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Brazil Elects Far-Right Candidate Jair Bolsonaro President

HeadlineOct 29, 2018

In Brazil, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won a sweeping victory in a presidential runoff election on Sunday, marking the most radical political shift in the country since military rule ended more than 30 years ago. Bolsonaro defeated rival Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers’ Party by a margin of 55 to 45 percent. Bolsonaro is a former Army officer with a history of making racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments. He has praised Brazil’s former military dictatorship, spoken in favor of torture and threatened to destroy, imprison or banish his political opponents. Bolsonaro has also encouraged the police to kill suspected drug dealers, and once told a female lawmaker she was too ugly to rape.

Environmentalists warn Bolsonaro will speed catastrophic climate change by opening up vast swaths of the Amazon to agribusiness giants who will replace rainforest with fields of soybeans, corn and sugarcane. Bolsonaro’s election was met with dismay by thousands of protesters, who poured into the streets of São Paulo and other cities—and were met by riot police—after the results were announced.

Protester: “I am in mourning, not for me, but for Brazil, which doesn’t deserve this. It doesn’t deserve this ignorance. The Brazilian people are ignorant. Brazil owes a lot to former President Lula.”

Later in the broadcast, we’ll go to Rio de Janeiro to speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald about the rise of Jair Bolsonaro and what he means for democracy in Brazil.

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