TheEconomistNovember 23rd 2019 331T
he presidentsof Brazil’s two houses of
congress live side by side in modern
mansions in Brasília, the capital. In May
they built a door in the wall that divides
their gardens, so they could meet without
attracting notice. The political mood was
fevered. A scandal involving the oldest son
of President Jair Bolsonaro was dominat-
ing the news. Worries about whether the
government would reform the unafford-
able pension system had pushed the real,
Brazil’s currency, to less than 25 American
cents for the first time since October.
The garden-gate gambit seemed to
work. On October 22nd congress enacted a
constitutional reform of the pension sys-
tem that will save the government 800bn
reais ($196bn) over ten years, about 10% of
this year’s gdp. The change is a big step to-
wards solving two of the country’s main
problems: a massive public debt; and state
spending that is both too high and skewed
towards transfers and salaries. (The real re-
mains weak for other reasons.)
Mr Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist
who has been in office since January, had
little to do with the reform. The fight was
led by Rodrigo Maia, the president of the
lower house of congress, and his counter-
part in the senate, Davi Alcolumbre. Their
main ally in government was the pro-mar-
ket economy minister, Paulo Guedes. The
president, normally the main pitchman for
any reform, kept a low profile.
His bystander role is one of the many
oddities of his administration. Brazilians
elected the former army captain, until 2017
an obscure congressman with a fondness
for dictators, to express anger at crime, cor-
ruption and economic decline. Althoughhe entered office sounding like a strong-
man, he has been hemmed in by congress,
by his advisers and by his own ill-judged
behaviour and that of his family. This bal-
ance of forces has contained some of his
dangerous impulses while allowing better
policies, like pension reform, to get
through. It has also frustrated progress in
areas where voters most expect it.
Mr Bolsonaro’s plans for fighting crime
and corruption are in tatters. Unemploy-
ment is high and economic growth re-
mains sluggish. The president’s approval
rating is an unimpressive 35%. His socially
conservative agenda, which includes loos-
ening guns laws and curbing “socialism” in
schools, has made little progress, even
though he seems to care most about it. In
other areas he has reversed himself: for ex-
ample, he has dropped his earlier hostility
towards China.
The clearest way in which Mr Bolsonaro
has put his stamp on Brazil is negative. On
November 18th the space agency reported
that the pace of deforestation of the Ama-
zon had risen by nearly 30% in August 2018-
July 2019 from the same period a year be-
fore. It reached its highest level since 2008.
He has been a cheerleader for economic de-
velopment in the Amazon and weakened
enforcement of environmental laws.
The splintering of power in Brasília
makes it hard to guess how the remainingBrazil
Paper strongman
SÃO PAULO
Jair Bolsonaro is hemmed in by congress, his advisers and his own misjudgments
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