The Global Story: Bolsonaro: Is it all over for the 'Trump of the Tropics'?
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What is the premise of 'Bolsonaro: Is it all over for the Trump of the Tropics'?
Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Oliver Conway with your weekly bonus from The Global Story, which brings you a single story with depth and insight from the BBC's best journalists. There's a new episode every weekday, just search for The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Here's my colleague, Johnny Diamond.
He inspires passion and loathing in equal measure. He rose to the presidency as an outsider, dominating social media and railing against progressive elites. And when he lost power in the election, he refused to concede. Instead, his supporters stormed the Capitol, falsely claiming the election had been stolen. But he is not Donald Trump. He is Jair Bolsonaro, until 2022, the President of Brazil. The similarities led to the nickname Trump of the Tropics. The relationship between the two men is so strong that Bolsonaro was invited to Trump's inauguration. He said he was so excited that he'd stop taking Viagra. So, with Trump back in office, is Bolsonaro on his way back? His supporters, and he has lots, would love that.
But he's been barred from running for election by the courts, and now he's been accused of planning a coup. Is this the end for Jair Bolsonaro? With me today is the BBC South America correspondent, Ione Wells. She's in Sao Paulo. Hi, Ione. Hi, Jonny. Jair Bolsonaro is a curiosity because he has a very high name recognition for the president or the former president of a South American nation. People know who he is in a way that they don't know the names of other former presidents. How is it that he made his name in Brazilian politics?
In Brazilian politics, he rose up before he was elected, he was in the army, he was in Congress, and then eventually, of course, won Brazil's presidency in 2018.
President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro.
I think one of the reasons, though, he became very well known across the world was really the platform and the rhetoric that he stood on. He campaigned on a platform of very socially conservative populist policies at a time when that was a bit of a zeitgeist around the world and other parts of the world to aimed at voters generally quite frustrated with crime, with corruption, with the economy not being very good. I think there's a kind of familiar nostalgia that he appealed to that we've seen with other populist figures as well. This sort of idea of a better time in the past. There had been four elections that had been won by the left in Brazil before. And I think there was a sense of people kind of wanting change, basically. In terms of sort of things that he talks about on social media, in his speeches, he often attacked political correctness. He was accused at times of
saying sort of homophobic remarks, praising the country's former dictatorship, some of his comments about women, for example, sparking controversy online. One really interesting thing, actually, as well, which really shone an international spotlight on him, and I think is interesting to remind people of now, he was stabbed.
Well, that's right.
during his campaign rally in 2018, which really mobilised his supporters and gained him this increased media attention. And it's interesting because, of course, not dissimilar to how that assassination attempt on Donald Trump in the last US election campaign did a similar thing and really mobilised his base as well and sort of suddenly got the international media talking about it for days and days and days.
You draw the parallel with Donald Trump with those assassination attempts, but there are political parallels and parallels between the sort of electoral machines that they ran as well, aren't there?
Definitely. I think in terms of policies, they're quite similar, both socially conservative, appealing to their base on so-called anti-woke issues, anti-net zero, anti-environmental protections. They want a sort of low tax society pledged to be tough on crime. On his rhetoric too, again, quite a lot of parallels with Donald Trump. He's very outspoken, particularly on social media.
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