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President elect Jair Bolsonaro, is the latest far right leader to be elected to power. Bolsonaro pictured with his wife Michelle. SIPA USA/PA Images

'Tropical Trump': Who is Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro?

Bolsonaro garnered just over 55% in Sunday’s election.

AS IRELAND WAS gripped in re-electing Michael D Higgins, Brazil had its own Presidential election this weekend. 

It saw far right Jair Bolsonaro elected to lead the country, on a margin of 55.13% of the vote.  

Former army captain, turned longtime congressman, Bolsonaro has been nicknamed ‘tropical Trump’ over his controversial remarks about women, gays, blacks and other minority groups. 

Speaking on Monday Bolsonaro said his administration would make tackling the country’s budget-crushing pension system a top priority, doubling down on a campaign promise that made him the choice of the business community despite frequently saying he doesn’t understand the economy.

The tough-talking former army captain cruised to a 10-point victory on Sunday by capitalizing on widespread frustration in Latin America’s largest economy, which has fallen on hard times less than a decade after being a darling of investors among emerging markets.

He once told a lawmaker he opposed that she “wasn’t worth raping”; he has said he would rather see his sons die than come out as gay; and he commented after visiting one black community that they “do nothing — they’re so useless I doubt they can procreate.”

“Only one Donald Trump”

The White House said US President Donald Trump had called Bolsonaro to congratulate him.

“Both expressed a strong commitment to work side-by-side to improve the lives of the people of the United States and Brazil, and as regional leaders, of the Americas,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

Responding to suggestions Brazil has now created its own Trump, Sanders said: 

There’s only one Donald Trump.

Bolsonaro’s victory moved Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, sharply to the right after four consecutive elections in which candidates from the left-leaning Workers’ Party won.

The 63-year-old will take office on January first. 

With reporting by AP and © – AFP, 2018

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    Mute Damocles
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:29 AM

    “women, gays, blacks and other minority groups”

    In what sense are women a minority group?

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    Mute Grotmaster
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:43 AM

    @Damocles: In China and India?

    51
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    Mute Jumperoo
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:11 AM

    @Grotmaster: you might be trying to make a point about how they’re treated there, but they’re hardly a minority. There are very few (if any) countries in the world where there aren’t more women than men.

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    Mute Bilbo Baggins
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:13 AM

    @Grotmaster: Still pretty much 50/50 in both India and China.

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    Mute Grotmaster
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:34 AM
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    Mute Paddington C.
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:54 AM

    @Damocles: I’m honestly not being difficult here. Women are a minority group through underrepresentation in the workforce and in leadership and in their unequal treatment. Bolsonaro has said he wouldn’t hire a woman because they get pregnant. Maybe you’d be happier if they used “marginalised group” instead of minority, but a minority group, just fyi, is defined in this context as “a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination”. This is true of women, and particularly under Bolsanoro.

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    Mute JackDee
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:36 AM

    Well thanks for that marvelous insight into who he is. A few random quotes and a line from the white house. That’s that then.

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    Mute Krystian Brzezowski
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:27 AM

    This absolutely is not giving us any information about his agenda. What was he promising to the people?

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    Mute Damocles
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:32 AM

    @Krystian Brzezowski: stopping violent crime and corruption. Restoring security. The left had apparently become increasingly corrupt.

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    Mute TheHeathen
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:36 AM

    @Damocles: Removing protection of Amazon, removing land rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon, allowing oil and mineral exploration in Amazon, removing gun control.

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    Mute Darren Tully
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:16 AM

    @Damocles: From what I have been told by my friends who are living Brazil, he glorifies the Military dictatorship and wants to change the history books to call it “a Military intervention to ensure stability that lasted from 1964 to 1985″. His parties policies also include the usual bible thumper stuff like teaching children creationism in Science class and passing legislation based on dogma.

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Oct 30th 2018, 12:02 PM

    @Darren Tully: The young weren’t around during the dictatorship. now they will find out when they come looking for them.

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    Mute Darren Tully
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    Oct 30th 2018, 12:34 PM

    @Sean Conway: Despite the forest shrinking, the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood.

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    Mute Daniel Watts
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:11 PM

    @Damocles: wasn’t the system set up by the post-military dictatorship/leadership and corruption an issue across the political spectrum? He states that torture and rape is a good thing. Any reasonable person would have an issue with that.

