What does someone do who has not learned much or money in Brazil?
Jair Bolsonaro went into the military, looking for gold - and into politics.
The fact that the latter can be lucrative is shown by the numerous cases of corruption, which from a German point of view take your breath away.
Corruption is not a specifically Brazilian phenomenon, it is an evil that runs through many countries in South and Central America.
This has serious consequences.
In Latin America there is a dangerous perception that a military is less corrupt than a politician.
Most recently in Brazil it was Bolsonaro, a former captain, who benefited from this way of thinking.
A man who, to use the words of the journalist Andreas Nöthen, acts like a “bulldozer”.
Tim Niendorf
Political Editor.
Follow I follow
Nöthen, who lived in Brazil with his family from 2016 to 2019 and now works as a press spokesman, writes in his biography of the Brazilian president how a simple citizen made it to the top of the largest state in South America and what breeding ground the politics gave him for this unbelievable state Promotion offered. If you didn't know that the descriptions are based on real events - you would be tempted to dismiss them as an absurd story. And there is no avoiding the fact that the “country of the future”, as the writer Stefan Zweig called Brazil, chose the past to a certain extent in 2018. Because what Bolsonaro openly longs for is the military dictatorship, which ended 35 years ago.
This is also catching on because Brazil’s democracy was weakened by corruption from the start. It was not until 2013 that parliament passed an anti-corruption law. Until then, Nöthen explains, it was a criminal offense to accept bribes; however, whoever offered what was usually left unmolested. Against this background, another bizarre seems equally less surprising: In Brazil, writes the author, around every third member of the parliament changes party during a legislative period. In “Bulldozer Bolsonaro - How a Populist Ruins Brazil” we also learn that the current president belonged to no fewer than eight parties before he took office. Incidentally, there are currently 24 parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies, there is no percentage hurdle.
That alone shows how complex the political situation is. But if you want to understand how political institutions can gamble away the trust of the population, you should read this book. Sometimes the abundance of names mentioned in the book may be confusing. But it is precisely Nöthen's strength that he does not turn his gaze one-sidedly on Bolsonaro, but keeps making small digressions into Brazilian history and explains how the right-wing populist managed to go from a misunderstood backbencher to the most powerful man in his country. Because his ascent was not only facilitated by the social networks and the solidarity with the evangelicals. He was also made possible by the PT Workers' Party, which fell through the largest corruption scandal in Brazil, the Lava Jato - and thus through its own anti-corruption law.
Despite Corona on top
More than 150 former ministers, MPs, senators and governors were arrested.
Among them (in the meantime) the former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula for short.
Just imagine what would be going on in this country if something similar happened in Germany.
Nöthen compares the situation with Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi led the crisis of established parties to success in the nineties.
In Brazil it was Jair Messias (the Promised) Bolsonaro.
He grew up in the state of São Paulo. The family moved several times, and his father, a self-proclaimed dentist without training, was always looking for work. Not too much is known about the President's childhood and youth; much is based on anecdotes that one of his sons wrote down in a biography 20 years ago. But that is entangled in contradictions, as Nöthen plausibly explains.
Bolsonaro began his military career at the AMAN officers' school. Later he tried to supplement his salary as a gold prospector while on vacation. His superiors didn't like that, but he was promoted to captain anyway. He was considered a disciplined military man until the mid-1980s, but then he turned to the press - and suddenly became known. In a news magazine, he denounced the soldiers' miserable salaries and was imprisoned for 15 days. When the same magazine linked him to bombing plans soon afterwards, he was discharged from service. He was to be acquitted of the allegations for lack of evidence.
Bolsonaro went into politics, became a councilor in Rio de Janeiro and soon afterwards a member of Congress for nearly three decades. Before the 2018 presidential election, the backbencher saw his hour come and looked for a new party that put him as the top candidate. Although it took several attempts, he finally found what he was looking for. He joined the right wing Partido Social Liberal. With Bolsonaro, who at that time already enjoyed good polling ratings, the party could hope for more seats. And the ruling PT Workers' Party? She held on to former President Lula for too long, although he was not allowed to run because he was convicted of corruption.
In the meantime, Bolsonaro has gathered his sons in the center of power.
More than a year and a half after he took office, deforestation in the rainforest is accelerating, the coronavirus is raging.
For a moment, the president's popularity ratings fell.
But as the author Nöthen so beautifully remembers: those who have been told dead live longer.
Recently, his approval ratings rose again.
Andreas Nöthen: Bolsonaro bulldozer.
How a populist ruined Brazil.
Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2020. 240 pp., 18, -.