IT was hardly surprising the Brazilian electorate voted last year for radical change. In 2017 an astounding 63,880 people were murdered. Robberies and kidnappings are commonplace. Brazil is by far South America’s largest economy with a population of 209 million. However, once-strong growth turned into recession, in no small measure due to a collapse in domestic and international confidence coupled with a series of devastating corruption scandals.
The victory of right-wing congressman Jair Bolsonaro in last October’s presidential election, brought to an end 14 years of socialist rule. The once hugely-popular icon of this period, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, president for eight years until 2011 is currently serving a 12-year jail term for corruption. Other left-wing politicians along with top officials and leading executives, not least in the state-owned oil company Petrobras, are currently under investigation or in prison for being part of an extensive system of payola which made a mockery of left-wing claims to support social justice and transparency.
Small wonder then that Brazilians expressed their anger and disappointment by voting for Bolsonaro, who campaigned on a highly conservative platform. This included vigorous attacks on the socialists’ moral and governance shortcomings. He also laid into the predominantly left-wing media and civil society organizations.
The new president’s triumph has certainly spurred the international financial markets. Bolsonaro’s Cabinet is full of enthusiasts for free markets and small government. There is also general approval that he has appointed the country’s top anti-corruption judge as his justice minister.
But it seemed clear this week, after the new Brazilian leader had been sworn in, that some voters who had given him their support were starting to have doubts. The problem appears to be that the new president is very obviously modeling himself on America’s Donald Trump. Though he is not an inveterate social media user like The Donald, Bolsonaro has not shrunk from insulting key members of the liberal establishment and not mincing his words when it comes to condemning immoral behavior. And Trump himself seems to be encouraging a man who has expressed his considerable admiration for the US leader. He sent Bolsonaro fulsome congratulations after his inauguration.
But Brazil’s new president should understand that the challenges he faces in Brazil are very different from those taken on by Trump. Brazil is not the United States. It may be the world’s eighth largest economy but it is not involved in international confrontations. It also boasts well-established trading and political links around the world, in particular here with the Kingdom.
In these circumstances it is very odd that Bolsonaro appears determined to follow his hero Trump and also move his own country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s strong Zionist affiliations are well-known. Frustration among US allies in the Middle East at the US embassy relocation are balanced, to an extent, by Trump’s uncompromising line against terrorism and Iran sponsorship of unrest and regional violence.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil lacks the diplomatic breadth to strike the same balance. Indeed, apart from the predictable gratitude of the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is rather hard to see what Brazil can actually achieve by the embassy move, while the potential downside, in terms of regional trade, is all too obvious.
