South America has seen a wave of right wing Presidential candidates wining elections in recent years. From Javier Millei in Argentina to Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and Jose Antonio Kast in Chile, the region has turned sharply to the right.
This past month, Brazil held its Presidential election in the latest test of the right in the region. Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the nation’s previous right wing President, Jair Bolsonaro, won the first round of voting but fell short of the 50% required to win. Then something rather unexpected happened. Incumbent President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva rallied and won in the second round. He has been elected to his fourth term as President.
Brazil is the largest nation in South America. It is the largest economy in the region and the 11th largest in the world. Additionally, it is home to the vast majority of the Amazon rainforest. Therefore, the impact of Lula’s surprise victory is quite significant. On today’s show we will discuss the election and consider what Lula’s victory means for the future of Brazilian politics. [ dur: 58mins. ]
- Dr Mariana Borges is Lecturer in Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. She is author of Political clientelism in democracies and co-author of Weapons of clients: why do voters support bad patrons? Ethnographic evidence from rural Brazil.
- Fernando Bizarro is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Boston College as well as Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University’s Jackson School of International Affairs. He is the co-author of Free public transit and voter turnout and The Fates Of Third-Wave Democracies.
- Erica Resende is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at the Brazilian National War College in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the co-author of The Role of Military Thinking in Bolsonaro’s Populist Foreign Policy. She is also co-editor Defending Memory in Global Politics: Mnemonical insecurity and Crisis, along with Dovile Budrtye and Doug Becker.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.
Politics and Activism, Elections, Governance / Law, Presidential, Brazil
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