Guns, God and fake news dominate Brazil’s presidential race
The race to become Brazil’s first female president is in full swing. However, an examination of the candidates’ platforms, as well as the main campaign issues, suggest that electoral politics is about much more than sex, guns and fake news.
By Katherine Dunn
Published Jul 12, 2019
On July 13, the country will elect Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency of Brazil.
While the right to vote is not guaranteed to all, citizens have the right to vote for the candidate of their choice and this has been the case since 1932. According to a constitution adopted in 2013, “the citizens of Brazil have the right to elect their representatives in the Federal Senate.”
One of the candidates running for the presidency on the right-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT (Labor Party), the current president of the Senate João Doria, is himself a former president: he was first elected in 1988 and re-elected in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018.
Doria’s candidacy in the 2019 election is supported, in part, by the PT. The party claims that, based on his previous record in national politics, he would be the best candidate to deliver Brazil to a more conservative government and has made it clear that Doria is the “definitive candidate for the PT.”
In fact, the PT has nominated him as its presidential candidate on its website and, following his nomination in early August, he has begun campaigning via social media.
Bolsonaro’s candidacy is supported by other right-wing parties, including the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), which has pledged to support him if he wins the election and the Brazilian Conservative Party (PCdoB), which has also pledged to support him if he wins.
Although his opponents claim that he is not a socialist, Bolsonaro’s social policy is based on socialist principles, including the eradication of poverty (it is not clear whether he has ever had the slightest intention of eradicating poverty, or if he is, in fact, a socialist):
Brazil has seen a decline in its population since 1985. After all, the Brazilian economy
