Lhe question of the future of Jair Bolsonaro, who will remain in office in Brazil until the end of 2022, has arisen since the election of Lula, on October 30, as head of the country. Three scenarios are possible. First, the putsch. The timid signs of conciliation emitted after the election should not hide the fact that the loser did not recognize his defeat, and that when he affirms that he will always respect “the narrow limits of the Constitution”this can also, for him, include the intervention of the armed forces.
After all, the state of siege is in the Constitution and, for Bolsonaro and his clan, there was no military dictatorship in Brazil, but a legal intervention to save the country. Admittedly, the Brazilian electoral system has shown its great superiority over that of the United States thanks to its simplicity and its uniformity throughout the country: no voting by mail, no more or less well-marked multiple-choice ballots, no dozens of voting procedures different from each other… and therefore little room for dispute.
Much was expected in the Bolsonaro clan from the report of the Brazilian armies on the elections, but it did not detect any fraud and the contestation of the result by the president’s party (the Liberal Party) did not really take hold. Demonstrations are still underway outside the barracks demanding that the army take matters into their own hands, and Jair Bolsonaro is stepping up calls in his direction, while his supporters can create riots as they did on December 12 in Brasília.
split landscape
But President Lula having received his “elected diploma” on the same day from the electoral justice system, the scenario of a putsch based on the denunciation of a rigged vote seems unlikely. However, we will not bet that Jair Bolsonaro, affirming that “everything is in the hands of the people”, don’t think about it in the morning while shaving… The second scenario is that of “Trumpisation”. The outgoing president would become an arch-opponent and would prepare his weapons for a return in 2026, all the more within reach as he is younger than President Lula and the latter has promised not to run again.
Many of the far-right president’s former allies hope so, but this outcome is not the easiest, again because of the differences between the Brazilian and American political systems. Donald Trump has a strong power over the Republican Party, which allows him to have immense influence within the framework of the American bipartisanship.
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