Jair Bolsonaro: Far-right candidate wins Brazil poll

Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro has won a sweeping victory in Brazil’s presidential election.

Mr Bolsonaro won 55.2% of the votes cast against 44.8% for Fernando Haddad from the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), election officials said.

Mr Bolsonaro campaigned on a promise to eradicate corruption and to drive down Brazil’s high crime levels.

The election campaign has been deeply divisive. Each camp argued that victory for the other could destroy Brazil.

What does it mean?

Mr Bolsonaro’s victory constitutes a markedly rightward swing in the largest democracy in Latin America, which was governed by the PT for 13 years between 2003 and 2016.

For the past two years, the country has been led by a conservative, Michel Temer, following the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. But Mr Temer has proven deeply unpopular with Brazilians.

With the outgoing president’s approval rating at a record low of 2%, voters clamoured for change but they were deeply divided on which way that change should go.

Mr Bolsonaro’s 10-percentage-point victory means the vision he laid out to voters of a Brazil where law and order and family values would be made the priority won out.

Who is Bolsonaro and what is he likely to do once in office?

The 63-year-old is a retired army officer and member of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), an anti-establishment group that combines social conservatism and pro-market policies.

Mr Bolsonaro is a deeply polarizing figure whose remarks on a range of issues – including abortion, race, migration and homosexuality – earned him the nickname of “Trump of the Tropics”.

He has the past defended the killing of opponents to the country’s former military regime and said he is “in favour of dictatorship”.

But after the results came in, he told supporters he would be a “defender of democracy” and uphold the constitution.

One of his flagship policies is to restore security by relax gun laws and suggested that “every honest citizens” should be able to own a gun.

He has promised to reduce state intervention in the economy and indicated that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

Mr Bolsonaro’s promise to “cleanse” Brazil of corruption has proved particularly popular in a country that has seen dozens of politicians from the mainstream parties jailed.

He takes over on 1 January 2019.

SOURCE: BBC