Polarisation may give way to fragmentation in Brazil

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.