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:19 AM

    Is this for real or a parody ? Half the article is about the USA and trump ?

    For proper context and analysis of the Brazilian election I recommend the reading of the following :
    https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/29/welcome-to-the-jungle/

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    Mute Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
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    Oct 30th 2018, 6:39 PM

    @DrRexButts: but he doesn’t sound like Trump. He sounds like Duterte and Salvini.

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    Mute Kevin Slater
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:25 AM

    Rainforest finished.

    38
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    Mute Sean Leonard
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:30 AM

    Thats all the world needs now…. Another P r 1 # k in power

    51
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    Mute Quentin Moriarty
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    Oct 30th 2018, 10:38 AM

    @Sean Leonard: military background so is in someone’s control regardless.

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    Mute Rb1kan
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:32 AM

    It’s worrying that right wing politics is popular among electorates. Are people misremembering history somehow?

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    Mute Martin Meyler
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:56 AM

    @Rb1kan: lousy education suits the agenda of the right.

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    Mute gofreak
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    Oct 30th 2018, 11:19 AM

    @Rb1kan: They may not have an education in history to remember. But there’s desperation and fear in Brazil. A lot of poverty and insecurity. Fear of what’s happened in Venezuela. A lot of people are holding their noses with regard to his racism/misogyny/homophobia in the hope of what he might do for the economy and crime – because of course, he promises the sun, moon and stars, and populism appeals to desperate people. Hopefully they have not bitten off more than they can chew.

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    Mute Darren Tully
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:15 AM

    From what I have been told by my friends who are living Brazil, he glorifies the Military dictatorship and wants to change the history books to call it “a Military intervention to ensure stability that lasted from 1964 to 1985″. His parties policies also include the usual bible thumper stuff like teaching children creationism in Science class and passing legislation based on dogma.

    28
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    Mute jacquoranda
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    Oct 30th 2018, 12:18 PM

    “Far-right”. From the same publication who didn’t refer to Hugo Chavez as Far-Left.

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    Mute Ger Murphy
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    Oct 30th 2018, 11:21 AM

    Where was the uproar when Brazil’s communist government put the country into a recession for years

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    Mute Dónal Ó hÍobhair
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    Oct 30th 2018, 11:35 AM

    @Ger Murphy: Brazil never had a communist government – it was centre-left at most. Also one of the main events which triggered a deep recession there was the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, which could be described more akin to a coup d’état…

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    Mute Ger Murphy
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    Oct 30th 2018, 11:48 AM

    @Dónal Ó hÍobhair: workers party centre left at most… Don’t make me laugh

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    Mute Fiasco99
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    Oct 30th 2018, 12:18 PM

    @Ger Murphy: apparently theu are not Far Left on the same way anyone they don’t like is “far right”.

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    Mute Christophe Walter
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    Oct 30th 2018, 6:01 PM

    @Ger Murphy: The globalists are Communists. You do know Wall st financed Communism? That is why heads of state whine about populism and say very little about the far left.

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    Mute Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:09 PM

    @Ger Murphy: not communist. They couldn’t even get to socialism and you call the government communist?

    Workers Party is socialist and not communist.

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    Mute Anthony Gore
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    Oct 30th 2018, 8:40 AM

    He is about to privatize the amazon rainforest just like what trump is doing in the Artic with SAE Exploration while all the circus shit is going on

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    Mute PV Nevin
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:43 AM

    “It will take far more than an election to impose a fascist dictatorship over a country of some 210 million people. Great class battles lie ahead. The decisive question confronting the working class is to assimilate the lessons of the decades of betrayals at the hands of the PT, its affiliated union confederation, the CUT, and the coterie of pseudo-left groups that orbit around them.”

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    Mute Daniel Donovan
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    Oct 30th 2018, 11:07 AM

    A very dangerous men. He is the true definition of far-right. To even equate Donald Trump to this man is a gross misrepresentation of policy, character and politics.

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    Mute Mark McDermott
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    Oct 30th 2018, 10:23 AM

    This is worrying.

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    Mute Martin Meyler
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:54 AM

    Well, that’s Brazil f******.

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    Mute PV Nevin
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    Oct 30th 2018, 9:38 AM

    Far-right candidate Bolsonaro elected as Brazil’s president:

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/29/braz-o29.html

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