than 11 million votes of advantage. His triumph is overwhelming. Bolsonaro stands as the new Head of State of the Rio de Janeiro nation. Get to know the far right that conquered Brazil:
Part of his childhood was spent in El Dorado, a small city of 15,000 inhabitants of the state of Sao Paulo. By then the city was a small town in the middle of the jungle. The Bolsonaro arrived there because of their father, Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro, who worked as a dentist without a title. The people in that town remember him as a quiet boy, who liked to fish and be with friends. His "simple habits" of that time, says Marisa Lobo, anti-abortion activist and "profamilia" close to Bolsonaro, still accompany him. When asked about Bolsonaro, she says: "She has a great love for the Brazilian flag."
That admiration arose one day in May 1970. At that time, the guerrilla Carlos Lamarca was fighting against the military dictatorship that was installed from 1964 to 1985 and that at that time faced its most cruel years. Lamarca fired on a Polícia station and the tranquility that until then was lived in the town stopped.
A young 15-year-old Bolsonaro was so impressed by this episode that he told his friends that he wanted to enlist in the Army. He was dazzled by the way the military imposed order. That was his next fight.
As a young man his ambition was fueled. He wanted to get to the Army, he knew that in those days when the violence was getting worse, the military had a lot of power and he wanted to be one of them. That's why, at the end of the seventies, he left El Dorado and showed up at a cadet school in the city of Resende in Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro always boasted of how the discipline and values he learned in the Army marked his life as a politician, but his military career was also undermined by acts of indiscipline. Thus began to see flashes of his controversial personality.
In 1986, the military officer in training wrote an article in the magazine 'Veja' in which he criticized the low wages received by soldiers. This he did without the permission of his superiors, which was immediately recognized as an act of disloyalty. A disciplinary investigation was opened for this incident.
Jair Bolsonaro at the military academy in 1977. © Jair Bolsonaro / Facebook profile
According to a secret 1980 Army document, which was released by the Brazilian newspaper 'Folha de Sao Paulo', its superiors described it as: "aggressive, ambitious and irrational treatment". Bolsonaro was arrested for two weeks and then released. Despite this, he also received telegrams in support of relatives of soldiers who agreed with his claim.
In 1987, after a decade of training, Bolsonaro jumped into public life to be behind the operation "Dead End", which consisted in placing low explosive devices in some barracks as a symbol of protest for the low salaries of the workers. soldiers The subject was closed without resolving at all. Captain Bolsonaro was acquitted but the image he left in some of his military high command was negative: he had "an excessive ambition to perform financially and economically," reads the report.
The current president-elect had gathered the support of a sector of the armed forces. I knew it was time to throw myself into politics. The year 1988 was already running and the military dictatorship had little time left, so with that support he was elected as a councilor by the Christian Democratic Party, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. "He was supported by a very small group, his constituents were military or ex-military," López explained.
Two years later, in 1990, he was elected deputy for Rio and thus came to Congress. There he was 27 years old. "Bolsonaro was a deputy with little impact, he was not a political party leader or participated in major projects as a congressman or in important commissions. He was a deputy of low clergy who had a good relationship with the military, "explained Lopez.
In all that time as Congressman Bolsonaro did not stand out in Brasilia, capital and political heart of Brazil. Of more than 170 bills of authorship, only two became law: one was the proposal that extends the benefit of exemption from the Tax on Industrialized Products and another authorization for the use of phosphoethanolamine, a pill for cancer . "As a deputy, he always attended to everyone, he never discriminated, but when the issue involved the Workers' Party, corruption and LGBTI militancy in schools, it was different," said Lobo.
"Bolsonaro was a deputy with little impact, he was not a leader of any political party or participated in major projects as a congressman or in important competitions", Michael López.
Bolsonaro seemed not interested in the life of a congressman as much as the controversy. Since then he yearned for the military dictatorship, saying that "his great mistake was torturing and not killing", but he also affirmed that he was "in favor of torture and the people too".
Before reaching the Social Liberal Party, movement that hosted his presidential candidacy last summer, Bolsonaro went through 8 games. The far right has presented itself as an 'anti-establishment'. He says he does not accept sponsorships of any kind, but 3 of his 5 children occupy legislative positions: Flávio is a state deputy and senator from Rio de Janeiro, Carlos is a councilor from the same state and Eduardo Bolsonaro has been reelected federal deputy for São Paulo in the elections October 7 with a resounding victory: became the most voted federal deputy in the history of Brazil with 1,814,443 votes.
When asked about the political career of Jair Messiah Bolsonaro to one of his colleagues, the answer is blunt: "he is always next to the truth. There is not a single test of a single irregular thing he has done. He is a patriot and a Christian, "he told France 24, deputy Heitor Freire, state president of the Liberal Social Party, Bolsonaro movement.
To date, Bolsonaro has not been implicated in any corruption scandal in Brazil. However, some, such as the Brazilian sociologist Rodrigo Saussana, consider him to be an "opportunist" because he is championing the fight against corruption, but "he supported Lula's government and praised Hugo Chavez at the time."
As a presidential candidate, Bolsonaro only hardened the rhetoric he had handled since he was a deputy and did so the closer he got to the evangelic caucuses, which were a key sector to achieve the presidency. Affirmations such as: "I will not fight or discriminate, but if I see two men kissing in the street I will beat them", "the blacks do not work for the procreator" or "you do not deserve (to be raped), because it is very bad" and because it is very ugly ", referring to a deputy in the Congress, she was labeled as racist, homophobic and misogynist until the end of her campaign. For members of your party, this is about false news.
"The media uses 'fake news' to say that he is against homosexuals, of women and is racist, but when his partner married him, this was a single mother and his father-in-law is a black man, Northeastern part, which is the poorest in Brazil, "said Deputy Freire. In addition, Lobo added that "when his only daughter was born, he became a" babysitter ", that is, he is commanded by women at home," but these explanations go against what the candidate has said publicly.
In Brazil, the country with the largest number of Catholics in the world and where 22% declare themselves evangelical, Bolsonaro found its apogee. Three days before the first presidential round, Silas Malafaia, the spiritual leader of the Assembly of God Church, the largest in the country with 12 million parishioners, declared her support for the president-elect.
The faithful did not care that Bolsonaro, who defends the traditional family at all costs, has been married three times and has five children of different marriages. "He uses the bible to defend some of his visions, he does not like lies, he is a great leader, he will make a Brazil for everyone," said Freire and that seems to be the most important thing. "God above all" , as Bolsonaro says, who in the campaign assured that "we are in a Christian State, not in a secular State."
The Bolsonaro phenomenon was growing strongly in a few months. People were attracted by his personality and his extremist discourse, which promised more security, less corruption and returning to Brazil the integrity and lost values. "He gives voice to the citizen of good, who can not stand seeing so many children being eroticized in schools, faced the dictatorship of politically correct and confronted the moral, political and financial corruption of Brazil being the voice that the people cried," he said. Wolf.
That's why the majority of businessmen, seeing their growth in the surveys decided to support it too. "I am different from the others, my flag has always been John 8:32, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free," said Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro came to the Presidency of Brazil in the midst of one of the most acute crises in the country. The fight against corruption, against violence, an economy that does not recover after the worst recession, high unemployment numbers and now unite a completely fragmented country will be some of its immediate challenges.
About 57,615,723 Brazilians decided this October 28 that the military, the politician and the Christian Jair Mesías Bolsonaro will be the one to take the reins of the Latin American giant for the next 4 years and write a new chapter in the history of Brazil.