Polarisation may give way to fragmentation in Brazil
Monday, January 27, 2020
Subject
Political polarisation in Brazil.
Significance
Polarisation has been a defining feature of Brazilian politics since the mid-2010s and helped catapult Jair Bolsonaro, a longstanding far-right backbencher in Congress, to the presidency. The current political narrative and strategies of both Bolsonaro’s camp and its key antagonist, the centre-left Workers’ Party (PT), reflect an assumption that this will continue at least until the 2022 presidential election.
Impacts
- Bolsonaro will concentrate on his socially conservative base as a strategy to defeat the PT again in 2022.
- Counting on polarisation will be increasingly risky if alternatives to both Bolsonaro and the PT consolidate.
- Disenchantment could see a true political outsider come to the fore in the next elections.