Opinion: Bolsonaro’s Post-Modern Politics

Opinion, by Michael Royster

São Paulo, Brazil – President Jair Bolsonaro has made it clear—he is NOT going to go back to the “old politics,” commonly dubbed “toma lá dá cá,” meaning “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”  The phrase encapsulates the modus operandi of Brazil’s government since the 1988 Constitution: it is one of the pillars of “coalition presidentialism.”

Briefly, coalition presidentialism is a form of governmental system found in countries like Brazil, where there are too many political parties represented in Congress, with none of the parties having control over the legislative agenda. In order to enact legislative proposals, a president must assemble a stable majority coalition of many parties.

After the “Mensalão” scandal and the Lava-Jato investigations, the illegal methods of forming coalitions are well known in Brazil; they need no further explication here.

Legal methods do exist, however, and are common to legislatures worldwide – logrolling, earmarks, pork barrel etc. All have in common members of Congress seeking support for proposals that benefit their constituencies, by volunteering support for other legislators’ proposals. What these measures also have in common is that they ignore political parties.

In any legislature, members of Congress and political parties legitimately want a voice in three areas: (1) office; (2) votes; and (3) policy. It is a perfectly salutary practice for presidents to involve congressional and party members in obtaining public offices, help in re-election, and a say in public policy. Members of Congress are democratically-elected representatives of the people, just as are presidents.

The problem with Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, and most of his presidential actions, is that he has rejected these three methods of congressional involvement. He reduced the number of ministries and appointed no congressional leaders to his cabinet; rather, he has chosen rank outsiders, including numerous military personnel and even radical right ideologues.

As commentators have pointed out, this is similar to what former President Fernando Collor de Melo tried to do, and it led to his impeachment. Former President Lula later used the “mensalão” to buy individual Congressional votes for socially progressive policies unpopular with conservative legislators; that led to criminal charges.

In certain policy areas – agribusiness, crime, and perhaps education – Bolsonaro can count on substantial public and congressional support. In other areas – social security reform and privatization of state-owned companies – his proposals are highly controversial.

One must ask: “What arrows does Bolsonaro have left in his quiver for his bid to enact controversial policies, if he rejects all of the ‘old politics’ as tainted by corruption?”  Single-issue ideologues in Congress are notoriously precarious supporters – just because you believe in harsher criminal penalties it does not mean you also believe in reforming social security or selling off the Banco do Brasil.

Columnist Vitor Oliveira, writing in the Estadão last October, opined that the Bolsonaro administration was likely to fail. “It is difficult to believe that, given Brazil’s institutional structure, it is possible to govern without sharing government with the people’s elected representatives.” To do so, Bolsonaro would have to do away with coalition presidentialism – but as pointed out above, prior attempts to do so came to very bad ends.

The Curmudgeon, for this and other reasons he will address in future columns, agrees that the prospects for Bolsonaro’s administration are decidedly unfavorable.