60 TIME September 3–10, 2018
With Bolsonaro threatening to greatly
increase the military role in civilian gov-
ernment and radically remake the Su-
preme Court, former Chief Justice Joaquim
Barbosa has warned of a potential military
coup. Is that risk real? “Yes, of course,”
says the center-left Ciro Gomes, a presi-
dential rival. “We are in Latin America.”THE BLOODY, U.S.-BACKED dictator-
ships that lourished across Latin Amer-
ica in the late 20th century have faded
into history. Until Venezuela’s recent
slide toward autocracy, all the coun-
tries bordering Brazil were clearly—if
imperfectly—democratic.
But when Jair Bolsonaro was a young
man, Brazil was governed by a military
dictatorship, which overthrew the elected
left-wing government of João Goulart in- Bolsonaro served as an army captain
under a regime whose 21 years in power
were marked by human-rights abuses and
suppression of freedom of speech.
Brazil began the process of returning
to a civilian government in 1985, but
against the backdrop of economic
contraction and soaring inlation. After
Bolsonaro was elected to Congress in
1991, he called for the return of military
rule. In 1999, he followed up by calling
for a “civil war” in Brazil that would
kill “about 30,000,” starting with then
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
He also pledged to close down Congress
if elected President. “There would be a
coup the same day,” he said.
Asked about those statements now,
Bolsonaro says he has moved on. “People
evolve. I am not a troglodyte,” he says.
“It’s been a long time since I touched the
subject.”
In the early years of the 21st century,
Brazil began to beneit from democratic
rule. Under the eight-year presidency
of Lula—once dubbed the world’s most
popular politician by President Obama—
the economy boomed and millions were
lifted out of poverty. But the country began
to fall apart soon after the re-election of
Lula’s chosen successor, Dilma Roussef,
to a second term in 2014. Operation Car
Wash, a federal investigation into the
state-controlled conglomerate Petrobras,
grew into possibly the world’s largest
corruption probe and exposed billions
of dollars in breathtaking graft, igniting
public anger. Scores of politicians,
a strongman outsider, rallying against
corruption, violence and the media.
Newspapers have nicknamed him the
Trump of the Tropics for his perceived
similarities to the populist U.S. President.
Like Donald Trump, he has struggled to
ind a running mate, with his irst three
choices turning him down. He also
intends to withdraw Brazil from the Paris
Agreement and weaken environmental
regulations. His plans on tax, trade and
debureaucratization might as well have
been copied from Trump. In an interview
with TIME in his Brasília oice, the
63-year-old welcomes the comparison.
“I’m not richer than him. That’s all I do
not admire,” he says.
Trump may be politically incorrect,
but Bolsonaro goes way, way further. In
this interview alone, he advocated the
possibility of unbridled state violence;
equated homosexuality with pedophilia;
and defended Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet, whose henchmen raped
women with dogs, as well as Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte, who has
boasted of personally killing criminal
suspects.
He has a long history of invective
against gays, racial minorities and women.
In 2014, he told a Congresswoman, “I
wouldn’t rape you because you do not
deserve it.” Yet after spending decades
in the political wilderness, the candidate
for the right-wing Social Liberal Party
is now being courted as a serious player
in Brasília, and is feted by crowds of
thousands on the road.
The pollsters’ front runner in Brazil’s
election, former President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva, launched his campaign
from a prison cell, where he is serving
a 12-year sentence for corruption and
money laundering. He is highly unlikely
to be allowed to run. Bolsonaro is in
second place. In an election where 1 in 5
voters said they would spoil their ballots,
that makes him a more-than plausible
contender.
“It is one thing for the U.S. to have
a pariah President, but it would be
another thing for Brazil,” says Anthony
Pereira, director of the Brazil Institute at
King’s College London. The costs to its
economy and world standing would be
signiicant, he adds. “This is probably one
of the biggest tests Brazil’s democracy has
faced.”
oicials and businessmen were caught
up in allegations of bribery involving cash
payouts, sports cars, private jets and high-
class prostitutes.
The efects of that corruption, com-
bined with Brazil’s worst-ever recession,
crippled many public services. In Rio de
Janeiro, where Bolsonaro is the most pop-
ular of 46 federal deputies, police had no
fuel for patrol cars, hospitals lacked basic
medication and street crime soared. Pub-
lic anger was enough to sweep Roussef
to impeachment in 2016 on the suspicion
that she must have been complicit.
Her successor, Michel Temer, reined
in the police pursuing Car Wash while
twice dodging a corruption trial himself.
His approval rating stands at 4%. Lula,
meanwhile, was jailed in April after a
prolonged televised standof. He says his
prosecution is intended to stop him from
becoming President.World
DANIEL MARENCO FOR TIME