Jair Bolsonaro celebrates three years as president, the elections in October keep the country with expectations

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, this January 1 meets three years in power, but 2022 begins worn out and with the October elections on a horizon for which ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is emerging as the favorite.

Brazil will return to the polls on October 2 and the polls unanimously say that the first president that the extreme right has given the country has a voting intention between 20 and 25%, compared to the almost 50% that they come to attribute to the progressive Lula, their greatest antagonist in politics.

The sharp wear suffered by the conservative leader since he won the 2018 elections with 55% of the votes is considered by analysts as a direct result of his staunch denialism in the face of the covid-19 pandemic, which has already killed almost 620,000 Brazilians, and the growing economic difficulties in the country.

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Part of the problems you face

Since the coronavirus arrived in Brazil, in March 2020, the president opposed all kinds of preventive measures, censured the use of masks, minimized the health crisis, made fun of the sick and even today denies vaccines, which he describes as “experimental” and whose effectiveness he puts in doubt.

The relationship between survey support and vaccines seems almost straightforward. About 80% of voters have applied them, compared to 20% who still remains as Bolsonaro himself, who tends to boast of not having been immunized.

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Beyond his denial in the face of covid-19, which he came to call a “little flu,” Bolsonaro begins his fourth year in government with a stagnant economy, which is estimated to have grown by around 4% in 2021, after falling by a similar proportion in 2020, as a consequence of the health crisis.

The projections for 2022 are uncertain, but in the best of cases a insufficient growth of 0.5%, with an inflation rate of around 10%, unemployment close to 12% and some 50 million people, representing just under a quarter of the Brazilian population, in a situation of food insecurity.

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That scenario has awakened misgivings in the private sectors, who in 2018 were deluded with the liberalism proclaimed by Bolsonaro, who finally left those ideas behind and appealed to public money to finance social programs with a clear populist tint pointing to the next elections. (I)