Bolsonaro expands Auxilio Brasil social assistance program ahead of elections and will make transfers every three days

Jair Bolsonaro (PL, right) prepares for the second round of elections by focusing on expanding the main state’s social benefits.

Transfers from Plan Auxilio Brasil (Brazil aid) are brought forward, and a R$1 billion (US$190 million) credit program for women entrepreneurs is launched.

Jair Bolsonaro’s government will push for the expansion of social assistance in Brazil, using funds from the Federal Economic Fund, one of the most important financial institutions in state hands and dependent on the Ministry of Finance.

Budgets of up to R$1 billion have been earmarked for this program, and the services will be provided before the second round elections on Oct. 30.

Only on Oct. 3, after the results of the first election, Bolsonaro announced that the transfers foreseen under the Auxilio Brasil program, amounting to R$1.8 billion, would be received before the second round of elections.

A total of 700,000 people will receive social benefits through this extension.

In the remaining 12 days until the elections, a total of five transfers will be made, meaning that social assistance will be delivered approximately every three days.

This is intended to counter the myth that Bolsonaro “doesn’t think about the poor,” even though he has lifted 10 million people out of poverty with liberal economic measures during his four years in office.

This narrative of the PT (left), and Lula da Silva has resonated strongly in society.

The Oct. 2 election results clearly showed this, when the far-left candidate was more than 5 percentage points ahead of the president, with a message aimed at restoring the welfare state and clientelism that Bolsonaro destroyed.

Bolsonaro is counting on reaching the threshold of people most opposed to his electoral program, as an estimated 60% of the people receiving the Auxilio Brasil program were Lula da Silva voters in the first round, mostly based in the Northeast region.

Government assistance is focused primarily on social program recipients, among the country’s most vulnerable populations, especially women, who receive up to 80% of Auxilio Brasil transfers.

The reinforcement of the program launched by Bolsonaro himself in 2020 aims to establish an association between social assistance and the current government, thus banishing the specter of the “Bolsa Familia” program launched by da Silva in 2003.

The second pillar of Bolsonaro’s campaign is Brazil’s rapidly improving economic situation.

The monthly GDP proxy has accelerated sharply since February, inflation has been completely eliminated since July, and the unemployment rate has reached its lowest level since mid-2015.

These results constitute the main political capital for the administration, however large the pandemic.

At the same time, the Bolsonaro administration’s results contrast with the last major non-pandemic recession Brazil suffered between 2015 and 2016 under the last PT government led by former President Dilma Rousseff.